(Poll) Reloading precision ammo on a Dillon

[clcustom1911]

I have an old ass RL450... so, technically a zero play tool head

Makes good ammo tho

 

[jetsurgeon]

I load precision rifle on a Dillon 650 with Auto Drive.... Yes its possible, we have discussed this many times before, a search will yield our previous discussions. Floating the Dies is one of the keys, size on a second tool head..... . Autotrickler etc.......

All the best..........

 

[502Chevelle]

I have loaded tens of thousands of pistol and 223 rounds on my 650. I recently wanted to speed up production on my 6.5CM gas gun rounds, loaded with H4350. I simply went with the Area 419 funnel like others have, and threw my charges with the Chargemaster. It worked pretty good. It obviously isn’t as fast as usual, but it is a great compromise and the gun still shot under moa, which is acceptable to me in a large frame gas gun. At the very beginning of this thread someone was posting that they couldn’t get below 2moa with a progressive so they wouldn’t recommend it. My 223 loads with H335 loaded straight up on the Dillon will shoot in the .6-.7 range out of a home build with a JP barrel so I don’t know what their problem is. I don’t think it is the press.

 

[superde]

I load precision rifle on a Dillon 650 with Auto Drive.... Yes its possible, we have discussed this many times before, a search will yield our previous discussions. Floating the Dies is one of the keys, size on a second tool head..... . Autotrickler etc.......

All the best..........

I ran a search for the threads, and when clicked on the links the search found it said that those pages could not be found. Could you drop a link?

 

[jetsurgeon]

@superde

Here's one of the threads..... At least for me, I've changed a few things in my setup (page three in that thread), like adding a Mark 7 Auto Drive to the Dillon 650, and also I use the Mr. Bullet Feeder for the 6.5CM. Previously I was concerned of the 6.5CM 142 SMK bullet points getting dinged up so I didn't use the bullet feeder for the 6.5. After a bunch of testing I found the bullet feeder didn't alter the bullet point so I then started using the feeder for 6.5, and all of my calibers. That's when I added the Mark 7 auto drive. With the auto drive I have to use the bullet feeder, there is no way in hell I'm putting my hand in there while the machine is operating. All calibers I shoot use the bullet feeder. I should have gone this route many moons ago, it's fantastic! I don't miss pulling that handle one bit. Maybe someday I'll make an updated post thread with the new stuff / setup but for now this thread should get you started down the rabbit hole.....

Reload precision rifle on Dillon 650?

As the title says, what did you guys think? I'm set up currently to reload for 308win on a single stage. This winter I got a Dillon 650 and have been reloading 223 and 45acp on it. But I'm thinking I might want to try to reload 308win on it. I would still weigh each powder charge across the...

www.snipershide.com

All the best,
Jeff

 

[jinxx4ever]

I have a 650 and 750, but i'm just old school and not in that big of a hurry. I still load all my precision rifle loads on a T7 and RCBS turret. They're set and i don't have to change anything. It's not like i'm going to load 500-1000 like i do with pistol rounds

 

[Cajuntransplant]

I went through this with a new dillon 550c unit. I load 6gt, 6.5cm, 6.5grendel, 223, and soon 6arc. Will summarize my process and what works for me and my results.

The only mods I have done are to add orings to the die bodies to allow there to be easier adjustments and dies to settle and "float" if you will. Nothing fancy and no other mods or changes to anything on the press. Everything is within a couple ten-thousandths at best and a thousandth at the worst and is repeatable and all the ammo is accurate.

Station 1 - universal depriming die, Station 2 - Sizing die with center stem / expander ball removed, Station 3 - Sinclair neck mandrel (with locator pin removed), Station 4 - bullet seating die. You will have the most consistency with the ammo going through one piece at a time through all stations or making sure your shell plate is full and you always have equal pressure all the way around. The orings and "float" with the dies make it super easy to adjust things by hand to fine tune without needing the wrench all the time to loosen and tighten everything. I swap the universal depriming die and neck mandrel die in between the different tool heads for loading difference calibers. The biggest thing to remember is to get everything set the way you plan to use the press for loading ammo when you are doing all your measurements and adjustments for setup. Either 1 piece at a time all the way around or have a fully loaded shell plate all the way around.

