gigs

The cam-over or at least moderate shellplate contact helps keep your trim/size in tolerance. Something to consider. If you set up everything so it's completely floating, you'll likely start to see a larger range of trim sizes and headspace tolerances. I don't know how hard you are hitting, but some contact is a good thing.

Dillon is right, I've never seen their shellplates be out of round or have issues like this, but I have seen GS shellplates where some of the sections slightly protrude (like 0.003 thousandths, not terrible) more than the others. I still run GS shellplates because I like his design better, and they don't seem to warp/get damaged as easily as Dillon's, but sometimes they require a little bit of sanding/polishing to get them perfect. If this is a Dillon shell plate this is a weird issue. Regarding priming, the white tab should not need to be that close. Crushed primer cup edges are due to insufficient swaging 9 times out of 10. Running CCI primers is another factor. CCI leaves their cup edges very sharp.

http://ballistictools.com/articles/650-swager-review.php Don't know if you already saw my writeup through Google. Bottom line, it gives mostly acceptable results for low volume use. It can't swage as hard as either of Dillon's solutions, or the RCBS. Depending on your primers and brass, it may work for you.

Just takes a lot of grease to stick those roller pins back into your Forcht bearing. BTW are you getting minor galling in the race of your Forcht bearing? It seems to be self-limiting in that it stops progressing after the bearing wears some. Maybe I just over greased mine.

I'd like to know the answer to this too please. It's because after the black plastic cam wears out some the station 1 locator can easily bounce up causing misfeeds into station 1. The grease keeps it from bouncing. I'd also recommend greasing the shafts of the little brass locator buttons. I doubt there's anyone here who hasn't been crawling around on the floor looking for those brass buttons, a little grease keeps them from bouncing out should you hit a hard stop for some reason. I have a question to add to this reply. The 1050 manual says "use no oil" and then on the very same page says "oil the mainshaft with motor oil". In my experience the 1050 mainshaft does run much better with oil than with grease. I've actually had it catch in its carriage and gall badly grinding metal using only high pressure red grease (however, that was on a Forcht rotary press that can put much more lateral stress on the mainshaft carriage). So which is it, oil or grease the 1050 main shaft?

