Dillon 550/650 - ??

[Fixxah]

Get the 650 and a giraud.

 

[ruebarb]

I'm up north today with the plan to grab one of these presses. I'm leaning toward 650 due to the case feeder. If I go 650 I'm going with Dillon 1500 trimmer. If I go with 550 I'm going with Giraud trimmer as I'll have to handle the brass anyway.

I'd like to see a pict or parts list showing how EddieCoyle has his powder measure configured.

Get the 650 and a giraud.

Agreed 650 & Giraud, the 1500 doesn't deburr and chamfer, so you are adding 2 more steps and brass handling.

If you get a case feeder, then you can add a bullet feeder tube for very little and move very quickly.

 

[Hoon]

I'm up north today with the plan to grab one of these presses. I'm leaning toward 650 due to the case feeder. If I go 650 I'm going with Dillon 1500 trimmer. If I go with 550 I'm going with Giraud trimmer as I'll have to handle the brass anyway.

I'd like to see a pict or parts list showing how EddieCoyle has his powder measure configured.

Just run an expander ball in the station after the 1500 trimmer and you should be able to skip the chamfer.

I haven't done it personally (I use a Giraud Tri-Way) but plenty of people claim excellent results.

 

[EddieCoyle]

My experience with the 1500 is that it leaves a sharp edge on the inside of the case mouth. Is that what you want when loading cast bullets?

 

[Steve Marshall]

The second I heard about the Dillon 1500 I bought one. Back then it only came with .the .223 and .308 dies. Major PITA to set up properly, it did work as advertised. BUT chips were a problem. Sharp edges were a problem. CORRECT brass was a problem. It seems Dillon designed the dies with specific brass in mind. If your brass was thick it sized then too much with the resultant stress cracks on loaded ammunition in almost no time at all. Luckily for me, I worked in a machine shop and got both dies honed by .003". No more problems with that. It didn't take too long to realize that for bottleneck cases you needed to do all your major cartridge prep work prior to loading on the 550. That is, sizing, crimp removal and deburring then to the tumbler to both remove any traces of lube AND to remove any burr left by deburring the outside of the neck.

Were I a serious one or two rifle cartridge shooter, I'd still go with the 1500 and the 550. And if you shot a lot of handgun rounds, the 550 is hard to beat.
When in shape, I could reload 600 rounds of 9MM per hour.