dcmdon

I love all 5 of mine.... 9mm, 38 Super (non Pimped out) and 3 45 ACP's... one of the .45's has OVER 15,000 rounds on it... They are tempting. $400 for a full house 1911 from CDNN

Ha. I didn't see that. Back from the dead. Ooops.

the thing I like about precision bullets is the plastic coating applied to the bullets. I've had several friends get lead poisoning from shooting and am a bit paranoid. with the Precision bullets you never handle lead. Also the base of the bullet is coated so no lead vaporizes when you shoot. I've recovered fired bullets and the coating on the base is still in tact. Also, your dies don't get dirty. Finally, there's no perceptable smoke because there isn't a lubrication groove. Finally . . really finally, they are swaged, so they are very consistent in weight and diameter. Can you tell I'm a fan? Even still, thanks for the tip. Precision bullet only really makes bullets for 9mm, 40, and 45. So there's plenty of other stuff I'll need to buy soon. I'm running out of hard cast keith style bullets for my .44 magnum. Speaking of which, no THERE is a round where you save money. $30/box vs $8/box Don

Oh man, I screwed up. I meant to say $6/box. I've corrected the post above. Either way, its much cheaper than factory ammo. Seeker, here's how it works for me. Let me start by saying that I'm an FFL and can get primers and powder for wholesale. But realistically, my pricing is worse than when most gun clubs get together and do a big order 8# of Clays = $114 1000 federal large primers = 24.50 2250 200 gr swc from precision bullets for 92.70 per thousand Do the math, or plug it into the reloading cost calculator here: http://www.handloads.com/calc/loadingCosts.asp and come up with 12.4 cents per round. sorry about that screw up. By the way. Based on my cost for primers and powder, if you could scrounge lead for free and cast your own bullets, you could put something together for 4.1 cents per round. Wow. When you figure that at $15/box, commercial ammo is 30 cents per round, its more than 7 times as expensive. Don

http://www.gunsamerica.com/947431898/Guns/Pistols/Kimber-of-America-Pistols/Kimber_Classic_Custom_Royal.htm http://www.ar15.com/mobile/topic.html?b=7&f=88&t=1008095

Wait, I'm confused. CCI is owned by federal?

The load you mention doesn't sound very different from a hot .45 ACP load. Maybe looking up some loads for that would be a good starting point. for what its worth. Hodgdon's web site shows load data for loads over 900 fps with 250 gr bullets using 231, Universal, autocomp and hp-38. http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

Don't forget Blazer Brass. They're now using small primers. I don't bother sorting. Its painfully obvious when you get one. The primer doesn't even budge. Not like if you end up with a round with a crimped primer. Much more solid. I just pull them out and throw them in the household recycling when I find them. On the 65o, its easy to pull the shell out. I actually thought of doing this since I loaded more 9mm than anything else. In the end, I couldn't justify buying brass when I get it for free by the bucket full. How's this for warped logic, I found a used 650 on USPSA.org for $850 with so many spares that by the time I sold all the stuff off in 2 large lots, the press only cost me a couple of hundred bucks, and I got to keep a set of .223 and .40 dies. So now I have a large primer 650 and a small primer 650.