I sell most of these, so keep in mind that potential bias. That said, I'll try to be objective, since I'm also a user of several Dillon machines running 20,000-30,000 cycles per week or more doing brass prep for 5.56 and 300 blackout. 1. Roller cam pin. I get these from showshooz, the same guy selling them on ebay and amazon, and sell them myself at ballistictools.com I think it's a worthwhile upgrade, but not a "must have". The cam pin does wear a groove in the cam, as well as becoming "fig shaped" on the end (if you adjust it often), or lopsided if you never turn it. The roller cam also seems to make the movement of case insertion a little bit less jerky, which can help prevent station 1 insertion jams. I'd rate the roller cam improvement a 5/10, nice to have but not absolutely necessary. 2. Low mass detent ball and/or reduced rate spring: Reduced spring... No, just no, for so many reasons. Low mass detent ball, absolutely recommended for both 650 and 1050. Dillon's steel ball bearings they use for detent are not all that hard in my experience and do wear out (although you might not ever get enough cycles on your machine to see it). The polymer detent balls, either phenolic or delrin, do reduce snap considerably and last nearly as long as the stock balls. If you go with a low mass detent ball, make sure it's phenolic or delrin, there's a few ebay sellers selling balls made of much less tough plastics which won't last long. I sell phenolic for the 650 and delrin for the 1050, and use them myself. Both materials wear very well, as well as steel in this application. I also sell replacement steel detents that are harder than Dillon's if you'd prefer extra long life, and don't care as much about snap or use a bearing that is working to reduce your shellplate snapping (and don't want to buy 100 of them from mcmaster). Low mass detent ball, 10/10 highly recommended, reduced spring 3/10, not recommended. 3. Bearing kits. I've never used the bronze bushing type bearing. The needle bearing really isn't any thicker than the bronze, especially since you can leave one end plate off of it if you want. This is a very worthwhile upgrade for the 650, and a marginal upgrade for the 1050. Unless you never load 380 or 9mm or anything with a full case load, definitely get this for the 650. Note regarding bearings on the 1050: It's extremely easy to damage your 1050 shell plate with a bearing kit installed if you set up your swage system so that it pop the shell plate up (or if you accidentally crash the swager into the shellplate with the toolhead removed). The bearing concentrates the stress if the shellplate flexes and can easily score the surface or cause it to become funnel shaped which will cause station one insertion problems, with as little as 10 thousandths of warpage. The other thing about the 1050 is that the area on the shell plate where the nut retains it is much larger, and the nut seems to have finer threads than a 650 shellplate bolt, as well as 4 lock screws that can be tweaked to get the exact amount of shellplate drag that you need to prevent snapping. I do sell 1050 roller bearings with the necessary o-rings, but I have stopped using them myself for the reasons cited above. Other large operations with a fleet of 1050s do swear by them, so it could have some value to you, just use with caution if you do use them. I'd rate shellplate bearings a 9/10 must have for the 650, and a 3/10 not really recommended for the 1050. 4. Roller lever. Absolutely. When I first started my brass processing business I had the ball end handle. I almost had to get carpal tunnel surgery from it. Not really exaggerating. Do yourself a big favor and absolutely get the roller handle if you are loading more than 50 rounds at a time. I also recommend the foam grip. It's tougher than it looks in the pictures, it's almost like a wetsuit material. Get it from me or Uniquetek. That helps cushion the impacts that are really hard on your wrist. I give the roller handle and the foam grip a 10/10 absolutely must have on a hand pulled press. 5. Spent primer chute kit. This is very nice to have for the 550 and 650 because it's tricky to mount a tube on the press to catch primers otherwise. No more spilling a cup full of primers, or even worse, breaking an index ring because you let it get overfull and the shellplate jammed. On the 1050, just cut off a 223 casing, jam it in the spent primer hole and hose clamp a hose onto it. 8/10 very nice to have for 650 and 550, 1/10 DIY instead for 1050. 6. Tool head lights. I can't comment on the one linked since I don't use it and never seen it in action. I think the ideal light would be a somewhat bright LED on a tiny flexible gooseneck clamped somewhere on the press. I'm not very impressed with Uniquetek's offering that goes in the center of the 650 toolhead. It really depends on what other kind of lighting you have available. I'd call some sort of on-press lighting a 7/10 probably should have with no particular recommendation as to which one to use.

I usually set mine so that the cam rod does not lift off the cam at any time, just "kissing" the brass into the fully inserted position. This seems to work best for high speed operations that I'm doing. BTW- I have the roller bearing cam rods that showshooze was selling in my store now. They really do work to prevent the cam pin from digging a path into the cam. My old cam rod was shaped like a fig on the end from the cam wearing it, and the cam had a little groove in it, even keeping it all greased. The downside of the roller bearing is that you only get two orientations, since the roller has to be perpendicular to the cam, so a little less granularity on the adjustment. The thread is fine enough that this hasn't been an issue for me, but something to keep in mind.

I have run mine for 8000 rounds at a time before. 300 blk pre-cuts at 1.390 down to 1.360 so 0.030 cut depth. The brushes on the 1200 B, well, usually just one of them, do wear down and require replacement, but in my experience they are good for at least 300-400 hours even doing long sessions, and I doubt the wear is heat related. Every 100 hours or so, I pull the whole motor apart and clean the bearings of chips and check the brushes to see if either of them are short. Pull the brushes before you take the rotor out, otherwise they can smack into each other under spring tension, potentially chipping them and shortening their life.

