Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Dillon 1050

With auto drive.

Is it worth it ?

Anyone have one ?

Problems ?

I shoot a lot,and it costs a lot !!

I currently load all my own rifle,and have 30 years experience doing so.

Any feedback appreciated,
Mike

I do, sorta. A group of us went in together on one.

You need the primer tube filling machine and lots of primer tubes.

It's nice, but it's not a "turn it on and forget it" type thing. At least every five minutes you've gotta feed it primers, and bullets and brass run out quick too.

If I had it to do over again I'd look at the Mark7 auto drive. From what I've heard it's definitely the best of the bunch, but they're pricey. Ben Soeger had the Mark7 inventor on his podcast and he explained some of the things that he designed into it and what sets it apart.

I'm curious, what's "a lot"?

A local guy with a 1050 watched ours work and said there's no way it'd be worth it to him. The benefit of the auto drive isn't really seen in production as much as convenience. It would take a long time to make you money back on the autodrive vs the regular 1050.

I have a shooting range right out my back door.
If I could afford it and my body could take it,I'd shoot 500 rounds a day.

Shooting factory loads,I'm limited to probably 50.
Mike

I have 3 Dillon presses. A 550B, a 650, and a 1050. All bought used, the latter two bought from work at prices you would not believe if I told you. No way would I pay what a 1050 costs new. The 650 is the "value" press for a volume loader.

The 1050's draw is the decrimp station for mil brass. It works great about 99% of the time. The major problem is that one percent that it doesn't work, will eat up a third or more of the time you could have been loading. Some guys resort to running all the brass through just to decrimp, then running it again. There are those out there who swear their 1050's gobble NATO 9mm brass without issue, a buddy has one.

Feed a 1050 good brass and it runs sweet, but it is only marginally faster than the 650, and that is only because it seats the primer on the downstroke, IE there is no "primer bump" required at the top stroke to seat the primer. I actually prefer this as you have a good feel for the priming with the 650, the 1050 just mashes the fuggers in, until something goes wrong. Taking the primer feed off to clear a 650 is easy (it is up front) on a 1050 it is a MAJOR PITA to dissasemble the primer feed.

Those things are finicy as hell and the old ones without the rheostat knob simply did not work. Get the Dillon brass tray and have at it, you pick up speed after a while. You'll learn to "slide" the tray so the primers slide apart from each other, you can jab and stab a bit faster that way.

I like to load five primer tubes, and when I've loaded all those, I take a break for 10min or so.

If I had to do it all over again I'd never buy the 1050, the 650 is the best press dollar for dollar that Dillon makes.

I've got 20 or so 2gal protein jugs full of cleaned LC 556 brass that needs decrimping. When I get around to running all that through the 1050 to deprime, resize, trim, and flare the mouth with an M-die, mine's going down the road.

I haven't run a 1050 so I can't comment on the unit. The one thing to consider with the more automated faster production progressive presses is that while production time is decreased, the time required to change over from one round to another is increased. So if you're shooting many different chamberings, you may find it is more time and cost effective to have dedicated progressive presses set up for your most used chamberings rather than having a higher speed unit that you spend more time converting from one round to another.

Had a 1050 when I was a commercial reloader...500 rounds a day...you can do that in an hour on a 650. For that matter I just sold my 650 and just kept my two 550s..makes more ammo than you can afford to shoot...

Bob

Changeover for a 650 isn't too bad, but a 550B is much faster, in fact going from 45acp to 308 with a 550B is under a minute if you have a toolhead for each caliber, as they both share the same shellplate. A rifle looney that shoots say, 8 rifle calibers and four handgun calibers will be better served by a 550B than a 650 as the slightly slower loading rate will likely be offset by the faster changeover.

Some guys get two 550's, one for large and one for small primers, as changing primer feeds takes longer than the shell plates and toolheads, though it isn't that bad.