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Old March 12, 2018, 12:33 AM   #51
Sure Shot Mc Gee
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Never buy a progressive press just to supplement another's fun & giggles shooting.
You know the old adages: "Buy a rifle you can afford to shoot. Because cartridges do not grow on backyard tree's."
We all like to spoil our Grand kids. But sometimes there needs to be a limit set. ~~Unless your a millionaire then by all means spoil'em to your hearts content.
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Old March 12, 2018, 02:07 AM   #52
youngridge
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You aren’t by any chance looking for any adoptive grandchildren are you?

Jk good luck in finding a press.


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Old March 12, 2018, 08:45 AM   #53
nukeandjuke
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drain smith View Post
I wish I could afford a Dillon..... Wait I can but I chose a press that makes their own bullet feeder and other accessories and does not rely on another company to make their press complete.





I am not worthy...all hail drain smith


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Old March 12, 2018, 08:53 AM   #54
nukeandjuke
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Idk...I’m not a stalker. I have a LNL and a 650. They are equals in my opinion. LNL bullet feeders want to work with Hornady pistol bullets. They also don’t work with lead bullets. Dillon has benefits but they also have their faults. Equals in my mind


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Old March 12, 2018, 11:11 AM   #55
jmorris
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I still have two of the Hornady/pacific 366 presses, They are not stock either though, everything from anyone can be improved.
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Old March 12, 2018, 12:59 PM   #56
JeepHammer
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I had a LNL on the bench when I got the Dillon XL650.
The Dillon was a slow start, took me a week or so to catch up with the way Dillon did things after spending more than a year on the LNL, and I was skeptical of Dillon.
The Dillon was a gift, and I wasn't intending to head that direction...

After getting the Dillon timed & tuned, the Dillon was a lot less problems over time.
The rate depended entirely on how lazy I was that day, but when I got ambition, the Dillon just flat out ran the LNL, the LNL has more glitches the faster you run it...

After a few months, I found a deal on a Super 1050, and an offer on the LNL, the LNL was gone and I had to learn ANOTHER press, and tool up for another press...
The 1050 is three times the price of a 650, and tooling will make parts of you pucker when you see the bill, but it just flat blows the doors off LNL/650.

It takes a CRAP LOAD of production to make a progressive with 'Extras' pay off!
$250 for case feeder, $500 for bullet feeder, $500-$750 for basic press ready to run,
That's not even getting into extra caliber changes, tool heads, dies, powder throwers, etc.
And let's not forget bench/bench space, storage, lighting etc.
That's also assuming you have basic loading equipment, scales, manual press to take down culls, measuring equipment, etc.

Last edited by JeepHammer; March 12, 2018 at 01:14 PM.
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Old March 12, 2018, 01:10 PM   #57
Jim Watson
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A friend has a Hornady progressive and likes it, but he has installed about every upgrade and applied most of the Internet Tweaks. He feels he could have been doing good loading sooner with a Dillon.

I have a 550 and a 1050, stepping up from SDB and bypassing 650.

I am frequently amazed at the number of people who buy a progressive and then do so much work off line, defeating the "one pull, one round" principle. But I guess if you want clean primer pockets in your blasting ammo, you have to do the work.
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Old March 12, 2018, 01:24 PM   #58
JeepHammer
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Jim, running cases through the press TWICE, once to process, once to load, often produces superior ammo...
The amount of processing depends on you! Blasting ammo or match (or better) ammo is entirely up to you.

Uniforming/deburring flash holes is possible when you aren't trying to do everything on the first pass through the press, same with trimming after sizing, etc.
You simply change tool heads and load the case feeder a second time, and you produce a much better product...

Keep in mind, that during processing, some of us don't pull the handle.
We fill the feeder and turn on the drive for the press.
Loading live rounds with a motor requires the government getting involved, so I manually load...

Depends on what you want on the other end of the process... Entirely up to you!
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Old March 12, 2018, 02:11 PM   #59
Jim Watson
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I load match rifle ammo on the good old Rockchucker.
I single stage pistol ammo for critical chronograph and rest testing.
I have not yet found a use for short circuiting the progressive, although I know it is done for some applications.
The Blue Press once had a piece on the rifle team that loaded XC ammo in two passes on Dillons.
There was a brag piece about the Palma team that loaded ammo on Dillons. I found a detailed article that gave The Rest of the Story. They used a $3000 electromechanical powder dispenser and they flat wore out two Dillons, with the last ammo produced on shaky machines not nearly as accurate as the early stuff.
I know a Dillon fan who says "Mike Dillon's son loads benchrest ammo on a Dillon." Didn't say he loaded WINNING ammo on a progressive.
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Old March 12, 2018, 04:06 PM   #60
JeepHammer
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1050 doesn't have a lifetime warranty, so when the 1050 got worn, I put a zero lash pin press bearing in it. One of my 650s got a bronze bushing with lubrication grooves, not enough frame for a press bearing.
Greatly extends the life of the presses.
The 1050 has about a million rounds and still VERY tight.
It's the difference between consumer grade & industral grade.