The more subtle symptoms of insufficient swaging are primers that shave a crescent shaped piece of brass off the top edge, leading to a flat shiny spot on that primer, and other primers potentially getting crescent shaped dents in them from the shavings. These shaved primers and dented primers will still function fine as long as the problem is not severe. If the shiny section is only the very edge then it's minor, if the primer is flat and shiny along one whole side, then it should not be used as that means there was significant damage to the cup wall on that side. Severe underswaging will lead to partially seated primers that have bulges along one edge that stand proud of the base, or even sideways primers. These should be decapped and redone and you should not attempt to use these. I've never had a detonation decapping a live primer, but it is a slight possibility so take a few minor precautions like emptying the spent primer bin first and put on ear protection if you don't always wear it. (it would make a huge mess if a live one went off into your full spent primer bin). Once you gain more experience you can hear these problems without looking at the primed brass, it makes a crunching noise when it happens. The louder the crunching noise the more severe the problem. If you hear an unusual noise on priming, start counting in your head. When you get to 5, catch the next two pieces of brass coming out and check the primer. Sometimes a shaving from a crunch can stay on the priming ram for a while and dent quite a few subsequent primers, so that's why you check the one after the crunch as well. Another caveat regarding your swaging set up, make sure that the swage rod isn't popping the shell plate up more than a tiny amount. I have warped a shell plate by running the swage system with too much shellplate pop. The symptom of this is that you start to get misfeeds on station one, the feeder won't fully insert the brass because the shellplate is higher than it should be due to turning very slightly funnel shaped. Only takes maybe 3 thousandths of warp to ruin a shell plate. On the plus side I discovered a way to fix a slight funnel warp on a 1050 shell plate, simply lap the bottom side with sandpaper on a very flat surface (thick glass works) until you see the shiny section start to extend out from the center, indicating that you have taken a couple thousandths of metal off. But best not to ruin the flatness of your shellplates in the first place. The Dillon shellplates are only case hardened and can take a bend more easily than one might think. I know this is probably way more than you wanted to know but I hope this post might be helpful to others as well.

Kind of ironic that Missouri Bullet Company would say to "buy from the pros", they sell some of the most oversized bullets. I guess it's better than undersized, but still, 0.003 over really bulges a lot and can cause chambering failures if the chamber is tight and the brass is thick. The only decent cast bullets I've seen are falcon bullet company, they run a very tight 0.001 over +- about 0.0004

Does the RT1500 use the same carbide inserts?

I just hit 15,000 rounds of 9mm on my s1050 and have never replaced an index pawl. It looks like the index pawl is the part that actually rotates the shell plate at the end of the handle up stroke. What causes them to go bad? Wear? I bought a spare parts kit, but it doesn't have an index pawl in it. The 1050 spare parts kit sucks. It contains few of the parts that do break and lots of ones that I can't imagine ever breaking. It seems like the criteria for what was included was "hey we have a lot of extra of these". The index pawl can bend/break due to a partially decapped primer jamming the shell plate, or a not fully seated primer. It can also happen if you adjust the undocumented "index limit" set screw too far in, which just makes the pawl ram into it at the end of the index. This is a very long set screw that many people don't even realize exists under station 6 that limits the index action to prevent over indexing. If you have a motorized press just take this set screw out immediately, and use your stroke adjustment and shellplate nut tension to adjust indexing action. Oh the index pawl is something soft as well, either zinc or aluminum. It gets scored by the shellplate quickly and definitely after the first jam it hits.

Ringed primers or "ringers" are indeed caused by some sort of corrosion. It happens more often in brass that has been damp or wet. If you wet wash brass with primer in, it's best to decap them promptly. You'll see more ringers after 2-3 weeks due to the dampness in the primer pocket causing this welding action.

The 650 is a complex machine, but it can run very well. Don't get too frustrated if yours doesn't run like your buddy's in the beginning. My advice: Don't assume that something not working quite right can't be fixed, just about everything can be. Don't accept the machine screwing up every 20 or 100 rounds, ask for help or adjust it until it's right. Try not to tolerate little hiccups, because they often turn into bigger damage later if not fixed. Get the spare parts kit. The 650 spare parts kit is excellent (the same can't be said of the 1050 spare parts kit, which mostly includes things that don't break!) Read the lubrication guide. Pay special attention to greasing anywhere that plastic rubs on metal. Don't be too stingy with the grease, but don't let big gobs accumulate anywhere either (except under station 1 locator, it's OK there to go heavy). An improperly lubed 650 will only go a few thousand cycles before something needs to be replaced. Probably goes without saying, but don't force anything if it gets stuck. Make sure you lube cases well too, any kind of popping or jerking in your cycle will wreak havoc on everything. I run a 650 at 2600 cycles/hour forming and trimming blackout (precuts), and the only thing that ever screws it up is brass chips on the shellplate from the vacuum not extracting them all. The machine can do very impressive things if you invest in getting it set up right.

