After loading hundreds of rounds for this year's High Power season on my Rock Crusher, with hundreds left to load, I am seriously considering a progressive press. Yeah, I know. What took you so long?

Anyway, here's the question. Hornady LNL, Dillon 550 or 650, or RCBS 2000? And please tell me why. What's important to you may not be to me and vice versa. I will load .223, .308 and .30-06 rifle, as well as 9mm and .45ACP on it. I have hand primed exclusively, but am willing to try a press mounted system that really works. I use stick powders for the rifle cartridges like Varget and H4895. I have all the dies I need. They are a mix if RCBS, Redding and Hornady. O.K., I admit to having one Lee set for my .357 magnum. I have everything else I need except the press.

What do you think?

Fast Ed

I only use a progressive press for shotgun...MEC 9000G, however, I don't think you'll find much better than the Dillon 650 (unless you go for the 1050).

allow me to give you some of my prejudices.

Any progressive press must be used with ball powders to get precision metering and avoid shearing grains of powder that make for rough handling. All the cartridges you mentions are well suited to ball powders.

Further a progressive press automatically indexes the shell plate. Dillons 550 and RCBS require you to manually rotate the shell holder manually after the stroke of the ram.

I have a Hornady L&L AP, a Dillon 550 and a Dillon 650. All ake a bit to get used to them amd the dillon has a major menefit in that they offer a video on the operation basics. Hornady don't and they should.

Further their lock and load is a great system but actually works better with their split lock rings. They don't tell you that either. The lock and load AP consumes some of the stroke in indexing the turret and for this reason long cartridges are difficult to seat bullets atop the case manually.

Even after all this the Hornady, once you get used to it is a fine machine. It's smooth and a precision machine. I use mine for the 44 mag rounds and short cases and I now understand there is a case feeder available for it.

The 650 Dillon is a fine machine but has a small shell plate which works but is cramped. The Hornady has a large shell plate and is easy to work with. They have a coiled spring retaining the cases on the shell holder and it works fine....until you make an error and screw it up. It's fragile and won't let you handle it harshly.

All in all I'd still take the Hornady L&L AP but only because I'm familiar with it's quirks. It's a fine machine but with either of them you must set it up right and learn to "futs" a bit until they work smoothly.

I've used the RCBS piggy back and I have a Dillon 650. I love my Dillon, What a Machine! The case feed works great, the auto primer feed has been flawless. I have used mine for 4 years now and it has never so much as hiccuped. Get a powder check die, it will ease your mind about looking in every case to check for powder.
The short extruded grains that Hodgdon puts out meter super; and obviously so do ball powders.

The piggy back was a bit fragile.
I have no expirience with the Hornady progressive.

I've had a Dillon 650 for many years and have had zero problems. Also, their customer service is second to none. Don't doubt the others are fine machines also.

My RL 450 has been grinding out reloads since 1984 without a hitch. I wish I could tell you I've never broken a part, but I have. On that note I will also tell you that Dillon's customer service is second to none. I have so much faith in Dillon that I bought a 550B to keep the old 450 company.

One vote for Dillon.

http://forums.sixgunner.com/One_example_of_reloading_setup/m_27446/tm.htm

In a word "Dillon"

Dillon absolutely. They specialize in progressives and will be servicing your machine years after Hornady and RCBS forget what part numbers fit your broken down relic.
I use a lot of RCBS stuff and highly recommend most save their progressives. I spent several hundred dollars on an RCBS progressive and after 4 or 5 calls to the service department still have never loaded a single round of ammo with it!
I now have a Dillon 650 with setups for 5 calibers and have loaded thousands of near trouble free ammo with it. My 223 ammo that I've loaded using cheap once fired RP brass shoots almost identically well with carefully prepped Lapua brass.
Don't make the mistake of spending hundreds of dollars on a progressive from anyone other than Dillon.........................DJ

I have had 2 Dillon 550B for years & would go that route. I actually prefer the manual indexing, it's still called a progressive press BTW, it allows you to stop & deal w/ an individual round w/o taking the system apart.

I personnaly like the Dillon 550 over the 650.
Can't go wrong with any of the Dillons. I still have my two original Square Deal Bs in 9mm and 45ACP.

I consider my Dillon RL550 to be the best purchase I ever made.


AllanD

Dillon 550 here,,But I size all of my bottle neck rifle rounds on my rock crusher,,and trim before sending through the 550. Take your sweet old time inspecting cases making shure they're to length,,no internal cracks,,flash holes are ok,,at least for 1/4 bore stuff,,.30+ not so much of a issue,on the flash holes,Then run through the dillon,,Not sizing rifle rounds through it greatly drops the powder drop variance,,not so much of an issue with pistol rounds,,Clay

Claybuster,

Might consider running the rifle brass through the Dillon power trim die which also sizes.

