Dillon 550c auto rotate kit?

[Stats Shooter]

The Dillon 550 is really a magnificent machine for its tight tolerances, ease of setup, durability, and simplicity.

Like I said, it all depends upon your needs, but the 550 is more than enough press for most avid shooters. When I first got my Dillon presses I was also skeptical of quality control. I had planned on just making 223 & 40 s&w on the 650. Then making only plinking AR-10, 44 mag, 45-70, 45acp, and 45 long COLT on the 550.

I was going to make my LR match AR-10 ammo and Varmint AR -15 ammo on my single stage presses along with hunting and F-class ammo. Turns out I was able to seat bullets and throw powder as accurately on the Dillon 550 as I could for my target/varmint AR loads on my rock chuckers and uniflow. I just got a conversion kit last week for my 10mm for the 550.

Now, the only things I load on single stage presses are my .300 win mag loads, .270 win, 6mm Ackley, and 30-06.

Keys to getting a 550 to maintain tolerances nearly as tight as a single stage include
1: Good dies....should go without saying but...
2: Selecting a powder that meters decently. Varget is about as long of powder as I throw, though 4064 doesn't seem to be sensitive to weight variation
3: get the shell plate sprocket bearing kit from level 10 innovations. It's $30 but allows you to keep the shell plate tight yet moving freely
4: polish the drop tube funnel with lapping compound or polish paste.....and spray the inside with scotch guard to avoid static electricity causing little ball powder grains from sticking
5: set the bullet seating die up with a case in the sizing station at the same time to ensure you are adjusting it for how it will be when you are actually loading.

And finally, do your load development on the Dillon. This way you don't have to try and recreate everything in the Dillon tool head you just did on a single stage. I throw my load development loads if I'm going to throw my loads I'm making. Why? Because I want to find out how well thrown loads group and meter before cranking out a couple thousand rounds.


Doing these simple things has ensured quality didn't fall with volume.

[jmorris]

3: get the shell plate sprocket bearing kit from level 10 innovations. It's $30 but allows you to keep the shell plate tight yet moving freely

This one doesn’t matter on the 550 vs the others. On the others the case sits “in” the shell plate (as in, the base of the case is in contact with the shell plate), with the 550 the cases sit on the ram platform, so how level the shell plate has no bearing on how the cases enter the dies.

[Master Blaster]

I have one it's called my left thumb, I put a bullet on the case in station three after my left thumb rotates the shell plate.

[Nick_C_S]

I have one it's called my left thumb

Heh. Yeah, my left thumb and my 550 prepped about 600 pcs of 38 Special brass this afternoon. Took just a bit over an hour - not counting a short break in between. My 550 goes as fast as I'll ever need.

(By "prepped," I mean decap/resize, flair. I prep brass and load ammo in separate steps - with a ss pin tumble in between.)

[drain smith]

My left thumb is helping hold my cup of coffee.

[Roland Thunder]

the 550c would do just fine for my needs if it wasn’t a manual

As others have noted, don't get put off by the manual indexing, you won't even think about it after a while. You can still crank out a lot of ammo pretty quickly on a 550b/c

If I could only have one press...it would, hands down, be the Dillon 650 with a case feeder !

If I want to buy a 2nd press for a weekend home --- I would buy another Dillon 650 with a case feeder.

I'm just the opposite. I have a 550b and recently bought a 650 with a case feeder. If I could only keep one press, it would be the 550b, it's a more versatile press. You have more individual control on the 550 if you need to re-seat a bullet, re-crimp, fix other problems and of course, changing calibers is a lot bigger pita on the 650. While the 550 won't load as many rounds per hour as the 650, it's still capable of around 400 rounds per hr while the 650 will do 600-700 per hour. So, if you don't need the more than 400 per hour, I would get the 550c. When I was buying my 1st Dillon press, I too, was hung up on the manual indexing. I spoke to Brian Enos personally, who was a Dillon dealer at the time and asked for his input. He told me he thought the 550b (no c at the time) was the best all around Dillon machine and suggested that one. Five years later, I bought a 650 because I had some money burning a hole in my pocket. I like the 650 quite well, but, as I said previously, if I could have only one press, it would be the 550, plenty of ammo for my needs.