My wife and I practice with .270 and .308 rifles. It's taking over 6 hours with a single stage press to load up for a good weekend of shooting. So I'm considering a progressive press.

What have you experienced with either of these presses?

Safe Hunting
Clint

I have a Dillon 550. My suggestion for the cartridges you mention would be a Redding turret press .

I owned a Dillon 550B press and I loaded for 19 calibers on it. I had all the attachment goodies, along with 6 power measures. I basically can't say enough good things about the Dillon 550B or the company as well.

My only complaint on the 550B is that for rifle ammo, I had trouble seeing the amount of powder in the case. Being a progressive, there isn't a whole lot of room to take a peek. Some cartridges and loads are better than others.

The Hornady LNL is a five stage machine, just like the Dillon 650. You can put in a powder check die in that fifth station and it will tell you if you have a load that is a bit low or a bit high on power. Nice.

I got spoiled using a single stage and checking all my charges at one time by scanning the loading tray and I lost that in the 4 stage Dillon.

I looked into getting a Dillon 650, but the cost of conversions is so high, it is a pointless press unless you only load for one or two calibers or have deep pockets filled with money.

Eventually, I opted to sell the 550B and get a Hornady LNL progressive press. This is very much like a Dillon 650, except the cost of conversion is drastically less and the loading rate is about the same as the Dillon 650.

From what you wrote, I would guess you load about 300 to 400 rounds of ammo at a time and a Dillon 550B would be perfect for that.

The Redding Turret press is also a good choice, although the loading rate is less. The way to find the right press for you is to consider the following: 1. The total amount of ammo you load at one time for one month. 2. The number of calibers you load.

The Redding Turret, the Dillon, or the Hornady LNL would do it for you. The difference is loaded rounds per hour, not quality of handloads, as they all will do an excellent job. The Hornady LNL or the Dillon 650 will do about 600 to 800 rounds per hour. I haven't used a Turret press, but I am guessing about 2 to 4 times what you can do on a single stage press.

The other catch is calibers loaded. It gets expensive loading many calibers or many loads on the Dillon equipment. It is simply the way they are designed, you have to buy a lot of expensive pieces. For the Dillon, you are looking around 40 to 120 dollars per caliber. For the Hornady LNL you are looking at 10 to 50 dollars. For the Redding, if you load 2 or 3 calibers, you are there.

Price the Hornady LNL progressive press at Midway, then add a shellplate (about $28.00), a lower assembly for the powder die (about $16.00), and powder mesasure adapter (about 8.00) for each caliber. Do the same for the Turret press, which for 2 or 3 calibers you won't need to buy anything. For 4 or more, you need to add 40.00 for a new top plate for each group of 2 to 3 calibers. Go to the Dillon precision website and do the same for the 550B.

You have to make a trade off between cost of equipment and the # of rounds loaded per hour. None of these presses will give you bad ammo, if you do your part.

I looked at all of these and I opted for the Hornady LNL, even though I had to sell the Dillon stuff at 75 cents on the dollar.

Do keep in mind, loading at a higher rate is not a bad thing. Consider this, you come home from dinner on Friday nite thinking you are going shooting in the early am. It is 8 pm and you find you are out of ammo. You sit down in front of the Hornady LNL or the Dillon 650 and two hours later, you have 400 to 600 rounds of ammo waiting to be shot and you are in bed by 10:15. You can't do that with a single stage, period. The 550B and the Turret press will be somewhere inbetween those two extremes.

Hope this helps,

RobertD

RobertD,
Thank you very much for your post. It is exactly what I was looking for, and the scenario at the end is exactly why I want the speed of reloading. I had progressive pistol presses back in the early 80's, and they were wonderful. Each had it's little snags, but if you kept an eye on the primer and powder hoppsers full and all went well. Let one run out, and you had to cycle five or six times to "clear" and restart the progression. Is this the case with the LNL, or can I simply pop out brass from each station, and check or correct problems and keep going?

