Help in setting up a Dillon Progressive

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ghbucky

New member
First off, thanks for all the input and great info I've gotten from a couple of previous threads asking about dies and recommendations on a progressive press. I have read through all the replies and I appreciate the time taken to answer.

I will be ordering a Dillon XL750 with the casefeeder next week. I will be loading 9mm. My normal practice is to deprime, wet tumble the brass and prime off press. So I intend to dump clean, primed cases into the case feeder.

Am I good there? The case feeder doesn't have some weird parts that can light off primers?

I have already purchased a Hornady custom grade 3 die set with the taper crimp on the seater die. I will be seating Missouri bullet coated lead bullets over Power Pistol powder using CCI primers.

Any advice on setting up the press, order of dies, etc is greatly appreciated as well as any "I wish I knew this when I started using my Dillon progressive press"

Thanks again. The accumulated wisdom and experience that is freely shared here is amazing, and greatly appreciated.
 
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olduser

New member
I have a 550 and have had better results by seating and and then crimping with a taper crimp die. I had problems getting good crimps when I tried to seat and crimp at the same time. You do have a different set of dies.
 
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Jim Watson

New member
You must have a 9mm "caliber conversion" which includes the shell plate and "powder funnel" which is also the expand/flare plug.
Also dies, of course.

My normal practice is to deprime, wet tumble the brass and prime off press. So I intend to dump clean, primed cases into the case feeder.
Click to expand...

Since you plan to circumvent part of the progressive operation, you must remove the decapping pin from the sizing die. I don't THINK an empty primer feed will affect operation with primed brass coming through. I can't see where there is anything in the case feeder that would pop a primer.

Wet cleaned brass is typically VERY clean and metal on metal friction can increase effort to resize the cases and especially to pull out the expander. Consider a LIGHT spritz of spray lube. Use little enough and you won't have to reclean the loaded ammo.
 
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ghbucky

New member
Thanks, Jim. The Hornady die set isn't supposed to need lube, but I'll keep an eye on that aspect. Appreciate the tip.

DaleA: I hadn't considered that aspect, but I guess if I'm going to ask from the community, I should be prepared to give. Fair enough, and thanks for pointing that out.
 
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jetinteriorguy

New member
With coated bullets I’d definitely seat and crimp in two steps to prevent scraping the coating off. I personally seat and crimp separately for everything I load regardless of bullet type, pistol wise. On my 550 I use a Lee Pro Disc with the NOE powder through expander and it works really well, although I see you can get a similar setup for the regular Dillon powder measure too. Personally I’m not a huge fan of Power Pistol, it meters great and shoots great, I just don’t care for the muzzle flash. Good thing I have about 10 lbs, hah. I’m still playing with it to find a way to use it up.
 
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Jim Watson

New member
You don't HAVE to lube brass for the titanium nitride that Hornady uses in pistol sizing dies instead of the carbide in most other brands.
But just a little will reduce the effort on the handle.
 
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Seamaster

New member
When I purchased my 650, I ordered it in .40SW, it included the .40SW caliber conversion kit, being a newbie to reloading, i ended up purchasing Dillon .40 SW carbide dies, for me it made it easier to learn how to set up the machine.
 
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akinswi

New member
bucky,

Congrats on going blue lol .

The reason for a progressive press is to deprime and prime on the press. also you dont have to deprime to wet tumble. You can wet tumble then dry your cases. I use a lyman case dryer and it will dry even if water is underneath the primers in the pockets.

The whole purpose of progressive reloading is to remove some of the steps you mentioned. such as priming the cases before you put them into the case feeder.

I actually ditched wet tumbling when i went progressive so i could skip the drying step all together

But you got a progressive press so that first station in pistol reloading is 99% of the time used to de prime on up stroke and prime on down stroke.

9mm is a tapered case, I never really saw a use to crimp, again I used lee dies so my bullet seating die could crimp but I screwed it down enough to remove the flare from the case mouth. I wouldnt crimp at all if your using a plated bullet like berrys or xtreme.

Crimping is always a touchy subject experiment what works best for you.

Enjoy the new press it will last forever. You will be amazed how fast you go thru components
 
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akinswi

New member
If your interested in a case dryer Ill sell you mine for a very good price if your interested. Just PM me Ill send details
 
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44 AMP

Staff
In my semi self appointed role as the occasional voice of doom and gloom and blast from the past, here's my experience, dated and not directly applicable to your specific equipment, but still, I think, applicable in some general ways.

I got a Dillon 450 shortly after they introduced the 550. I got it (pretty cheap) from a friend who was replacing it with a pair of the new Square Deal presses, as all he did was load 9mm and .45ACP.

Marvelous machine, but it had several "quirks" and the learning curve was a bit frustrating, for me. I loaded several pistol calibers and a few rifle calibers, and here's what it taught me...

First thing was it had a "feel" of its own. Decades of loading on single stage or turret presses taught me a feel that gave me feedback to immediately know when something wasn't right, and allowed me to stop right then, and that saved me damaged bullets, cases, and primers on numerous occasions.