I know why Dillon doesn't use roller press bearings, they intended their machines to be hand powered, I drive them faster & longer than Dillon ever intended.
I've actually reproduced a heavier version of the 1050 frame so I can use even better bearings, just haven't had the time to complete it, but I'm hoping to complete that now things in the shop have slowed down a little...
Dillon has to deal with cost/benefit and not so educated users/abusers, and I get that...
Not every friction surface needs to have roller bearings when hand operated a 1,000 rounds a month, when you do 1,500 cases an hour, all day long every day, it's a different story...

Dillon does a very good job, a good balance between 'China' parts, quality American parts, application vs cost. The design works, the parts fit, the machine holds adjustment simply because friction/wear is kept to a minimum...
I can't even imagine how much a 650 would cost if the plastic parts were machined steel and hardened against wear, roller bearings were installed at friction points, etc.
It's basically a weekend reloader machine that's just not going to be used in seriously high volume work, so what they use saves a crap load of time & money, and with the 650 replacement parts are free and Dillon doesn't crank about living up to the warranty...

My bench rifle ammo is still cranked out on a single, iron frame press.
My match ammo is cranked out on my rebuilt 1050. I have no complaints.
My brass for the match shooter is cranked out on a rebuilt 1050, and they do win matches.
I don't load them, but I do beat the cases back into shape so they have a top notch product to start with.
Every match shooter has their favorite load, so cranking out loaded ammo is pointless (the money is in the brass anyway, no small repop shop has a chance to compete with commercial manufacturers.

As for 'Electro-Mechanical', yup, count me in.
Nothing like taking human error and having everything double checked, and very much volume at all and the QC inspection will eat up as much time as the actual processing & loading.
Don't forget, match shooters are the most demanding customers you will ever have.
Bench rifle shooters don't buy enough reconditioned brass to talk about, but match shooters are ALWAYS practicing or competing, so they go through brass like crazy, and they aren't snobs, if once (or more) fired brass can be made to run with factory ammo, they will jump on the cost savings/availability.

It's up to you what you do, most home loaders don't roll cases, they don't anneal in volume, they don't uniform & deburr flash holes, etc. Just cranking rounds directly out of a progressive is going to give them a more consistent case/load than they/their firearms have the ability to detect the difference.
Not so with match shooters... So if you can crank out match quality rounds, no reason to shoot for plinking quality rounds, take advantage of the accuracy the machine provides.
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Old March 13, 2018, 05:06 PM   #61
drain smith
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nukeandjuke: I am going to agree with you 100% on the Hornady bullet feeder not being able to load lead bullets. Now, I have heard of some folks that have been able to do this. I have tried but the most I have been able to load in a row is 26. This is not acceptable to me, so I will load jacketed.

Now, you say that the LNL and the 650 are equals in your opinion. I respect your opinion, but I would like to know if you feel that with just the press, no case feeder and no bullet feeder. If they are equal. Or are you talking about both with the case feeder? And what happens when you add a bullet feeder to the Hornady?

The reason I ask this is because last Labor Day we had a Dillon vs Hornady comparison. I set up both a Dillon and an LNL and had two reloaders that neither one ran on a Dillon or a Hornady act as the handle jerks.
Both like the Hornady as the stand-alone press. One liked the Hornady with just the case feeder and the other one liked the Dillon. The one that liked the Dillon was because "it just felt better" and the primer alarm. But once I added the Bullet feeder and the Deluxe control panel to the Hornady they both liked the Hornady. The only add-on for the Dillon was the powder alarm.
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Old March 14, 2018, 08:13 PM   #62
jmorris
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Quote:
Now, you say that the LNL and the 650 are equals in your opinion. I respect your opinion, but I would like to know if you feel that with just the press, no case feeder and no bullet feeder. If they are equal. Or are you talking about both with the case feeder?
I say they are not equal. The Dillon 650 can’t be bought without the device setup from the factory that has a tube full of cases and with each stroke of the handle takes a case from the tube and inserts it into the shell plate. Most of us would call this a case feeder but they choose not to.

Instead they call their collator a “case feeder”, when it’s really a case feed, feeder.

This is one reason the 650 costs more than the LNL but the LNL “case feeder” costs more the Dillon collator. Because the LNL case feeder is not only the collator but all the other bits and pieces to take the collated cases from the tube and place them into the shell plate.

How well the case feed works on an LNL is due in large part to how well the owner installs and tweaks all of these parts. On the Dillon all the guy or gal has to do is drop it on the post, plug it in and turn it on as the complicated part of “case feed” is already complete.

Last edited by jmorris; March 14, 2018 at 08:18 PM.
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