DubfromGA

Appreciate your insight. Trimming is certainly going to come into play at some time in the near future. How much or how little depends on if I finally get bitten by the .223/5.56 bug. I've been holding off getting too deep into that direction until I get my handgun range fodder and hunting ammo dialed in. Some of the extruded powder I'm planning on using has me wondering how constant the drops will be from the Dillon powder measures. The good news is that it'll be easy to pull the filled case of the 550C and weigh it.......could always set the drops to be slightly low....trickle up to exact. I'll still be way more efficient than I was with the single stage. 2 XL650's and another press for rifle has to be a sweet layout. Your time is spent producing ammo vs setup time. I'm hopping this will work out well. I'm excited to get back to running my own ammo in my guns. Getting closer on getting the rifle stuff I wanted to start with: .30'06 & 45/70 and shortly down the road maybe 270WSM. Been picking up manuals, primers, bullets, brass, case gauges & powder. These DVD's have been helpful, too. Back in my prior handloading days the basic stuff was what I used to clean & polish brass.....figured I'd go back with the similar for starters this time around. I've not done enough research into the ultrasonic cleaners. I've not added the rifle dies just yet. I'm checking into some options and waiting on some reply emails. I had some questions about using the powder funnel that comes in the Dillon conversion kit with various other brands/types of dies.

Forgive my ignorance.....but are you using the Dillon powder funnel or an aftermarket version ? I've got a learning curve ahead of me. My prior experience with handgun rounds was always with smaller expansion and jacketed hollow points for hunting. Coated lead and plated is a new territory for me. Really grateful for the knowledge that's shared here at B.E.'s shooting forums.

My thought process when I recently bought my xl650 was to add the parts kit to my order. This way I'd have the normal stuff to keep the press running if any of the usual suspects wore out. My plan was to call Dillon and let them know and have the part used from this kit sent in for replacement. This way I'm never out of commission. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see how it works out when I finally get my stuff set up. Work schedule has been crazy....able to pick up additional 12 hr shifts on my days off and am taking advantage of it while I can.

Thank you for the heads up and the smart methods to help countermeasure the problem @S&W627shooter and @78Staff That slick little Ammobot magnet sleeve is mighty cheap insurance like @GregJ said.

Man, that looks really nice !!!!!

Those Mr Bullet Feeder Powder Funnels seem to be the ticket with coated lead bullets. I may order one for 9mm & 45acp. Agreed on the Inline Fabrication lights (and Dan's Ultramounts are sweet, too). What's funny is I ordered the 650 w/ casefeeder......then turned around and also ordered a 550. I want to leave the 650 setup for my target stuff that'll be shot in greater quantities.....and then have a press to use for hunting loads and such. Gonna be set, I hope.

Very fortunate. I wanted to put mine in the garage, but the ambient humidity is simply too high. It would have been a miserable affair sweating away while using equipment that was rusting. One of things I won't miss if I move away from this area.

I suppose I should. I never expected to find myself on a gun forum that restricts content on the 2nd Amendment and such. Understandable about the competitive shooting arguments, though.

That's pretty awesome right there. I'm glad to have found out about them.

Absolutely sucks that you are LEO and under-supported in that way......in addition to the general media and leftist political under-support. It's like adding insult to injury. You are hired to do a job.....yet not given the tools to hone your skills and maintain them. God forbid you ever need to use those particular skills..... Yet..I"m sure they find away to scrounge up enough county/city tax money to fund some ridiculous social projects and safe spaces for junkies to shoot up. This kind of crap makes me furious. Okay.....rant over. I'll shut the heck up now. I can't begin to advise anyone else but simply tell you what I decided to do and my rationale for doing so...... I'm just now getting back into reloading and doing so with my first progressives. I'd figured I'd need about 800 rds a month in 30/70 mix of 9mm / 45acp target ammo. (9,600 rds) My father also wants me to keep him supplied with 38.spcl. That could easily be more than my own 9mm / .45acp needs. (~ 10,000 rds) I don' t often shoot my AR and am sitting on a few thousand rounds of .223/5.56 of loaded ammo. I'll begin saving the brass and begin loading it at some future point. I like what I've seen of the Dillon case trimmer. I'd likely set it up on a toolhead for the 650 and resize and trim 'em like a beast. That system looks to be capable to churn them out. In addition to target rounds I have a pair of .30'06 rifles I'll be hunting with in addition to 270WSM, .44mag & .45/70. I'll be adding an M1A .308Win that will be a range toy and eat up some ammo, too. While the actual hunting ammo won't be near the round count as the handgun target stuff......it does take considerable load development and tweaking. I decided to buy two presses. 1) XL650 with case feeder that has dedicated toolheads (with dies, powder measures, powder checks) for 9mm, .45acp, 38spcl/357mag and .44spcl/mag. 2) 550C with dedicated toolheads (no powder measures) for the hunting rifles and other stuff that I'm doing load development with. I'll likely be doing manual powder weighing/dumps using an auto measure unit (undecided on which at this point). I think I'll be very well served with this config as I can leave the 650 set up for longer runs and the 550 looks like it will give me the ease of control and ability to change calibers insanely fast. I went with Inline Fabrication Ultramounts & light kits for each. It was an investment, but didn't thump my wallet too bad. I opened up the gun safe and took a long critical look and decided to flip a few guns that I simply never shot or never shot well and let those proceeds mostly fund this deal. Hopping to be setup and running in the weeks ahead.

