mobocracy

What's kind of strange is there's no photos of the unit itself and the videos spend no time focused on the loader, only on the shellplate area where you see bullets being loaded.

Is a light dimmer a good idea for a motor speed control? I always thought that dimmers just dropped the voltage, while actual motor speed controls oscilated the power at the proper voltage. It's probably not a problem for small adjustments or for motors designed to operate at variable voltages.

Or mine! That makes me wonder how expensive/complicated it would be for Starline to sell custom headstamped brass. Or how many people would be willing to buy a stamper with a custom stamp capable of marking 1 or 5 case heads at a time with their custom mark.

Does it have a fan mounted to the motor? I bought one from a local shop and it has a fan mounted to the motor shaft for cooling. I never thought about this until I was reading something someplace about people adding fans to the cheapie Frankford Arsenal units available from Midway and getting longer motor life. Mine's a smaller unit, and I seldom clean more than 300 cases at a time, but I've never had problems. Can't remember the brand, though.

How do you guys box up your rounds? Do you just dump them into the home-brew version of a 100/250/500 round "bulk pack" or do you package them up into plastic or cardboard boxes with inserts? I bought some of the cardboard boxes with foam inserts from Midway. It's kind of a tediuous prospect to load 500-1000 rounds into 50-round boxes, but it does give me a chance to spot problem rounds. I haven't spotted a ton, usually it's high primers in new nickel brass, and poorly seated Raineer bullets (which I don't use anymore).

You're welcome. I just thought I'd add my 10 cents while the obvious comparisons were fresh in my mind. The one thing I'd add is that I also think fine adjustments to the SDB dies are somewhat more accurate/easier since the delrin/plastic plate that "holds" the dies doesn't require a lock ring. I'm sure the 'standard' die lock ring tightening is a skill one gets better at, but it's still a tad tricky for fine adjustments (which is why Redding and others make micrometer-adjustable dies, I assume). I had always assumed that the cases were largely the same other than length, but I guess checking the Lyman Pistol & Revolver #2 next to me shows 10mm at about 8k CUP more than 40, so 10mm brass I guess had better be stronger! When I got my Glock 29 I shot a box of Remington UMC 10mm through the stock barrel and did some comparisons between those fired cases and those fired through my S&W 1006 and 1066 -- the brass was a lot more buldged on the Glock stock barrel cases, but perhaps it doesn't reach the bulging of 40S&W. I switched to a KKM barrel anyway, and I could always tell when I'm sizing the Glock-fired Rem UMC cases I found at the range vs. the ones that went through my G29 -- the KKM-fired cases need far less sizing. The one case I won't reload, though, are the very few DoubleTap cases that turn up.

I was musing on this very idea today. It seems like a lot of serious shooters (which excludes most of the droolers just emptying 100-packs through Glocks and making patterns worse than my shotgun at 25 yards with a skeet tube and #9 shot..) have mechancial-type jobs where they have to think and figure out a machine, even if its just a logical electronic machine. As our society shoves all those kinds of jobs overseas, all we have left are do-nothing office workers who don't just lack mechnical ability, they look down on it as something they pay dirty people they don't respect to do. Unfortunately I don't think this bodes well for the future of reloading. I ain't spitting out anything until Midway ships me the .32 ACP seater plug that doesn't mangle my Gold Dots. Using someone else's dies makes appreciate the Dillon dies a lot more.

I just sold my SDB on Ebay and used the funds to buy a 650. SDBs *are* easy to sell, so if you're unsure if reloading is for you, you won't be making a terrible mistake buying one. I loaded 6-7000 rounds of 10mm, .45 ACP, .44 Magnum and .44 Special on my SDB and never had any problems with it. Some random thoughts on SDB vs. 650: SDB is far simpler. I converted my 650 last night from .44 Mag to .32 ACP (including setup of the .32 dies) and it took easily two hours. Some of that is the die setup and my caution/lack of familiarity with the 650, but I think a lot of it is that the 650 is a much more complicated machine. I don't think caliber conversions on the SDB were that bad, if you had toolheads for each caliber. Without toolheads, it would be a big pain, but so would any press. I think the priming mechanism on the SDB is far superior in terms of ease of operation than the 650s. An unused primer at #2 on the SDB stays there, not taking a ride on the disc. A primer in the magazine shows up on the next handle pull, not several handle pulls later. The SDB proprietary die sets is a problem if you grow adventurous and want to load non-standard calibers; I think Dillon should come up with some way to make other calibers available to the SDB on a custom order basis. But it's not like standard dies open the door on the 650 to every caliber imaginable, either, since you still rely on proprietary Dillon conversion kits, especially if you want to use the casefeeder. In some cases you can "wildcat" and get by using other caliber parts, but you also end up losing a lot of the automation in some cases (eg, rebated-rim cases). I never had any problem resizing once-Glock-fired 10mm cases; presumably Glock barrels for 10mm suffer from the same problems as Glock barrels for 40S&W. My 10mm ammo off the SDB with those cases worked just fine in all 5 of my 10mm guns (S&W 1006/1066/610, Glock 29 w/KKM barrel, Kimber Stainless Target II). I bought the XL 650 for the increase in loading efficiency that the electric casefeeder brings (I'd like to knock off a case of ammo in an evening, not 2-3), as well as for the ability to expand what I can reload (I'm pretty sure I can drop a .357 Sig barrel in my Glock 29 and maybe a 9x25 Dillon barrel in my Kimber 10mm). But I never regret buying the SDB -- a great way to start loading, and I think in some ways a better press than the 650.

