jfrey

I have 2 SDB loaders, one for 9mm and one for .45, and I love them. No chamber problems with the dedicated Dillon dies. The auto index is great. I've tried a 550B and would rather have the SDB. John Taffin uses them and that says a lot. For the money and what it is designed to do, the SDB may be the best loader on the market. The first year I had mine I loaded over 10,000 rounds on it before my wife bought the second one.

If you're going to load 9mm or only straight wall pistol carts. the SDB is the way to go. It is simple to use and comes set up, ready to go for the caliber you choose. I have 2 and couldn't be happier with them. One is 9mm specific and the other is set up for .45 ACP. You can easily change calibers on a SDB but changing the primers from large to small and back was a pain so my wife bought me the second one so I wouldn't have to. Go with it, you'll be glad you did.

The only powder I use for 9mm and .45 ACP is Unique and I can get +-.1 gr. all the time. This is how I did it. I took the powder bar out of the hopper and took it apart. I polished the interior areas of the bar and the front surface of the insert very well with JB polishing compound on my Dremel tool. I polished it until it was shiny and very slick feeling. I reassembled the whole thing and the powder flow improved greatly. I have noticed that some interior edges of some powder bars aren't very smooth and will cause the flakes of Unique to apparently drag as they flow through and cause irratic measurements. I have also noticed that my powder measurements are more consistent if the powder hopper is at least 1/2 full and 3/4's to completely full is better. I don't know exactly what effect that has on it but it is just my observation. Grounding your press against static electricity also helps.

Berry's doesn't charge shipping for anything over I think it is $60.00. Order direct from Berry's and skip the mark up from Midway. Their shipping is too high anyway.

My Speer manual shows HS-6 7.2 to 8.0 grns. Unique is 5.4 to 6.0 grns. 231 is 5.0 to 5.6 grns. I use the Unique load for my pistols.

Get the die set and the tool head. That way you don't have to change everything when you change calibers. The tool head makes it a lot better to keep things together. It is worth the money. With the tool head you pretty much set it and forget it.

Sounds to me like you need to turn your seating die down just a little. Mixed brass can and will have slightly different case lengths so you need to set the die for the shortest brass you load. It isn't a big problem from your description. You also need to check your powder die and measure the amount of flair you are putting on the case mouth. The dies on a SDB are completely trust worthy and occasionally need to be adjusted like any other ones.

HAD a Kimber...... HAVE a Springfield. That's my take on comparing the two. The KImber fell apart. The Springer is still shooting years later. No one in our area stocks Kimbers any more. I wonder why???

I realize it is just my opinion, but I would rather load on an SDB than a 550. The manual indexing on the 550 can cause you to double charge a case if you aren't paying attention. I agree the cost of the caliber change over is a little high but by the time you buy a tool head and high quality dies for the 550, you will spend almost as much. Change over time for a SDB is only 10 minutes or so once you do it one time. For about the same price as a 650 and dies, you could buy 2 SDB's and have one dedicated to each caliber and not have to change over anything. I have 1 SDB set up for .45 ACP and one for 9mm. I just set down and load without having to do anything. As far as the comment about the SDB being small and cramped, I don't find that to be true at all. They are compact but very easy to use and see what is going on.

I have a SDB press for loading .45 ACP and one for 9mm. The 9mm press throws powder down the left side of the strong mount area when I am loading and I can't exactly figure out what is causing this. The .45 press doesn't do it. I had called Dillon a while back and the guy told me that the shell plate was advancing too fast and the powder was actually coming out of the cases I was reloading. Have any of you guys experienced this with your presses???? It's not a big problem, just messy and I hate loosing that much powder for nothing. The best I can tell it looses about 4 to 5 grains in 200 reloads. The shell plate in the .45 press looks to be carbon steel and the one in the 9mm is stainless. I don't know if this makes a difference or not. Thanks for any feedback on this problem.

I'd try www.berrysmfg.com They have good stuff too.

I shoot the 115 gr. round nose in my 9mm's and the 200 gr. flat nose in my .45's. All of my pistols like the bullets and if you buy directly from Berry's you will save money and no taxes unless you live in Arizona. I load them all over Unique.

Like some folks, I have two SDB loaders. One for large primers and one for small. They are great machines and since I only load pistol rounds, they are perfect for what they do. I don't like the manual indexing on the 550. Loading rifle ammo is a more exacting endeavor and I would use a single stage press for that.

The SDB is a great machine and you will very satisfied with the operation, once it is set up. I have 2 of them, one for 9mm and one for .45. That is easier for me than changing the dies out. Once you get it going, you will crank out a lot more ammo than you intended in the beginning. That's what happens to all of us. Load and enjoy.

I haven't shot any of the Briley Signature series pistols but I have 4 of the Versatilities and they are wonderful pistols. Two fo them are linkless and two aren't. Claudio Salasa at Briley is a whiz at any 1911 or 2011 type pistol. He told me a while back that they stopped putting the linkless barrels into the guns made with the STI frames and they now only use the link barrels. Apparently they made the change back in the early 2000's. If you have any questions about the pistol, call Claudio and talk to him about it. He is a great source of information on these guns. My vote would obviously be the Briley, especially at a great price.

I've used Unique in all my .45 and 9mm loads for quite a while and am really happy with it. Haven't found any reason to change.

I'm seating my bullets at 1.200 +- .001 COAL for my 1911's. I've shot a lot of these bullets in my 1911's and they work fine, but again, they won't function in my G36. If your G21 has a longer ramp or the bullets sit higher in the magazine, they might work better. It has been my observation that with the flat point and coming fairly straight out of the mag at a low angle, there isn't anything to turn them up enough to feed into the chamber. Such is obviously not the case with my 1911's as the bullets in the mag sit higher in relation to the chamber.

I load the Berry's 200 gr. FP bullets over 6.0 gr. Unique for all my 1911 pistols and they work great. I tried to shoot some in my Glock 36 and they would jam on the end of the short feed ramp. You might want to try a few first and function check them in your G 21 before you load up a lot of them. My G36 has to have round nose bullets to function properly. It doesn't like the Speer Gold Dot loads either because of the big hole in the end will hang occassionally. Try a few and see how they work, and go from there.

I have 2 SDB's and they are great. Simple to use, auto indexing, reliable. No, you can't load rifle ammo on them but I use a single stage for that anyway. I guess I am #4 since I load the 115 gr. bullets from Berry's and like them so far. I also use Unique powder which will tell you very quickly if you double charge a round. I polished the interior surfaces of my powder bars which almost completely eliminated any and all powder flow problems. The combination works for me anyway.

Unique does very well in all my 1911's. More case volume and less of a chance of double charge.

My twin SDB's are great. One for 9mm and one for .45ACP. Don't have to swap primers that way. A friend of mine started out with a SDB and went to a 650 to keep up with his hungry 1911. Welcome to the blue side. You won't regret it.

Keep the SDB. Getting rid of it would be a large mistake. Get the strong mount instead and load happily there after.

Unique works for me, 9mm and .45.

I wrote them a letter some time back, with a couple of ideas I had for some simple accessories I thought would be a good addition to their line. Nothing extravigant, and simple to produce. I guess they weren't interested as I never heard anything from them. I would have appreciated a simple "thank you- we'll consider your idea". Dillon is a great company, but apparently if it isn't their idea, they aren't interested.

It took 5 boxes to get a 1050? Wow! My poorly SDB came in one box, but I wouldn't trade it.