Thank you, Jack. It was a big investment but the timing was ideal. I think I'll be happily setup for many, many years of good service from these presses.....plus it'll be big fun, too.

Thanks @iflyskyhigh I appreciated your post. The XL650 I"d ordered direct from Dillon came in last month and remains i the box waiting on me to get some time off to play with it. I wasn't aware of Titan Reloading until your post here. I checked them out also bought a new 550C from them during one of those recent "Dillon Daze" events for free shipping, no tax and $40 off. Great deal. I"m set on presses for my needs now....just will need more primers, powder and dies, lol.

Awesome. I think I may have the same swing-out bullet tray holder from IF, too. I wasn't sure how it'd work with the cover until I saw your pic. One of these days I'll get my stuff setup, lol. Hoping to have a few hours this afternoon....and get a good start, at least.

I've been out of the reloading game for 12+ years or so. I used to really enjoying getting my off-the-rack basic bolt action hunting rifles dialed in with super-accurate loads on the single stage RCBS I had. Work, family and etc dominated my time and hunting fell off....thus the need to reload. I sold all my gear to a hunting buddy who has been using it with great results ever since. I do find myself getting by the local indoor range weekly and burning through some 9mm, 45acp and other stuff. I also have some offers to hunt with some friends at places that are much closer to home than my old leases.....I'm talking like a 15 minute drive. Looks like I'll take them up on the offer and sneak out to some hunts this year. My father is really enjoying his retirement and is hitting the indoor range twice a week. He's made the comment on a number of occasions that he'd love it if I was reloading again and could keep him fed with .38scpl wadcutter rounds. Last month my Dillon XL650 arrived on my doorstep. Since then I've bought the case feeder and a few full quick change setups for 9mm, 45acp, 44scpl/mag, .38spcl/mag. Once I get it set up in the weeks ahead (when I have some time off work) I will be rolling my own target loads once again. Here's the crazy part......I decided to go ahead and get a 550C, too. Tracking info is showing it'll be on my doorstep sometime tomorrow. I'm planning on using it for .30'06, .45/70 and .308win in the beginning. The powder measure that comes with it will be actually used on a toolhead for the XL650. I'll most likely be manually weighting and trickling each charge for the rifle loads on the 550C. A buddy (mainly a handgun target guy) said I was nuts for simply not doing everything on the XL650. I can understand his point, but I wanted the manual indexing of the 550 and faster changeovers with no casefeeder parts to condend with. The toolheads & conversion kits alone will pay for the 550 as I add more calibers in the future (none will use powder measures). I can leave the XL650 setup for larger runs of target stuff and be able to do whatever the flavor of the day is on the 550C. Looking forward to getting going again. Glad to have gone with Dillon finally.....it's been a long time coming. I'll have plenty of questions in the future and will be grateful for the help that is found on this forum.

Awesome. Thanks for the pics & info. I''ll be using the same Ultramount, press, IF handle, case feeder and cover..............as soon as I get the time to set it all up.

Cool. Thanks for the info.

So....my ignorance to the subject is evident....a Les Baer Monolith or Monolith Heavyweight would both be illegal gaming guns ?

I have a Loaded in .45acp and a RO in 9mm. Both were bought within a month or two of each other with manf. dates that were just weeks apart. The Loaded, after a set of VZ grips + a Smith & Alexander magwell mainspring housing installs sets up very close to my non-railed TRP. It's very accurate and the trigger is good. Tightly built gun. The sights are identical. It's had a great deal of carry time. Does have an ambi, which I used to not care for, but I'm soon facing some shoulder surgery on my dominant-side shoulder (right) and the gun will be getting some left-handed carry. The RO was bought simply for range use.....thinking that a 9mm would be nice to have due to ammo cost. The adjustable sights are well made, but harder to see. I bought a Dawson fiber optic front sight that I need to install. Trigger is great. Also a tightly fitted slide to frame fit. Accuracy is very good. No ambi safety, which is fine for the range use it gets. Both guns have match barrels. Same trigger config in each. Both pull at medium effort and break clean. Zero complaints with either gun. I like the clean slide on the RO as I never use front cocking serrations and they simply chew on my holsters some more. I'd have omitted them from the Loaded & TRP had I been given a choice. Can't go wrong with either.....really just comes down to which options you'd like.

Are there aftermarket powder funnels that will work best with the Dillon dies & coated 9mm bullets ?

Wow. That is crazy.

Awesome. Gotta love that Kroil. Stuff works wonders for many situations.

Thanks for explaining things clearly. Thanks for asking this here. I had the same questions.

Those clamp lights look mighty handy. I picked up a pair of 48" LED strips from Harbor Freight Tools on sale. I'm planning on mounting them to the shelves of my bench. I'll be running a Skylight through the toolhead as well.