The problem I run into is that to swage hard enough to really avoid all primer issues on the 1050 means that all the other dies are varying with the thickness of the web of whatever's getting swaged. Usually amounts to about 0.004 variation in sizing and trim if the brass is all the same headstamp. That's acceptable, but just barely.

I have a half-done drawing in CAD for a brass primer oriface for the 1050 that would still give you the safety of the plastic one. Regarding the timing/positioning issue, Dillon could fix this by making the post on the toolhead adjustable from front to back. On the modern design for the cam arm that moves the slide, there's that very thin spot that in my experience bends very easily, which can make getting the positioning right almost impossible once it's bent. I've seen pictures of older presses where this is more solid. Another trick, replace the rear spring with a stack of #8 washers. Add washers until the positioning is almost correct, fine tune by moving the cam leg around as usual. There's no need for the rear spring to be a spring really, and it just adds another variable to the mess. Just be careful, too many washers will bend your leg, so err on the side of too few.

If you call Dillon they might be able to sub in the billet into a conversion kit. Never know unless you ask.

Try some Royal Case and Die Lube. You don't have to let it dry and it works very well with the bag-and-shake method RiggerJJ mentioned. Disclosure: I do sell it, but you can get it from Midway or CTD or wherever as well.

That doesn't make much sense. The only thing I can think of is that you are actually feeling a burr or a very small ring of properly sized brass when you try to insert the bullet by hand. BTW- I do sell a case mouth neck tension tool on my site that might help you.

If the primer punch is off center when the platform is raised, then the alignment tool won't help. When the platform is down, the index block controls where the brass is, but once the platform is raised, assuming your shell plate is loose enough, the detent index ball snaps into action and that controls the brass placement. The alignment tool can correct the platform being misaligned with the toolhead, but since both the primer punch and the shellplate are on the platform, true misalignment there can't be fixed with the alignment tool. Make sure the shell plate is free enough that the detent ball goes into its holes on the shellplate. Check the detent ball for debris, and make sure the spring under it is working right. The detent ball to primer punch relationship is fixed by the geometry of the platform, so it's not something you can adjust. If there is gross misalignment on the platform, then it is possible the index block can't move the shellplate close enough to hit the next detent. But it doesn't sound like that is the issue.

The only potential issue I see is with deep primer pockets. Primers out of the box are in a sense "on safe" in that the anvil isn't fully seated. Seating the primer in the pocket pushes the anvil the rest of the way into the primer when it hits the top of the primer pocket, "arming" the primer. If a primer is seated flush to the head instead of to the bottom of the primer pocket, it's possible the first strike of the firing pin will just seat the primer the rest of the way, and the second strike would set it off. But the pocket would have to be deep and somewhat loose for this to happen. Before continuing with the large punch, I'd shoot off a few hundred and see if this is going to happen with your gun and brass.

You and Dillon are right, you can't lower the die without increasing headspace, unless it was already sizing them near maximum size and you have some room to go down. ffgats:As far as I can tell, it's one of the less common plastic flow effects you can get sometimes when sizing brass. Flow plasticity is a complex topic that has to do with the crystalline structure of the metal, which is affected by anneal/hardness, alloy, temperature, etc. I'll write up an article on less common plastic flow effects such as this one and put a post here when it's done.

I have the Dillon 223 carbide and I don't like it much. You have to bottom out relatively hard in order to fully size cases. This is fine on a single stage, but on a progressive it puts a lot of strain on everything. I could grind a few thousandths off the bottom I guess, but I can't bring myself to do that to such an expensive die.

Right. I wouldn't worry about it unless it proves to be an actual problem then. Some play is normal there.

jmorris what they are probably referring to is what I call the "waterfall" effect. This is only relevant if there's no expander ball involved, like with an RT1200 trim die.