I am getting another press, for those really big reloading jobs. I am thinking of putting a Piggyback on my Rock Chucker, for pistol and .223. Midway has them on sale for $99.99. Evidently, the Piggyback II is being discontinued. Anyone use one? Just wondering if they are any good.

David,

I've been using the Piggyback for over 12 years and have loaded well over 15 thousand rounds on it without anything breaking. It's great to convert the Rockchucker, if you're you're not planning on loading more than a thousand rounds a month on it. If you are, I would look at a dedicated progressive from Dillon.

The PBII is relatively easy to setup if you read and follow the instructions. It takes a while to install and align properly, but after that, it works really well. If you want to go back to single stage loading, it only takes a couple of minutes to remove, and about the same to replace. Changing calibers takes about 10 minutes, once you've done it a couple of times. Cost for changing calibers is minimal. The shellplates are $28 from Midway. Other than that, you'll need the dies, change the priming ram (if you're changing primer size), change the powder charge size, and you're ready to go. The PBII unit includes the rams for both primer sizes.

The limitations of the press are that you can only load rifle calibers up to .223, and you have to use the RCBS Uniflow powder measure. Cabela's has the Uniflow for $60. Realistically, I can load 200/250 rounds per hour on the PB. RCBS says up to 400/hour. Others are probably faster than I am, but I like to check a lot of things as I go.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the Piggyback.

I've been using a piggyback for a number of years, 45,41 and 44 mostly. Got an extra powder measure for it so it can be left on, heck couldn't be much easier and it'll hold up....

David,

You can have my Piggyback for $50. It's been used *once* - which tells you what I think of it. e-mail me if interested.

Steve

when I was pistol shooting I had a RCBS piggyback, this is 10 years ago. I don't know if the II are the same in the priming. the feeder tray fed into the chute which had the primer going into the case on the end of the chute.

Well one day, somehow a primer went in side ways at least that's what I assume (it had happened a couple times before with no bad results) well you guessed it this time it went bang, problem was there were about 80 primers in tray (big bang), the whole lot went up as one. No safety glasses and as a result I had a sore eye for a couple of days then it was OK, after a week the eye started to get sore again, I think a piece of steel had rusted anyway it was off to the eye specialist to get what ever it was dug out.
Other than that no problems with the piggyback, needless to say I don't do any reloading now without safety glasses on, nothing like a little aversion therapy to push the point home.