Rico567

{Can't remember whether I posted this fix elsewhere in the forum, if so, I apologize to the mod gods.} I got tired of the odd spent primer being spit onto the floor, so I took a .303 British case and drilled out the primer pocket to about 1/4". If the spent primer cup bracket is loosened a bit, the rim of the case slides in perfectly and centers itself in the drop channel. A bit of 7/16"vinyl host long enough to reach a plastic jug on the floor was the only other thing necessary.....and no more primers on the floor, period. NB: I suspect that rimmed cases like .30-30, 7.62 x 54R, etc. will work just as well.

I have the older style XL650, and it also lacks the zerk fittings. It's not a lot of fun, but every 4-5 thousand rounds I disassemble the press mechanism, clean all the bearing surfaces, and lube all that stuff with the grease that was included in the accessory kit.....of which I still have plenty. When I was on the phone with Dillon the other day for a broken primer punch, I asked about the upgrade to the new parts with zerk fittings. They want $45 for them, so I passed.

I think good information on these 650 topics is going into several different threads on this forum. Anyhoo, since I finally got the 650 cranked up for some Spring reloading yesterday, I implemented the two shellplate mods (needle bearing / washers + phenolic resin ball & spring), a nice cheap LED light shining down through the #3 hole in the toolhead to illuminate my powder drop, and the .303 British case mod as a replacement for Dillon's somewhat whimsical primer cup. I've seen that video, but no longer have the link. Here's a pic of what I did, it's beautifully simple (or I probably wouldn't have tried it):

Finally started to run low on pistol ammo, so I unlimbered the 650, and applied several mods I read about here and elsewhere. 1. The combination of the needle bearing / 2 washers mod on top of the shellplate, plus the phenolic ball and shortened spring under it has (as far as i can tell) virtually eliminated any shellplate "snap" or impact when stopping. No powder shaken from case any more. It seems like some people had to bend the ejector wire to make this work, but I did not. 2. I used the drilled-out .303 British case slid under the primer cup bracket to replace Dillons' whimsical cup. As it happens, some 7/16" vinyl tubing I had around left over from homebrewing was a perfect interference fit onto the .303 case, and thence down into a container. 3. I found a battery-powered LED light on Amazon for a few bucks that is really nice when aimed down through #3 hole in the toolhead into the case, to show the powder level. All good mods!

It's unfortunate, but all manufactured products -ALL- have a failure rate. No one is immune, and the processes necessary to get a 100% perfect product would price the manufacturer right out of the market. The beauty part about the Dillon equipment is, as has been pointed out, that we know it will be taken care of.

Even easier to find. A .44 spl or mag case. Drill out the center and it slides right into the Dillon bracket. Yeah, some commenter on the YT video said a .45 Colt case can also be used the same way. I had the empty .303, so there you are.

If you happen to be able to get an empty .303 British case, there's a YT video showing the easiest conversion I've seen. Since the .303 is a rimmed case the rim fits right between the sheet metal bracket for the primer cup and the press frame, and the groove above the rim slides right into the square cutout in the bracket. Just drill out case head, back out screws, slide in case, retighten screws. Good bye, misbegotten Dillon primer cup. Hello, tube into a bucket.....

Finally got around to doing my own fix on the misbegotten Dillon primer cup problem.....then it turned out I didn't have to do much. There's a YT video on some Aussie (sounds like) who just used a .303 British case. Beauty of this is 1) it's rimmed, so it can slip between the sheet metal bracket that holds the Dillon plastic cup, just back off the screws enough, and 2) the groove above the rim of the .303 case slides onto that metal bracket like it was made to do it. It's Zen, I tell ya! Then there was the nice part (apart from having several old .303 cases lying around), which is that I had several old pieces of 7/16 OD / 5/16 ID vinyl tubing of the appropriate length on hand, and that stuff has just a beautiful interference fit over the case neck of the .303. Total actual work involved: Drilling out the case head of the .303 case with a 5/16" bit. I now have a straight shot for primers....right into a bucket!

They want HOW much for one of those PAL-fillers? $225? Somebody's dreaming.....OTOH, P.T. Barnum had it right, there's one born every minute. It's basically the same plastic design as my old Vibra-Prime that I bought for peanuts back when they were first making them....and I hear they're making them again.