I place a piece of cleaned lubed brass in and deprime and prime, advance shell plate and load next piece of brass, then brass is getting sized, advance shell plate, load new brass, then brass will go through neck mandrel, brass then comes off press and primer is quick checked, gets a powder charge from a harrels powder thrower, then back on the press, topped with a bullet, shell plate is advanced and new brass is loaded then bullet is seated on the last station. Once you get into a groove it works very well and is a smooth process and operation.

 

[Herb Stoner]

I'm doing more and more on my XL750 and getting great results. The biggest single improvement for me so far is the zero play toolhead from Armanov along with their floating rings. This eliminates the potential for uneven pressure on the original floating toolhead (described above) causing inconsistencies as the toolhead itself no longer floats but the individual dies float so pressure on the toolhead from one station does not move the toolhead and cause variances at another station. Whidden makes a similar toolhead / die system which I have not used. As far as 550 vs 750, I don't think one is inherently more accurate than the other. I really like the option to use the casefeeder on the 750 though - makes it way easy!

Mostly I've just done case prep (decap, FL sizing, mandrel) but when I've done powder charges and seating on the Dillon I've used a funnel setup and dropped charges from my Chargemaster. I drop powder on the Dillon for pistol and check weights constantly and have found it to be surprisingly consistent.

Keep in mind that it is just a tool and in the hands of the user to set it up and run it correctly.

 

[Jackomason]

 

[dendenpat]

I’ve been working on xl750 for 6.5CM reloading. I am using two tool heads.
Tool head 1:
Station 1: deprime
Station 2: nothing
Station 3: Forster FL sizing die without the expander ball
Station 4: nothing
Station 5: Sinclair expander mandrel.

I’m not sure if this is normal or not but in order to get 0.002 should bump, I have to advance the FL die all the way into the shellplate. It’s really jammed in. If I want to fully raise the ram at the upstroke without any case, I do have to put in decent amount of force. The FL die is jamming into the shellplate. I feel the same force when I’m sizing the case but I’m assuming that’s coming from sizing operation.

Can someone shed some light on this please??

 

[Jackomason]

Yeah it's common. Dillon dies are a little shorter than something like redding dies. I got my redding die shortened to get the right amount of bump.

 

[padom]

Yeah it's common. Dillon dies are a little shorter than something like redding dies. I got my redding die shortened to get the right amount of bump.

I've got 2 XL650's and a 550 and at least 25+ toolheads between the 3..... of those 25, there has got to be at least 10-12 Forster FL sizing dies.... along with Redding, Wilson, SAC, Mighty Armory and Dillon.....

Not "common" at all as I've never had this issue... I load ALL of my ammo on these 3 presses and don't have to ram my dies down into the shellplate to get shoulder bump...

 

[Yondering]

I’ve been working on xl750 for 6.5CM reloading. I am using two tool heads.
Tool head 1:
Station 1: deprime
Station 2: nothing
Station 3: Forster FL sizing die without the expander ball
Station 4: nothing
Station 5: Sinclair expander mandrel.

I’m not sure if this is normal or not but in order to get 0.002 should bump, I have to advance the FL die all the way into the shellplate. It’s really jammed in. If I want to fully raise the ram at the upstroke without any case, I do have to put in decent amount of force. The FL die is jamming into the shellplate. I feel the same force when I’m sizing the case but I’m assuming that’s coming from sizing operation.

Can someone shed some light on this please??

Are you annealing the brass before sizing? You can easily see .005-.007”+ difference in shoulder bump with and without annealing due to case hardness , depending how many times they’ve been fired.

You might also have a minimum spec chamber so the die has to be set down a little further than for a typical mass production rifle chamber.