I'm having a rifle built in 6.5x55, but LNL doesn't have a shell plate for this caliber (it is specifically listed as "NA" in the parts list. Do you think I can have a machinist enlarge the plate's grooves? Here's how the 6.5 case head compares to .270 Win (6.5's info listed first)
Rim diameter: .476 .473
Head Dia: .476 .470
Rim thickness: .06 .049 (Here's where the prob may be)
I use .270 because that is the suggestion in Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversion (by John Donnelly)
I will be using 6.5x55 brass since it's reasonably available.

Let me know your thoughts

Thanks!

Clint

I use the Dillon 650,
I only load two rifle calibers progressively: .223 & .308.
I like to futz around with all the others, but for those two I want larger quantities that can be used in various weapons so chambered.
I like the primer seating system better than the one on my 550 and a friend's Hornady. For me ("n" of 1) it is more reliable and also gives a good "feel" for seating consistency.
I like the powder check feature. My eyes are primary, but it is a good secondary safety feature.
I will generally do a large "run" of .223 and then 9mm before switching over to the large size primer seating parts for runs of .308 and then .45 ACP.
The Dillon powder measure is adequate for ball powders and very small grained stick powders. I use a Lock'n'load measure if I am loading something like Varget, or another medium sized stick powder. I recommend setting a powder measure up for either caliber, regardless of what brand you use. Always check weight of drop, of course, but life is too short to have to make major adjustments at the start of each run.
I seem to have less trouble with my 650 than my buddy has with his Hornady ("n" of 2). He wants to trade, I don't.
I put a Lee "Factory Crimp" die on station 5. Proper neck tension is a primary saftey step, but a cannelure with crimp also helps prevent the last rounds in the magazine from having the bullets be driven into the cases. This applies also to a bolt gun where you are topping off the magazine during a course of fire.
I use the CCI military primers, also as a secondary safety feature (they have harder cups).
The above is purely my anecdotal experience.
Money is usually tight for me (because of my shooting habit). I bought the Dillon because I thought it was a better way to go. I have not had cause to regret that choice.
Have fun,
jcn

Clint,

Actually, Hornady does make a shellplate for the 6.5x55. I own one, it is shellplate # 19. You can also use it for the 7.5x54 French MAS, which is really a weird one.

The Hornady LNL press has a unique spring arrangement that allows you to remove a case at any point and replace it or remove it. The powder dispenser is just like the Dillon one in that you only dump powder out when there is a case present. Overall, I think you will like it.

I also use the Lee Factory Crimp die for all my rifle cartridges and that fifth station is really handy for that, too. The catch on the Hornady LNL is for straight wall cartridges, as it depends on a flaring die to do the expansion for the bullet. I am thinking of retaining the Dillon powder measures for that purpose, so I can still have an extra die station for powder checking.

I am glad it helped.

RobertD

A couple of thought whichever press you get:
Use Teff Dry teflon film lubricant from Bore Tech on the shell plates & primer assembly parts. Scattered powder granules don't stick to that stuff.
These presses all demand some fiddling.
The last lot of Remington brass I got in 6,5x55 was astonishingly uniform. 6,5x55 brass from PMC, Remington and Winchester will usually have base diameters of .474". The Lapua, Norma, RWS, etc. will have base diameters of .476"-.477". If you use American headstamped brass you MAY be able to use the same shell plate as for the .308.
Consider using Ramshot Hunter or Magnum powders for the 6,5x55. They are relatively temperature insensitive, easy metering, clean burning ball powders. Many of the traditional powders for the 6,5x55 are extruded logs that can and will bridge going into the case mouth.
JCN

RobertD, JohnC - Great thread! I wish everyone responed as thoughtfully and thoroughly as you guys!!

I've owned a Dillon 550B for a decade and praise its ease of use. I'm sure any press manufactured now is high quality so your doing the correct thing in asking around. If you ask me, buy a Dillon and comfort yourself in the fact you've bought the best.