Would eliminate one step.

Hammer

if you are not goin huntin with your loads,dillion 550 or 650 works great. i just dont approve of crimping cases for hunting or that are less than a grain of max loads

quote:

Originally posted by nwwash:
if you are not goin huntin with your loads,dillion 550 or 650 works great. i just dont approve of crimping cases for hunting or that are less than a grain of max loads

Don't have to crimp with a Dillon.

Powder charge can be set just like any other powder measure. Of course, some prefer to weigh every powder charge, which could be done with Dillon's powder die plastic funnel acceessory.

I've had a D650 for over 10 years with no hiccups at all. But transfering between pistol and rifle calibers I'd probably go the 550 route. My friend that has one says it's a little easier on the change over and such.

Don

RCBS, Dillon and Hornady all make excellent progressive presses. I have owned the Dillon RL550B and sold it to get the Hornady Lock N Load AP press because of the superior features and affordability of the Hornady. Like the Dillon, all bugs of a new design have been worked out and the latest version of this press (currently on sale) is as boringly reliable and fast as can be.

The powder measure I would rate as better than the Dillon 550 I had, about the same as the RCBS and is an excellent powder measure with a solid case activated powder drop. It can load extruaded powders such as 4895 with no problem and has changeable inserts available for whatever charge size you're dealing with, very accurate as well with minimal variability over long numbers of rounds. I use mine to load 30.06 with 4895 powder. They are bringing out and will have on sale early next month the new case activated powder drop, which has expanding/powder through features for reloading pistol cartridges. Were I buying one today, I'd wait until the new Case activated powder drop is shipping with the presses.

The Lock N Load's bushing's best feature is the ability to switch out individual dies without removing the powder measure. (This is very handy and allows one to switch between say, a small base die or an X-base die extremely quickly, depending on what brass one is loading, let's say one's own brass vs. some once-fired machine gun brass one just picked up.) Also, one can change out a die set within seconds, assuming both sets of dies have been installed and set up in the Lock N Load bushings, which is something one would have to do with any dies.

The new primer dispense system is similar to Dillon's. It can be loaded with a hundred primers and comes with a reloading tube to allow the second hundred primers to be loaded quickly or pick up a Frankford Arsenal primer loading machine for around 30 bucks and load them internal tube within seconds.

I can't say about the automatic casefeeder, because mine already loads faster than I can afford to buy components. I can deliberately go turtle slow and load 100 rounds in 15 minutes. If I preload primers and use the Frankford Arsenal primer feeder and "get with it" I'm sure 500 rounds/hour is no problem without the casefeeder. Add the case feeder, I'd guess 650-1000 rounds an hour.

IF one is adding a caliber and one does not have the shellplate already for that caliber, an upgrade consists of the shellplate, a die set and Lock N Load bushings for the dies. The Lock N Load bushings can be bought ahead of time in a thre pack for around ten dollars or a ten pack for 33 bucks. I usually plan ahead and buy the ten packs, because I use the lock n load feature both on my Hornady and my Lee Classic Cast single stage press. (I have recently shimmed the Lee LnL adapter bushing so the dies are interchangeable without adjustment between both presses.)

At the price the Hornady is selling for, it truly represents a great value and top quality in a progressive press. BTW, I originally received and "pre-7000" serial numbered press several years ago. Hornady has upgraded the shellplate design, the primer design and the subplate (to add a casefeeder). I haven't asked for the subplate design, because my reloading requirements don't need one. But as to the other upgrades, when I wanted them, Hornady provided them for free, "no risk." (Or "NO BS," if you prefer.)

One last thing, I shoot highpower like you. I load everything I shoot on the Hornady except for the 600 yard line, which I load in my single stage. In all honesty, at the shorter ranges, I can't tell any accuracy distance. I'm seriously thinking about trying out the Hornady for the 600 yard line cartridges, except they represent a very small portion of my reloading, so I like to find tune them and single stage works well for that.

Regards,

Dave

The Dillon is by far the best progressive reloading press and will work great with rifle cases as long as you use ball or short-cut extruded powders.
I got my first Dillon (rl450) in 1984 to load pistol cases then about 10yrs ago I converted it to a 550 for more production. Since then I've owned 2 more 550's. Each set up to laod a certain caliber (38 super and 40s&w).
Now I've traded up tho a 1050 dillon and have never looked back.
Someimes you can go to a different powder measure for stick powder and it work fine.

Larry

I have used the dillon press and in my opinion it is hard to beat the RL 550 B will load up to 120 different calibers it will use the dies you already have and Dillons no BS warenty is going to be hard to ignore, the presses are smooth and virtually maintenance free, what more could you ask for.