Hi all, I just thought I'd share a story with you all. I've been reloading for my Les Baer Premier II for about the last 3 years. Over that time I settled on a reload that had a relatively hard crimp taper crimp, as applied by the factory Dillon crimp die. I had done this because I was having trouble with stovepipes and one of the guys I shot with in our weekly matches suggested I put a bit more taper on the overall round. (I can get exact dimensions when I'm home). Either way, my .45 reloads had s definitely noticeable taper at the leading edge of the brass. So last year I bought a Vaquero convertible on a whim, seduced by the prospect of shooting it for about $0.06/round. Great gun, but I was having problems with misfires. On inspection I noticed that my aggressive taper crimp was causing the round to sit further into the chamber than it should. So I started backing off the crimp die until it headspaced properly. At the point where the round headspaced properly, the round now occasionally went into the cylinder tightly and was sometimes difficult to eject. I lived with this until I saw a thread here on the FCD. I thought that if I backed the crimp portion of the die off, I would effectively full length resize the finished round without ever actually touching the mouth of the case. Well, $7 for the turret for my Lee Classic Cast and $15 for the die and I've now got ammo that loads and shoots flawlessly in the Vaquero. As an experiment I took 12 unsized rounds and put them into the ruger. About 4 were a little stiff. so I put some machinists blue on the rounds and tried again. The area causing the problem was about 1/8 back from the mouth of the cartridge. I applied more blue and ran them through the LFC die and noted that the die only contacted the case starting right at the same point that the round contacted the cylinder in the ruger, and continuing back for about another 1/8 inch. All of the rounds after being sized dropped nicely into the cylinder and headspaced firmly. Problem solved. Just a couple of more points. The brass used is free range pickup brass, I inspect it for obvious flaws, but I don't sort by brand. The bullets used are swaged Precision Bullets and are sized consistently and properly. Don p.s. One other thing that I may try with the FCD is to refine my very light steel loads. I've been trying to get the gun to run reliably on a 9# spring. The problem is that if the round is not just right, the extra friction is too much for the light 9# spring to overcome. I'm going to try simply excluding rounds first with a chamber gauge. I'll also test for accuracy before and after using the FCD. With the Vaquero, its just a plinking gun, but the Baer gives real good accuracy and I don't want to mess that up.

Thank you all. I ended up getting 4 dawsons to start. I'll report back once I try them out in my DW. Thanks again. Don

Here is a link to the Dawson with a standard basepad. http://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000AA2-1260219308 I'm thinking this is the way I'll go. I've got a dealer account at DP so they aren't any more than any other mags. Does anyone have any direct comparisons between the Dawson and Tripp?

I recently purchased a DW Pointman 9 (PM9) and am very happy with it. As luck would have it, I'm going to need to spend just a bit of money to get it right for me. 1) ambi safety - it doesn't come with one and I'm left handed 2) it comes with a great fiber optic front sight, in red. I'm going to have to spend $5 for some green FO since I'm red color blind and my eyes are pretty insensitive to red. But thats it!!. The gun is super accurate with my reloads although I haven't shot enough through it to be 100% sure about reliability, but its been good so far. The trigger is NICER than any Les Baer, Nighthawk, or Wilson I've ever owned. I'm not crazy about the stainless, but I may do something about that soon. I'm thinking of one of the vapor deposition coatings like IonBond for just the slide. Don

thanks for the tip on the search. I didn't know DP made mags. Are they their mags or do they tune mags made by others. Don

Hi all, I've just gotten my first 9mm 1911 and need some mags. I'm looking only for 10 round mags, so that puts Chip McCormack out. From what I've read, Tripp and Wilson seem to be the top two. Any advice is appreciated. So again, my requirements are 1) 10 round capacity 2) 9mm 1911 mag Thanks, Don

I've got a little time on a Pro 1000 and my experience is that it can be jammed up much more easily than a Dillon. The dillon doesn't really jam. You just pull the handle and it won't go down, so you raise the handle, remove the offending brass and you are back in business. You also tend not to break parts if this happens on a Dillon. I've generally done a bad job of inspecting my 9mm and .45 ACP brass. So I do have some brass related malfunctions on my press. But with the Dillon, you just pull the bad brass out and keep working the handle. I generally don't bother trying to figure out what is wrong with the brass and just toss it into the recycling bin. I recently did an experiment, I dumped a couple hundred pieces of 9mm brass onto a white towel and then visually inspected them. I pulled a few pieces with dinged up throats out of the mix as well as a couple of berdan primed steel cases and some .380. I then put them in the reloader and ran through all of them without a single stoppage. Hmm. Maybe there is something to this. Finally, I've recently been playing around with some very light .45 loads and have some reliability issues as far as chambering. All of the rounds in question dropped into the chamber of the actual Kart bbl in the gun. I'm using a 9# recoil spring rather than a 16 lb in my 1911, so these are very light loads. I waiting on a recently purchased Lee FC die to see if that helps. I purchased one for 9mm along with another head for my Lee turret. I'm thinking I'll manually run any rounds I'm going to use in a match through the FCD. The dies in the dillon are also Dillon dies with the standard .45 taper crimp.

