Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Anyone use a progressive reloader here?

I agree and do it the same way. By the time I need to trim, for me its time to anneal again.

Yup that is about right for me as well, and proper sizing leads to less need for both.

Yep. Except the annealing part must be our TX heat. I can anneal, and load and let the ammo sit a year or more. All fine.

I can not anneal and leave ammo sit and in a year or two probably 30% or more will split necks on firing ruining the brass. Hence I anneal more often than I thought and not for accuracy reasons generally speaking.

Can you expand on this part a bit? I'm not following. Are you just talking about running 12-15 "throws" through the powder measure before you start seating bullets?

I've got a couple 550's that I reload all my rifle rounds with.

I don't think I save much time, but I aint pulling the handle that much either.

I run 100 rd batches and I do things in two stages which go like this.

Tumble overnight in Corn Cob
Spray lube
Lee deprimer in 1st stage
FL size 2nd
Mandrel neck die 3rd

Tumble 20-30 min to clean off lube

Anneal
Trim

Lee deprimer stage 1 (clears any stuck media) + seat primer
Autocharge/throw stage 2
Seat bullet stage 3

I've got all my Dillon heads locked down with the Uniquetek set up and I consider it a must have for COAL consistency.

I have one 550 set up for .308 cases and one for .223 and I change out the primer seater and its spring when changing to small rifle in the 6 Dasher or .22 Creedmoor.

It takes me a little over an hour to charge 100 cases and seat bullets.

I have three progressives

Lee Loadmaster
Two...Hornady AP's one is dedicated to the 223

My Dillon 550 is set up for 5.56 right now with CFE223 in the powder silo.

I think he's talking about setting aside your first 12-15 rounds. As you load, the powder hopper gets shaken around to some degree, so it settles differently than when you first pour it in the hopper or after it's sat for a while (remember powder dispensers measure by volume, and settled powder is denser). Once you get in a consistent rhythm, the powder can settle in the same way after each load. IMO using a powder baffle helps this to some degree.

The other factor here that I've noticed is the powder charge weight can vary a tenth grain or so between just one round in the powder station and a full shell plate. Some powders are more affected by that than others.

and 1/10 or even a couple tenths should not hurt accuracy unless you are long ranging it or have a load thats not in a sweet spot.

And yes on getting rhythm, one could just shoot those rounds as practice or whatever.

I use baffles in the Dillon. I also have been a bit anal about marking my reservoir in thirds with tape and keep the powder between 1/3 and 2/3 so it helps the weight consistency pushing down some I think. Though I've not tested it.

IMHO there are two things to worry about. Straight loaded rounds. And having a load in a sweet spot. How you get there is up to you.

Anything other than that like polishing, weighing charges and so on, for MOST purposes is a waste of time. We have won many matches with dull dingy ammo loaded in bulk on a Dillon, even out to 600 yards though as I've often said I load 600 plus stuff on a single stage most of the time when we were shooting, assuming I had time. Mostly a mental gain rather than a real gain...

I have a Dillon 650 set up with an electric case feeder.
I use Benchmark and it meters beautifully through the powder measure.
Couple years back I bought two 5 gallon buckets of processed 5.56 brass from my gunsmith for less then $200.00, about 3500 cases to the bucket.
Taking my time I can run off about 600 rounds an hour.

Haven't run out of cases yet.

I've loaded pistol ammo on a SDB for over 20 years. It loads about 400 per hour.

Also have a BL550 I use to load for my Garands and 03A3s.

I have used the same Dillon press since about 1995. I load all of my ammo including practice ammo, precision match and hunting ammo. I consistently hear you cannot load match grade ammo on it but that's a bunch of crap. My run out is typically .002-.003 on rifle ammo. Accuracy of the powder bar is based on the powder selection, as usual long stick powders like to hang up. In 5.56 and .243/6mm Creedmoor I use ball powders such as Ramshot TAC or Hunter. Getting up to .270 and larger I have no problems with any of the Hodgdon short cut or Alliant reloader series.

EDIT: I sold the press.

I have had a dillion 550 for 22 years .I finally wore out that first one three years ago .They sent me a new one when I sent it back . There were not any parts that were not work out .I had loaded over 100000 rounds .It was 338-378 forming from 416 weatherby that stretched that press .I hate loading 223 on be because of small bullets and the fact you can't tell a crimped primer on lots of 223 brass until you size it .I really liked 357 rem mag because it was super easy to load .I loaded more if it than anything . The most impressive thing I loaded waa 250 per hour of 416 rem mag .I loaded 2000 rounds in one day .It takes alot of poweder

I just loaded 500 223 on my Dillion 550.
If you want to make bullet seating easy install and RCBS Match Master seating die.
Just drop the bullet in and pull handle.

I cringe when I see that brass set screw on that RCBS lock ring. Good luck with that one...

PonsnessWarren was the developer of the design currently used by RCBS. It was first marketed over 20 years ago.

Yeah and it is really prone to the lock ring coming loose, or the set screw stripping out. However in a Dillon tool head, the set screw doesn't have to be used anyway so it doesn't really matter. They can be a PITA in a single stage press though where the die gets removed all the time.

I've run a Dillon 550 since the early 90s. They are a great machine, and you just can't beat Dillon's lifetime warranty.

I ran a 650 for a few years, and the case feeder and auto indexing was really nice. I didn't like the extra setup and conversion time, so I sold it and picked up a second 550. I leave one setup for large primers and the other for small primers.

There are times I really miss the 650, though. I could really crank out some ammo with that thing!

I'm out of reloading now but used a Dillon 550 for years. I recommend it.

2 550s and one 50 bmg progressive (Dillon)