Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Dillon for loading my .223 AR15

I have a Dillon 650 set up for another cartridge. I also have a Ruger .223 M77 rifle that is a brilliant tack driver. I bought 2 cases of black hills Ammo for it when It was new. which I still have over a full case remaining. This ammo is like magic in the rifle so I never reloaded for it ( yet) I have been saving all the brass though.

Is there a way to set this Dillon up to load the same rounds for both the Colt AR15 and the Ruger M77? The Ammo is nearly identical and I would like to use the same for ammo for both. IS it possible? Anyone else loading for an AR and a Bolt rifle in .223?

Just check the headspace on brass fired in both rifles and make sure they are similar. Ideally, you don't want to have to size them down more than about 3 thou in headspace length. You can size down more, but brass life suffers.

In a perfect situation, sized brass would be about 3 thou shorter than the AR fired brass and only a thou shorter than the bolt action fired brass.

I have 2 bolt action .223's and 3 AR'S. I just FL size for everything. No problems in any rifle, great accuracy and no need to sort ammo. I suppose I am losing some brass life, but .223/5.56 brass is cheap. Actually, it's free if you don't mind stooping to pick it up on any public range.

My bulk ammo for AR's and bolt guns is an fl sized case, 55 gr sp seated for the AR mag constraints. Seems to work well through my guns.

I do prefer to fl size in a single stage, trim and then use the Dillon for priming, dumping powder and seating bullets.

For the first time in my life I'm considering a progressive loader. Is the Dillon still the "go-to" press?

I too am bulk loading 55 grain sp's/CFE223 powder. Would I prefer a slightly heavier premium bullet? Yes, but nor do I want to break the bank. The 55's shoot nicely indeed anyway.

Yes, get a 550 and don't look back.

headspace is the one issue between guns. Then seating depth and powder charges.

All are very easy to adapt one to another, with a few tweaks on dies/measures to swap back and forth.

Or buy a total seperate tool head and set up for each gun is another possible route.

Or you get the old standby and find the load that just works in both and size to minimums and don't worry about case life.

Okay, I have about 700 rounds of Black hills for the Ruger,

Bought 1000 rounds of PMC for the Colt AR15 today. I'll just keep the brass separate and load only for the Colt AR15. I'll not use the 700 rounds of black hills at a rate that will justify reloading for a long time. That is the most accurate rifle I have ever owned and does not require much "verifying" that it's good. When put to work it's just a one shot ordeal and the target is immobilized. 700 rounds will be a while to use up.

Now I need to find a load for the Colt AR15, then gather bullets, primers and powder for the AR.
Then figure out how to convert the Dillon from the current loading set-up to the .223 set up. It's been a one cartridge set-up for several years. I cannot recall how to convert it. Guess I'll go have a look see on you tube.

Which grain black hills? I have some of the 77 grain stuff for "social applications" and it's very accurate.

mine is 50 grain Vmax

I seriously thought that is was shooting wildly inaccurate when I shot the first group. I shot three times and had one hole at 100 yards?

Shot another three to verify, this time the hole looked a little too big to be from one bullet?

Shot another three but one shot at each target dot, all three in the 1/2" black bull. Done, never gonna need to do this again! What a dream system, this thing is astonishing accurate!

I had the same happen with my Tikka stainless ultralight and Hornady 168 AMAX match ammo.

Its worth the $$ for that kind of accuracy.

I can't fathom going in to a non progressive for running high volume