I'm a dillon man, with one exception. I love my Lee Classic Turret. All the good of a single stage, with just a bit of extra speed. As far as Lee Progressives, I can only go on what others tell me. I just spoke to a guy (The undertaker at my grandfather's funeral of all places) who had a Lee Progressive and got tired of fiddling. He eventually bought a SDB and has been very happy. The lee sits in a box in his basement. When he found what its worth, he decided it wasn't worth bothering to list on ebay/craigslist. Thats the other nice thing about Dillon. If you list on ebay, there are fools out there who will pay our as much or more than you can buy it for brand new from Brian. One thing I learned from this guy is that if something isn't set right and you pulled the handle, you could break stuff. I've never had anything on my Dillon actually break other than the primer overflow tray. For what its worth, I know 2 people who have the LNL progressive and they love it. If I were in the market for a new press, I'd probably give that a serious look. It appears to be 650 functionality at a 550 price. Don

I just looked in my fridge and found 2 rolls of Fuji. (I shoot about 3 rolls a year). The great thing about the Fuji canisters is they're translucent white so you can see how much is in there. Don p.s. I'm not sharing. I've got 1 for each 650. ; -)

Well, several months on, I wouldn't change a thing about the classic cast turret other than the primer system. I got the better powder system because from factorysales.com the difference was only $21 vs $33. So what the heck. I've still only made about 500 rounds with it. Funny thing is that my original estimate was that I'd shoot 500 rounds of .44 mag/yr. Now it looks like it will be closer to 1000. In the past I was lucky to shoot 200 rounds/yr, simply because at $30/box, I couldn't justify it. I could shoot .45 for about $7/box and 9mm for about $6/box. The funny thing is that I'm actually thinking about buying dies for calibers that I already have for the Dillon 650 so that I can keep the dies permanently in a turret and use the Lee for load development. I don't know if it makes sense. but its SO much easier to do that kind of thing on the lee. Don

Kevin, I don't think theres a ski jump on the 550, I just commented earlier that Its surprising because on the 550 the primer system doesn't advance if there is not a case present. i.e. its a better system. But others have said thats not correct.

Crazy thing is the 550 does not have this problem. If no cartridge is present, the primer just waits for the next cartridge. Its another reason the 550 is still the most versatile of all the Dillon reloaders. You can work 1 round arund the press when working up a load and nothing gets messed up. Not entirely accurate. The 550 puts a primer on the anvil every time you pull the handle. They don't go on the floor or a ski jump but they do continue to pile up on the plate. I used a friend's 550 years ago before I got my 650. I remember not worrying at all if I didn't have a round present. It was just something that never caused problems. So what happens if you end up with 5 or 6 primers?

Crazy thing is the 550 does not have this problem. If no cartridge is present, the primer just waits for the next cartridge. Its another reason the 550 is still the most versatile of all the Dillon reloaders. You can work 1 round arund the press when working up a load and nothing gets messed up.

Finally a use for those old Fuji film containers!!! Its brilliant in its simplicity.

I'm guessing that you can't use the powder through expanding die with the dillon powder drop. Is that correct? So you still need to buy the expander from dillon Don

Thank you for the input. The fact that they are half the price doesn't hurt either. I don't want to be penny wise and pound foolish. If they were truly inferior or has some problem when used in the 650, I'd have no problem buying a set of Dillons. Don

Hi all, I've been using some lee carbide dies on my Lee turret and they seem to be really nice dies. Now I'm finding that I want to up my production of this caliber (.40) and wanted some input about using these dies on my 650. General opinions about lee dies quality vs dillon are appreciated. Don