Jailbirdwatcher

550B with 308 win conversion, strong mount, and bullet tray. Ordered June 6th from Brian's store Complete order Received July 2nd

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my reloading bench. I built it myself from shelving steel and plywood. It is fairly heavy and does not require being bolted down. Right now I have too many toys to mount all ov them on it. I suppose I will have to build another one sometime.

Thanks for the input. The Redding sizer die was defective. I have sucessfully resized a few cases with an old rcbs die that I have. The machine seems to be working OK. When I sat the whole thing up, I used the alignment tool I got from Dillon. With the whole thing disassembled I centered the platform with the tool installed in a powder die in the first station. The "guage" was inserted in the primer insertion hole in the platform. I snugged the capscrews as suggested, and worked the ram up and down many times. There was absolutely no contact with the guage at that time. However when I installed the primer feed system, there is a slight amount of pressure on the platform (side pressure) caused by the operating rod. With the alignment guage still in station 1 if I move the ram up there is slight contact with the guage. The ram will still pass, but it does come into slight contact with the guage. Apparrantly it is caused only by natural tolerance built into the machine, as all the above componants are new and have never been used before. I guess that sometimes I am just a little too picky.

I'm in the process of setting up my first Dillon machine. When aligning the platform with all attachments removed there is zero contact or movement of the alignment tool, however when the primer feed assembly is installed the operating rod seems to put some tension on the platform, causing some contact and movement with the alignment tool. I know Dillon makes no suggestionn to recheck the alignment after the attachments are on the machine, but it seems that there will be slight misalignment when loading ammunition. The reason I brought this up is that I crushed two cases when I first put the machine together. I blamed it on a defective Redding carbide resizer die and returned that piece to the vendor for a replacement. It appeared that the carbide ring was installed upside down in the die body. Now I'm sitting around looking for trouble and familiarizing myself with the Dillon Machine. I am extremely impressed. I have used a Lee Pro 1000 for quite some time (successfully) and it really doesn't compare to the 550. Maybe I am just splitting hairs??

Just wish I had a source of way cheap Dillon stuff. I could keep what I want and sell the rest for profit. As it is, I just keep buying new stuff and paying full price. And those folks just keep coming up with new toys to tempt me!

Anyone notice that most of the Dillon reloading equipment for sale on E-Bay gets bid up to, and beyond the retail price of new. I just happened to be browsing the site and couldnt believe what I saw. I know the stuff holds it's value but I never dreamed it would be like that. I figured I'd pick a few items up for half price or slightly more. I WAS MISTAKEN. Might as well buy new stuff, I guess.