 

[dendenpat]

I've got 2 XL650's and a 550 and at least 25+ toolheads between the 3..... of those 25, there has got to be at least 10-12 Forster FL sizing dies.... along with Redding, Wilson, SAC, Mighty Armory and Dillon.....

Not "common" at all as I've never had this issue... I load ALL of my ammo on these 3 presses and don't have to ram my dies down into the shellplate to get shoulder bump...

Thank you for such quick reply. I’ll try it with a different brand of sizing die to see if it makes a difference. I’ll report back!

 

[dendenpat]

Yeah it's common. Dillon dies are a little shorter than something like redding dies. I got my redding die shortened to get the right amount of bump.

Thank you for such quick reply. I’ll try it with a different brand of sizing die to see if it makes a difference. If the other die doesn’t work, how did you shorten your die length?

 

[dendenpat]

Are you annealing the brass before sizing? You can easily see .005-.007”+ difference in shoulder bump with and without annealing due to case hardness , depending how many times they’ve been fired.

You might also have a minimum spec chamber so the die has to be set down a little further than for a typical mass production rifle chamber.

Thank you for such quick reply. I am not annealing at this current moment. My fire formed case shoulder measures at 1.500. I’m bumping to 1.498. I am using a Sinclair 30A bump gauge instead of the more common Hornady headspace comparator gauge.

 

[Cynical]

I’ve been working on xl750 for 6.5CM reloading. I am using two tool heads.
Tool head 1:
Station 1: deprime
Station 2: nothing
Station 3: Forster FL sizing die without the expander ball
Station 4: nothing
Station 5: Sinclair expander mandrel.

I’m not sure if this is normal or not but in order to get 0.002 should bump, I have to advance the FL die all the way into the shellplate. It’s really jammed in. If I want to fully raise the ram at the upstroke without any case, I do have to put in decent amount of force. The FL die is jamming into the shellplate. I feel the same force when I’m sizing the case but I’m assuming that’s coming from sizing operation.

Can someone shed some light on this please??

I had this happen with a short action custom 6br die, the original dies not the modular series. I ended up having a machine shop shorten the die by a few thousandths (.005 if memory is right) and also radius the outside circumference so the die could sit in the recess of the shell plate. In hindsight, a radius in the outside circumference to sit in the shell plate recess would have given me all the depth I needed but I didn’t know it at the time. These are top notch dies so I have nothing negative to say about them, it just needing finessing for the 750 environment.

This issue did not appear when I changed to the 6br modular die.

Dillon shell plate and Armanov tool head if anyone was wondering.

 

[padom]

I had this happen with a short action custom 6br die, the original dies not the modular series. I ended up having a machine shop shorten the die by a few thousandths (.005 if memory is right) and also radius the outside circumference so the die could sit in the recess of the shell plate. In hindsight, a radius in the outside circumference to sit in the shell plate recess would have given me all the depth I needed but I didn’t know it at the time. These are top notch dies so I have nothing negative to say about them, it just needing finessing for the 750 environment.

This issue did not appear when I changed to the 6br modular die.

Dillon shell plate and Armanov tool head if anyone was wondering.

I'm legit using the SAC 6br original sizing die in my dillon. Just literally sized 100pc if lapua last night with it....Marc sent it to me when they first came out for review....never had to modify it at all and it's not rammed down in the shell plate..

I wonder if something changed with the 750 dimension wise....have you talked to Dillon??

I'm using Dillon shell plate and Whidden floating die toolhead

 

[Cynical]

I'm legit using the SAC 6br original sizing die in my dillon. Just literally sized 100pc if lapua last night with it....Marc sent it to me when they first came out for review....never had to modify it at all and it's not rammed down in the shell plate..

I wonder if something changed with the 750 dimension wise....have you talked to Dillon??

I'm using Dillon shell plate and Whidden floating die toolhead

No need to talk to Dillon since I made it work the way I wanted it to work. I assumed it was a one off issue (with something—shell plate, tool head or die) so I just fixed it to suit me.