Anyone use a progressive press? Any comments or suggestions? I bought an unwrapped Dillon 450 at an auction for $35. I know nothing about them! It is just the frame.

I've had a 450 Dillon for over 40 years. It's great for loading my pistol cartriges (.45 acp. .38 spl, .357 mag, and .44 mag), and I use it for my practice, cast bullet loads for several of my rifles.

For working up loads and for my hunting loads for my rifle cartridges I still weigh all the powder charges, and I load them on my RCBS Rockchucker.

And I get a sexy "Blue Press" Dillon catalog every month!

Shawn,

You'll probably have to spend a little bit more to get a working progressive press, but if you are reloading on a single stage press now when you do get it set up and running you're going to be rather stunned at the amount of cartridges you'll be able to load in 5 minutes.

Give Dillon a call. Their customer service is excellent.

sounds like someone upgraded to a 550 one piece at a time and used all the parts.
if you don't have the ram and such with the frame you are looking at about 300 or a little more to get the 450 back in business,
i have looked on their sight recently for the parts to upgrade mine again [last time i bought everything piece by piece and finally bought the 550 frame]
the auto prime,head upgrade, and powder upgrade is about 190.00.
airc the ram and such is about another 100 or so.

http://www.dillonprecision.com...n_Auto_Powder_System

this should get you started.

quote:

Originally posted by Sagebrush Burns:
Give Dillon a call. Their customer service is excellent.

This.