quote:

Originally posted by rcamuglia:
I'm hoping someone can explain this to me.

I have always loaded rifle ammo on a single stage press. There are operations that need to be performed on brass during the reloading process, such as brushing out primer pockets before you re-prime; I can't see how a progressive press lets you do this. I guess some guys don't clean out the primer pocket?

I think that it's been shown that cleaning out the primer pockets at each firing probably has the least effect on accuracy of any of the operations that we do when we load.

I think that Jeffeosso has it about right, with a 1/4MOA rifle you probably want to load them single stage and do full case prep on each round. But do you really need this for all the ammo you shoot? I think you can load 1/2 MOA ammo pretty well on a Dillon.
I did a test where I did full case prep on Lapua match brass, weighed charges etc. and then loaded once fired RP brass with no case prep on the Dillon 650. It was real hard to find a lot of accuracy difference between the two!

What I've ended up doing with a large lot of once fired brass is that I tumble it to clean it and then run it through the 650 with the case trimmer on it, this is by FAR the fastest way to trim cases I've ever tried! I then retumbled them to clean off the lube and deburred, chamfered, flashholed and leveled primer pockets. Then I can run them back through the loaded or single-stage load them, either way it was MUCH faster to size and trim them using the case feeder.

I still use Single-stage presses for a lot of loading in different calibers but the 1/2 dozen or so setups I have for the Dillon are getting more and more use, if you shoot a lot they really are nice.


And to the earlier poster, I sure wish that I was a $500,000 a year guy!
I realize that a Dillon 650 is going to be beyond the means of many shooters, it was certainly beyond my means for the first 25years or so I reloaded! You can reload anything you need to with a good single-stage press. The progressives are major times savers and convenient but they aren't absolutely necessary. I still think it's better in most cases to wait and buy better quality stuff. In the long run better stuff ends up being cheaper if you have to replace the cheaper equipment when it wears out. But of course not everyone is going to use stuff enough to wear it out so maybe a light duty user can get buy with cheaper stuff, me I'll wear it out.
But again don't feel bad at all if you can't afford an expensive loading setup starting out, I loaded for a lot of years before I got a progressive that worked...........................................DJ

I started with a dillon rl450 and up graded to a rl550b about 20+ years later.I load rifle & pistol it's fast enough for me:38spec,357mag,454casull,45colt,45acp,41mag,sw460mag,243,30-06,300wm,45-70.

If any of their models could be considered their flagship model, the 550B would be it.

Can anyone compare the older Hornady progressive to the newer LnL press?

I've been loading on an older Hornady progressive and have to say with the floating shellplate design, it might as well be a manual indexing machine.

It has to be recalibrated after swapping each shellplate and that ain't easy, and if you're lucky it will work 50%.

If you ask me why I have it.. I got it for nothing

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by onefunzr2:
If any of their models could be considered their flagship model, the 550B would be it.

flagship means BEST model, not workhorse .. and the 550 aint it.. YOU might ahve bought one and think the owrld of it, but its like calling the chevy impala to be gm's flagship, totally ignoring the caddy.


The new and old hornady LnL progressive are very much alike, basically the shellplates have changed to use a wedge ejector rather than a wire. There's some other minor tweeks, all of which, like the dillion, you can buy as a kit to update yours.