ambidextrousone

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness" - and frequent lubing is way up there! I do a quick sort of caliber frequently: Before walnut "tumble", before corn cob tumble, and before adding to the case feeder; still they get through, and I have developed a soft touch that enables me to detect a .380 case inside a .45 case.

I strongly recommend the installation of the thrust bearing on the shell plate; it provides very smooth movement of the shell plate, and it's a cheap fix! Be aware that any bearing requires a proper preload; check my recent posts for a definitive way of getting it exactly right.

Here's another idea: How about attaching a short flat-head machine screw to the top of the locator pin with epoxy? This won't work if you're a 'type A' personality; you won't be able to wait for the epoxy to dry...

This is a very old thread, so I'm not going to go into a lot of helpful hints; but if you're reloading .32 ACP or thinking about it, PM me, and I'll tell you where I have been successful, and also comment on areas that need improvement. I'm loading on a 650, but much of what I've achieved is applicable to other presses. Regards to all, Rich

The Dillon procedure will get you close. I'd suggest that you try both methods, evaluate them, and report back. I won't bad-mouth the Dillon recommendations on this forum, and I truly don't know which metod will produce better results - or if the difference can be measured. When using either method, you should cycle the press several times to allow the bearing to "seat", then repeat the setup. You might also consider the Dillon alignment procedure, which uses an alignment boss and an otherwise unpopulated tooling plate to obtain perfect alignment at Station 2. I sense that many of us are seeking improved performance of the 650 (and other presses) by reducing or eliminating the accumulated tolerances that occur in a mass-produced machine. I'm on board with that, and hope to hear from other contributors on the subject.

Can anyone translate OIOTSTW for me?

If you have the thrust bearing installed (highly recommended!), you'll get more consistent results by adjusting the bolt to lightly preloadthe bearing. Here's the way I do it: Install the short end of an "L" shape Allen wrench in the bolt head, and make small adjustments of the bolt by moving the end of the long arm very slightly, about 1/8 inch at a time; that will turn the bolt only about 1 1/2 degrees at a time - a very small change in bolt height. Cycle the press repeatedly while adjusting the bolt; when you experience a slight increase in resistance on the down-stroke, you're there! Raise the shell plate and tighten the lock screw. Cycle the press a few more times to confirm the right amount of preload. When the thrust bearing is preloaded correctly, you will have no observable deflection of the shell plate when you press down on it with your thumb. There, another variable has been eliminated! I would be remiss if I didn't warn you that you can't raise the shell plate all the way with that Allen wrench in place; but you'll be able to advance the shell plate with the limited range of motion that you have.

No 555, and only two CMOS chips. It doesn't appear that Dillon is attempting to hide the details of their circuit; I'll try the "direct approach" some time next week. R.

Hi, Foxbat, I got the T-handle caps from a gent on ebay: Bigred44. He also has the oversize spring clips that you see on the primer tube in the pic I posted. They make life a lot easier, because the pin is in both holes before spring force is encountered. The time adjustment control isn't really necessary, as you & others have pointed out; but I'd like to have that feature anyway. I'd be pleased to work with you in developing the control (I'm an EE). PM me if you want to work on this together. We'll probably have to 'reverse engineer' the new circuit before we can design the control; that's not much fun! Rich

The thrust bearing modification (mounted on top of the shell plate)will provide better (and more consistent)positioning of the shell plate; that should reduce variation in COL. It also results in much smoother cycling of the press.

That's always an option; another solution would be to tap the "start" button, which now acts as a "start-stop" button; but I was hoping for a more "high tech" solution. When the machine is running right, 100 primers are loaded rather quickly. Since my last post, I have added blue T-handle knobs to the four bolts that hold the plastic lid in place; removal & replacement are much faster, and I have removed the wrench that had no other purpose from my reloading room. I hope I have posted a pic of this mod as an attachment.

I found the ebay seller: it's Bigred44 - easy to deal with. His are a bit less than you paid, but still more than at Home Depot; but his are blue! Bigred 44 is also where I got the oversize clips for the RF 100 primer tubes - much easier to work with! R.

