Progressive press

Clayton86

New member
I started with the Hornady classic single stage but now that I’m doing 45acp for my duty gun and 1911s the single stage is not the best when factoring in time. I just load up a bunch of practice ammo since I hit the range every week to shoot my pistols.

Right now I do it in batches of several hundred one step at a time when ever I have free time. Keep telling myself I need to get a progressive to cut the time down I assume it will be way faster for plinking ammo and leave the single stage for my precision hunting loads.

What’s a good “budget” progressive/turret press another thing I keep reminding my self of is how hard it is to get primers. A local place gets them a few times a month but only 2 trays a person allowed so I try and get my fiancé to go also when they are in to bump me to 4 trays haha.
 
I have been running a L-N-Load progressive for all my hand gun calibers for about 19yrs and get good results. I have even done a bunch or 223 plinking ammo with it. I would love to get a Dillon but I can't see dropping that much cash.
 
ive been loading pistol and rifle ammo on my hornady LNL AP since 2015.

im very pleased with the quality and speed at which i can produce ammo on it.

do splurge a bit for the case feeder , you wont regret it
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LNL here as well.

I have only done hand gun with it. I tried some 223 with a fine stick powder and the powder was bridging badly in the powder measure.

With handgun, I find that a fairly full case of powder can splash out some of it as the press shell plate indexes to the next station. That stray powder ultimately makes its way into the primer shuttle system.

On a gun forum I do not remember the name of used a rubber o-ring in place of Hornady’s spring and claimed to have eliminated the problem. I have not tried it yet.

Three 44s
 
I agree with hm1996.
I'm not a big fan of progressive presses, but when I'm loading bulk such as 223 or pistol rounds, the Dillon is what I use. It does sit unused a lot, but I don't regret buying it, they are well made and do an awesome job.
 
If going progressive, one should look to Dillon 1st. I have a 4 station turret type press & recently added a Redding single-stage press. I do switch around a fair bit, cartridges & loads, often it’s 1-200 of one, then switch.

For me a turret type press has been fine. I prime & charge cases away from the press.
 
I have a dillon. I only load handgun rounds on it. While its far better than a single stage, I think I get about 200 rounds per hour. If you are in a rhythm, its pretty quick, but have one primer not feed, or one case has the wrong size primer, or one case have a crimp, and you are skipping a station and it really slows you down.
 
Scheels has it for $525 that’s not terrible bout the price I was thinking it’d be for one and been prepping the women I’ll be spending on one haha “babe I really need a new press will be like 500-600 though for a decent one”
 
I bought my first Dillon 450 in '83 or '84 to load 30-06 for NRA XTC competition. I was shooting a minimum of 100 rounds/week (practice) and up to 300 rounds on match weekends. the old Herter's I'd used since 1954 still did a good job, but was really slow.
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There were lots of naysayers as to throwing charges on the progressives not producing sufficiently accurate ammo to be competitive but with careful operation and load development had no trouble turning out ammo that shot >97% of possible scores using 4895 (stick powder). Ball powder measures much smoother but short stick powder is manageable w/the Dillon measure if you slow down a bit and choose a load within one of your accuracy nodes.

No telling how many thousands of rounds of '06 ammo I loaded while shooting competition (16 years) on that press, not to mention the casual pistol ammo it turned out, so that press doesn't owe me a thing, but still works as it did when new. I did finally pick up the (2nd) used press when I started shooting .223 and keep one press set up for large and the other for small primers so I don't have to change back and forth between primer arms.

Both presses have all of the 550 updates other than automatic priming and the frame.

Dillon's no BS warranty is one of the best in the business. They were with me step by step in getting the first one up and running and when I got the used press it was missing a small plastic bushing. Called Dillon and tried to buy one, explaining it was a used press I had just purchased, not a worn out part, but they refused to sell me one, took my address and shipped the missing bushing @ no charge. It doesn't get any better than that!

Regards,
hm
 
Lance, they honored their warranty even after I told them I wanted to buy the part....of course it was a tiny part, but I'm pretty sure that they would take care of any problems you might have, even on your used press.

Originally Posted By: Mike Dillon Whether you are the first owner, or the seventeenth, all our hobby-level reloading machines have a lifetime warranty. If you break, damage or wear out anything on them, it will be fixed or replaced – whatever is necessary to restore the machine to normal operating condition.

Didn't realize it at the time, but I may have been in the first wave with the Dillon 450 based on this interesting article I turned up. I know I had several issues in the beginning, mostly with the powder measure (which was hand operated by pushing a plunger to operate the powder slide) and their techs worked with me over the phone until that issue and a couple of other small but pesky problems. They never complained, just sent latest parts revisions and soon my 450 became 100% dependable! Their automatic measure really made throwing accurate charges a lot easier.

Quote:By 1984, both Hornady and RCBS either had introduced or were preparing to introduce their own progressive reloaders

Regards,
hm
 
Originally Posted By: crapshootI picked up my 550 used. You don't have to buy new with a no bs warranty.

They are great for warranty. I bought my 550 and the BIG Dillon polisher used for $100.00. The polisher had never been run and I doubt if the press had more than 100 rounds on it. Dillon upgraded me to the safety bar set up for free and have me the new powder bars too. I paid the guy another $100.00 for about 1500 bullets,three caliber conversions, 5 pounds of powder and God knows how many boxes if factory centerfire ammo and shotshells.

The press has been cranking out match pistol ammo and rifle stuff for about 19 years now.

Greg

PS: HM you are spot on. I got my first Dillon 300 in 1981 and had Some issues with the primer set up. I called Dillon and Mike himself answered the phone and helped me out. I still us three of the 300cs for much of my match pistol stuff that I've one a pick up full of trophies with. I have upgraded two of the three to the auto dispense measures. It sure beats pushing that bar in!!

Greg
 
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Originally Posted By: GLShooterThey are great for warranty. I bought my 550 and the BIG Dillon polisher used for $100.00. The polisher had never been run and I doubt if the press had more than 100 rounds on it. Dillon upgraded me to the safety bar set up for free and have me the new powder bars too. I paid the guy another $100.00 for about 1500 bullets,three caliber conversions, 5 pounds of powder and God knows how many boxes if factory centerfire ammo and shotshells.

I thought I got a deal on my 2nd 450
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; IIRC I paid $145 for it. It had seen some use, and was stiff when I first mounted it. Turns out the bottom link pin was gaulded in the handle. I wrapped some fine emery cloth on a dowel, polished the bearing surface & lubed, reassembled press, inserted the missing grommet sent by Dillon and press worked like new.

Yeah, Greg, I have a small bin full of spare Dillon parts that they replaced with newer versions during my first year, including the early single powder measure bar return spring, several powder measure bars & some priming system parts that they had an upgrade on.

Regards,
Clarence
 
Funny thing is I much prefer a pair of springs on the measure as opposed to the safety bar. I have upgraded the primer set up to that flat plate support that really aided on the priming stroke. That $30.00 made it feel like a whole different machine.

Greg
 
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I left my priming setup manual. The older measure has the larger return spring, the newer one is linked to the shell plate. Both work fine, but I use the older press mostly for .223/ball powder.

Regards,
hm
 
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