I have been realading on Single stage and turrent presses for years and I virtually never make a bad round of ammo . . . until I got a Dillon 650 for Christmas. I have had a LOT of problems, some I've figured out, some I haven't. I am using the Dillon 650 and a 25 year old Lyman carbide die set in 38/357 for Cowboy Action with 147 FN cast lead slugs and 3.3 grains of Unique. The problems I have experienced are:
1) The machine jamed on the seconds round.
For some reason one out of every 50 or so rounds will not deprime, then when the machine tries to prime the brass that has the primer still in it the new primer gets deformed and jams the primer mechanism. I adjusted the deprimer pin as far down as it will go without bottoming out in the case but this still happens about every 50-75 rounds. Does the Dillon 38/357 die have a longer depriming pin?
2) I had a problem with high primers.
If figured this one out, one time after clearing a primer jam I think I didn't tighen the shell plate down enough which allowed the case enough play so that the primer didn't get seated fully. I have been very careful when re-tighening the shell plate after clearing primer jams (happens often, see # 1 above). This seems seems to have fixed the problems.
3) Three (3) times I've had the bullet stick in the seat/crimp die.
I haven't got this one figured out yet. I'm thinking that to solve problem #1 and #4 I might need to switch to Dillon dies. I think this may ge cleared up if I seat and crimp in two stages.
4) Some rounds do not fit into the cylinder of my Blackhawks.
The die is screwed all teh way down sot hat it touches the shell plate and I'm very carefull not to short stroke the press. I think that the problem is that the shell plate is a far amount thicker than a shell holder on a singe stage press. I've hear in other forums that this is a problem with some non-Dillon dies. Again, this problem may be solved by getting a set of Dillon dies.
5) I get vastly underpowered loads (on one I had yesterday I'm suprised the bullet got out of the barrel).
I occasionally get scuib loads. I recently added the charge check buzzer. The buzzer goes off all the time. The brass pin on teh buzzer is always int he "V" of the push rod and every time I check it the powder charge is within .2 grains which is good enough for these very mild rounds and Cowboy Action. The super low powered rounds may have been loaded prior to adding the charge check system. A fellow CAS shooter suggested swithcing to Trailboss powder to reduce the shot-to-shot variation. Does anyone have a suggestion for my problem?
Thanks for your help.