I just received the RF 100 upgrade kit, and installed it in about 15 minutes; it works! The good news: It looks as if it will greatly improve the operation of the machine when using small primers. The bad news: I had planned on drilling a hole in the case to permit adjustment of the time that the machine operates. It takes much less time to load 100 primers than the timer allows. Here's the bad news: The new module doesn't have a trimpot for adjustment of the "run time. Much of the circuit board is unchanged, but the "speed" control (actually the amplitude control) is located close to where the time adjustment control was on the original board. It appears that the time adjustment trimpot has been replaced by a fixed resistor (or resistors). Other significant changes in the number and placement of components are also apparent. Has anyone decoded the new "upgrade" module sufficiently describe how to implement a "run time" adjustment for it? The switch on the upgrade module now operates as an "alternate action" switch, so that pressing the switch starts the machine, and pressing it a second time stops it; but it would still be nice to shorten the "run time" to a more reasonable interval.

In my case, the ring broke because of the volatile temper of a red-headed Irishman. Okay, I've confessed. The trigger for my ire was the accumulation of spent primers in the slide area. I have installed the primer cup replacement, but this was my first use of small primers since making that change, and they were piling up before dropping into the tube. I used a countersink to enlarge the hose fitting at the top, and all's well now. I don't want to get preachy, but we should all recognize that jams on the 650 are seldom, if ever, corrected by the use of brute force. Forcing the machine can result in broken parts and possibly detonated primers. I hope you'll all join me in taking the pledge to correct future jams by thinking instead of brute force.

The covers arrive folded flat & creased where they shouldn't be. You can spiff them up a bit by ironing out the wrong creases and adding a crease at the corners, running from top to bottom. Be aware that you are ironing a (nylon?) plastic fabric! Start with a low temperature and work up to a temperature that provides the desired results. If the cover melts & sticks to your iron, bump the temperature down a bit, and try again with a new cover .

My first press was a 650, many years ago; at my age, it will likely be the only press I'll ever own. Even if you delay your entry into reloading by a half year or so (as I did), it will be a good tradeoff for you, as it was for me. Buy new if you can, used if you must. Be sure you have the powder scale and a lot of reloading manuals. Be sure to ask for help from Dillon (or here), if you're in doubt about anything.

I know we 'professionals' don't like to do this, but that information is easy to find in the 650 reloading manual. I'm not proud of this, but I have to admit that I used the manual for just that purpose recently, to find the powder capacities of the various powder bars.

I bought my 650 and case feeder in the mid-1990s, and it was immediately obvious that the bowl of the case feeder was unnecessarily high. It's adequately high (in my opinion) if two rifle cases will fit into the plastic case feed tube. As suggested earlier. out came the hack saw, ant the black tube supporting the case feeder bowl was shortened & redrilled; the lowest part of the case feeder bowl is now about 2 inches lower than the top of the primer feed tube. If I were doing it again (and I'm thinking about it), the lowest part of the bowl would be two inches lower than it is now. Lowering the position of the case feed bowl is entirely independent of the distance the press ram will travel. Lowering the case feed bowl requires that the case feed tubes be shortened too; I'm not trying to be a smartass, just commenting on the consequences of lowering the bowl. On a related matter, the case feed tube inner & outer diameters are 'special', made explicitly for Dillon; but it's easy to find standrd tubing inside diameters appropriate for any caliber. If you have the equipment (or a good friend), the outside diameter can be increased by adding short sleeves to the tube, thereby providing promiscuous(!) fits to the Dillon parts at both ends.

I've had good results reshaping the ejector spring for optimum results with each caliber. When changing calibers, I install the custom-bent spring for that caliber. I find that coat hanger wire wire is a bit smaller than the Dillon spring, but works very well. It's a bit 'springy', and isn't likely to deform. Many of the springs I have tuned to be caliber-specific look very different from the Dillon spring - especially the one I made for .32 ACP!

I got mine from a guy on ebay; best of all they're BLUE! The same guy also sent me some oversize spring clips gratis. They're about twice the size of the ones supplied with the RF 100 primer tubes, and much more convenient. I don't have the supplier's name handy, so PM me if you can't find him. I'm slowly working my way through all the posts here, and won't be back to this thread for a while; but if I get any requests, I'll return and post the name of the ebay supplier on this thread.

I had a similar problem when loading .32 ACP. My solution was a piece of double-sided sticky tape, the kind that has a thin foam section between the two tapes. I cut it to fit inside the slide, removed the tape backing ON ONE SIDE ONLY, and stuck it in place on the slide as low as possible. This has worked so well that I have left the tape in place for every caliber I reload.