I'm having a hard time seeing what this ongoing controversy is about. I had my 650 for some time before I read a thread about this vertical movement in the toolhead. Since yeah, I'd noticed it, I read a bit further, and then checked OALs in every round for a while, and they were all fine. I follow the reasoning of those who say 1. the press does all work (except priming) on the upward travel of the ram. 2. Where resizing, expand / powder drop, seat and crimp end up is all the same, with the toolhead pushed all the way UP against the frame. 3. Since that's what all of our adjustments are based on (top of travel), how can it be off? As for things involving any wear in this movement, I just can't see where there's any abrasion / friction in this process, so I can't understand where the wear would arise. As for shimming....well, I suppose it can't really hurt anything, but I see no reason in my own ammo to do anything.

"rjacobs" comments: "I can break a 1050 down and put it back together in about 15-20 minutes and that includes cleaning every little part and re-applying grease where it needs to be." It's finally nice to know the secret identity of "The Flash." I can't come close to that for my 650.... "Democritus367" comments: "I'm curious where you find supplies in these quantities?" My solution is to find an online supplier that will do backorders, and they are out there. Then the stuff just comes in. It's true that I need to have a stockpile to meet my current reloading needs, but that's what inventory control is all about.

Just another operation, to add to all the others we do- sort out the .357 Sig when loading .40, watch out for the SPP and .45 Glock cases when doing .45. And, of course, for those who do 9mm, watching out for those pesky .380 cases.....

There is some confusion about police and guns among the shooting fraternity. The Range Officer at our shooting club is a career cop, a crack shot, and responsible for firearms training for his department. He told me that there is no necessary correspondence between someone who wants to be a police officer and someone who likes guns or even wants to shoot. He said that the average cop looks upon his sidearm and ammo as a couple of pounds of dead weight on the belt. On training days, he has caught officers giving away their free ammo to others. And, we must admit, it's possible for a cop to go through an entire career and never shoot a gun for "real," and 99% of all police work has nothing to do with guns or their use. So- they're just playing the odds......and don't we all, in one way or another? As shooters, and even people (such as myself) who just LIKE guns, we tend to project onto these people, and make the connection by saying "Wow, if my life depended on it, I'd sure become a better shot." Really? Statistics show that the average driver sucks, our lives depend on our driving skills, we're a WHOLE lot more likely to be maimed or killed in a car wreck than even a cop is to be shot in a gunfight, but when was the last time any adult you know attempted to improve -or even question- their driving skills? All this being said, yeah, the qualification course for the department that shoots at our range is a joke. Any club member I know can shoot and pass it while asleep. Hand most of those officers the U.S. Customs drill, or the Air Marshal drill, and all they'd get is a Did Not Complete.

I started in Season 1 enjoying this show. By Season 3, Episode 3, I'm in a very different place. Too much yapping, personalities, more yapping, too little shooting. Short version: More matter & less art! I call it "Tolerating Top Shot" these days. I do the following: 1. Record on DVR 2. Fast forward to introduction of weapon / practice 3. Fast forward to Challenge. 4. Fast forward to Elimination shoot-off. 5. Have muted at nearly all times to shut Colby Donaldson up. When I do these things, it works for me!

I run a 3.5 lb Ghost Rocket an the light Wolf spring (4 lb, I think?) in my G24. That being said, I'm nothing but stock (the 5 lb or whatever it is) in my other Glocks. For me, game guns are fine, and I love the 24 for that. Carry or general purpose, never.

To address the question of lead hardness. Lead bullets are made in either of two processes, swaging or casting. In swaging, the lead is cold-formed in dies into the final bullet shape = soft lead used. In casting, the lead (almost always an alloy) is heated molten and poured into a mould. Depending on the alloy and to some degree on the process, the bullet may be of varying degrees of hardness. Back in my casting days (long since departed) I had access to linotype metal, which produces a very hard bullet. Never had any leading issues, unless I was dumb enough to start pushing .357 Magnums up over 1200 fps. NB: None of the preceding is meant to endorse the use of lead bullets in Glocks. They say not to use them in the standard Glock polygonal barrel, and with good reason. Me, I no longer cast bullets and haven't for 20 years, but that's because I finally learned enough about the long-term effects of heavy metals like lead on the human body, and got out of that particular pastime. Now I just shoot Rainier plated......