Being able to feel, though the press handle when primers weren't seating right, or when a bullet had tipped too much going into the seating die. Being able to feel when a case sized, or expanded "too easily" or took too much force.

The progressive press, doing multiple operations with each stroke of the handle HIDES THAT FEEL. For example, the force used to size a case, flare and charge with powder at the same time is more than the resistance you would feel if a bullet isn't seating straight, and you could mash things before the unusual resistance becomes apparent.

My particular press needed the primer slide to be worked at just the right speed and rhythm, or the primer could bounce in the cup and wind up on edge or even upside down. Sometimes, the auto drop measure would stick, despite a pair of springs on it. Nothing says "what happened??" like lowering the ram, and THEN hearing the powder measure "snap" back into its at rest position a second or three later. :rolleyes:

Visually checking the powder level in each case was awkward and required moving to look, and a good separate light source. These things have been addressed in newer designs, some have mirrors, lights, and powder check dies just for that.

I know that they have improved the features and capabilities of progressives since I used one, all I'm saying is that you are going to be doing several processes at once and getting everything set up and not only adjusted to make good ammo but also timed properly with the other things the press is doing at the same time can take a bit of finicky work.

Adding in the complexity of a case feeder, auto prime and or auto indexing features just adds in more things to be tweaked so everything runs right. Not impossible, just mostly minutiae you need to consider and be aware of.

My personal experience was that it wasn't "plug and play" it was more "tweak and pray". But once you got it right, it was pretty good. For some rounds, anyway. Found out early things went better if I sized rifle brass separately. YMMV.
 
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ghbucky

New member
Appreciate the input.

I know some have said I'm sides stepping some of the steps the press is meant to do, and yes, I am. I long ago stopped depriming on my main press because it is nasty and I don't want that gunk building up on my main press, so I use a single stage press dedicate to decapping.

I recently somehow broke my small primer seater for my turret press. Rather than not be able to prime while I waited for a replacement I ran out and picked up an RCBS hand primer.

What a marvel! I set down to watch a movie with 100 primers. By the time the movie was over I had 400 primed cases and never had a single issue. I even was able to catch 3 brass that needed the primer pockets swaged. Those 3 cases would have been a problem on a progressive.

I see no reason to deal with primers, at all, on press any longer. Maybe real experience will later inform me of the error of my ways.

The press is due here Thursday.
 
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44 AMP

Staff
What I "reverted" to after passing on my old Dillion to someone who wanted it more than I did, was my old friend the single stage, and "batch" operation. Decap and size all the brass to be loaded. I also prime "off the press" The RCBS tool is a gem, and best of all uses my standard RCBS shell holders.

If I'm doing pistol cases, I flare the entire batch THEN prime. That way, if a case mouth cracks, which, in my experience happens during flaring, if/when it does happen, I don't have to worry about recovering the primer from a failed case.

I would think that if you're setting up your progressive to be fed sized, primed brass, it should run like a sewing machine (smoothly and rapidly) until you run out of components.

After trying to do it all on the Dillion, I did that loading rifle rounds (.223 mostly), sized on single stage, primed off the press then used the Dillon to charge powder and seat bullets. Worked really well that way, for me.

Enjoy your new tool (aka toy) when you get it. The folks at Dillion are good people who make a good product. And they do a fine job of standing behind it, if you ever need parts (odds are you won't) and very helpful if you've got questions. Though its been a long time since I dealt with them, I don't think that's changed.
 
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akinswi

New member
44amp, you 100 % correct except some progressive presses, like the Lee Pro 1000 you could feel the primers being inserted and if you didnt get that feel 100% of the time it didnt prime or worse… it stuck in there sideways.

But your experiences , like mine taught me on my 550, I just load 1 cartridge at time and roated to each station especially rifle cartridges gives you a lot more quality control.

I dont know how many people use two presses for two different operations, But for rifle ex 30-06 I usually will deprime and size on my forster coax then do the rest after trimming. this us soley because trimming is another step I gave to remove the case anyways off the press, I have in the past swapped out tool heads aswell.

Bucky, one thing you will notice that on the dillion you will get very little if any debris on the press when depriming. If you ever choose to deprime on it.
 
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ghbucky

New member
Bucky, one thing you will notice that on the dillion you will get very little if any debris on the press when depriming. If you ever choose to deprime on it.
Click to expand...

Thats interesting. On my Lees it makes an awful mess.
 
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akinswi

New member
Thats because the hole where the primer falls out is inside the ram, the dillion is not that way it will be night and day cleaner
 
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ghbucky

New member
OK, the press arrived yesterday and I spent a good few hours yesterday and today getting it set up and adjusted.

Lots and lots and lots of adjustments to make. I gotta say, Dillon's manual went along fine and then just sort of stopped. I had to resort to youtube to finish putting it together. (The manual doesn't go into getting the shell plate in with the indexing doohickeys)

I also got the case feeder, and it seems pretty finicky. Already I've had it get jammed up by cases in the hopper a few times.

I think I've got the rhythm of it down now and it is impressive how fast it turns out ammo.
 
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