I'm pretty big, and can't abide having my pinky dropped off the bottom of the grip. Also see no sense in increasing the size of the gun by adding lips, extensions, or what-not onto the bottom. Don't care for 9mm as a defense load, so that means = G23. PS: I probably should add that although I own the G23, it's all purely theoretical, since I live in the P.R. of Illinois, and so cannot legally CCW.

I've had my Vibra Prime since I got it from Midway for $20.....best $20 I ever spent reloading. Hard to do without it now. I think some of these needed a really tiny bit of trimming the plastic on the holes in the tray that the primers fall through, and that was the reason some people became frustrated with them.

As others have suggested, your first move at this point should be to CALL DILLON. Some folks like to complain that Dillon is pricier than some other reloading equipment. This is true. But part of what you are paying for is the best warranty/service there is. And the warranty applies to you, even though you're the second (or 44th) owner. Although it sounds like you've got a good handle on the issues you've been having (and that's a good thing- do it yourself and you'll understand the machine better, call Dillon up and explain your issues, and I expect you'll be gratified with the result.

"Flexmoney"'s advice is excellent, speaking from over 40 years of reloading. Develop a system, know that it works, and do not deviate from it. Nowhere more than in reloading is "the devil in the details." To my mind the biggest factor in enabling attention to detail is the most important line in "Flexmoney"'s post: Turn off your phone, kids, wife and dog. We tend to be unaware of the multitude of distractions in our lives, and these have no place at the reloading bench. I've cringed on multiple occasions, reading of someone talking about watching TV, listening to the radio, or drinking alcohol while reloading. I do all those things......upstairs and away from the bench. I think I fail to appreciate my dark and rather "unfinished" basement, because other people tend to stay out when I'm doing things, such as reloading. Of course, I had a dear friend who violated all those rules, and pretty much his whole life, God rest his soul.....and he got away with it. He tended to reload already loaded, play all sorts of music, smoked like a pile of burning tires, kept open containers of powder sitting around and glass jars full of primers. He was not only a poster boy for how not to reload (he once loaded 5K (yep, that's 5,000) blue pill .38 Specials, and to top it off was likely to have his casting furnace -in the same area- all fired up. And yet the closest he ever came to a disaster was bulging the barrel of a 1911 with another of his famous nitro loads. He died on his kitchen floor of congestive heart failure. The question is: do you think he was a statistical anomaly, and do you feel as lucky?

I put a KKM barrel in my G24C, just because I wanted a non-comp barrel and wanted conventional rifling. Great barrel!

I'm a cat litter bucket fan......although I don't own a cat. The buckets come from one of the kids who has cats. For really LONG term storage, if the cases have been cleaned and polished, I recommend the big Ziploc bags. A gallon Ziploc will hold right around 1100 .40 S&W cases, and they make those bag bigger......the bags will help prevent corrosion better in really long-term storage.

Interesting that I should encounter this thread after running into these "ringers" (sic) for the first time in a batch of .357 magnum that had been sitting around for at least a decade. Given what they were, there was no question in my mind of crimped in primers = impossible in .357 Magnum. Given the history of my brass, and the fact that I'd never encountered this before, I conclude that it's simply a corrosion caused in the primer pocket are over time, and the radius of the primer cup has deteriorated enough and the sides adhere to the case enough that it just separates. Note: these were nickel cases, and no matter how much I tried to pry one of the "rings" out of the pocket, they were stuck in there for good.

I decided to get an aftermarket barrel for my G24C so that I wouldn't have the front sight blacked out immediately and I could try some lead bullets if I wanted. After some research, I bought a KKM. It's been great, every bit as accurate and reliable as the Glock ported barrel, and that's saying a lot.

I only use CCI or Winchester primers in my 650; probably because of a habit of 20 years of only using those brands in my Lee progressives, since those were the two brands they recommended. I have no trouble with either of these brands. I think trouble is more likely to come from a dirty primer feed mechanism or from a few types of cases that have a very sharp radius on the primer pocket than from a particular brand of primers.