Is it purely a .32 modification? I'm going to try without and see what happens; I didn't run into feed problems while setting up the dies, so maybe it won't be a problem.

Do you have a specific parts list you could recommend, or is it just what you've listed above: 45 Colt Shelllpate (C Shellplate) 50 Act Ex Powder Funnel (same as listed for .500 S&W Mag) XL Powder Die Would the .45 Colt case feed parts (CF Body bushing, adapter, arm bushing, station 1 locator) allow you drop cases one at a time at the electric casefeed funnel opening? I'd sooner buy and install a couple of extra parts vs. taking apart the CF system. Is the .45 Colt shellplate a better fit than the .44-40 shellplate? Thanks for the info! I really have an itch to get a DE, but only if I can shoot .50 AE with it, and I can only do that if I can reload it on my 650.

I'm new to the 650. Mine came setup for .44 Magnum, which now has nicely adjusted dies, etc. I did a caliber conversion tonight to .32 ACP and in my .32 ACP conversion kit was a plastic part that appears on the schematic as the "Case Insert Slide" (Platform Assembly Diagram, item #2). As near as I can tell, the part on the machine was identical and I didn't bother installing the one that came in the conversion kit. I ran about 25 cases through the machine in the course of setting the dies and had no feed problems. Was this part included by mistake? A simple parts count comparing the conversion kit contents listed in the manual shows this as extra, and the Dillon web site makes no mention of it, and the conversion docs make no mention of it, either, other than possibly flipping the Slide Cam for rifle/pistol conversions. I've had past experience with disassembling and reassembling stuff and wondering why they included "extra" parts , just hoping I didn't do it this time...

My gripe about the "technique" wasn't that I didn't get it to work (with WLP primers), but it wasn't that miraculously fast and effortless, at least the way I assumed it would be (and the way a 'tuned' RF100 must be...) I guess it worked well enough that I was willing to waste 200 rounds of loading time (on an SDB!) trying to get it to work with Fedral 150s, which I never got right -- always a flipped primer within the first 20. My other gripe was that the Vibraprime feed ends don't hold the primers in the way the Dillon pickup tubes do. You can set a full Dillon tube down horizontally and the primers won't come out (probably upside down even, too). The Vibraprime tubes would more easily spill if not kept vertical with the cotter pin end down. For some idiotic reason it never dawned on me until after I bought the Vibraprime that I'd get most of the same benefit of "keeping going" loading if I just had extra filled Dillon tubes, even if there was extra time involved up front in loading them. It was the stopping loading, loading a primer tube and restarting that killed my pace. Now that I own a 650 instead of the SDB, I think I'll need another set of tubes filled as well as it looks like I will turning out ammo much faster. I think the Vibraprime unit would probably work better if it had a little better quality control and some tighter tolerances on its plastic molding. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just done kind of sloppy.

Dillon told me "no, you can't do it". My Dillon dealer says he has a customer that does do it, and part of the magic is apparently using the shellplate from the .44-40 conversion -- in his shop, the 50AE case fit that shellplate (and presumably the station 1 locator) perfectly. But my dealer doesn't have all the specifics (he said he'll ask the customer when he comes in next). Apparently some of it involves using the .500 S&W powder funnel (labeled in my manual as "#50 ACT EX Powder Funnel" -- a part from the 550 50AE conversion?) and a larger casefeed tube. I think Dillon also told me that the case feeder wouldn't work because the rebated rim on the 50AE case will "stack" in the case mouths. I have a single empty fired 50AE case and I can't get a .44 Mag case to go into the 50AE case mouth, so even this might not be completely true (although it might be a source of intermittent jams). Anyone done this or at least have a parts list of what's needed to make it work, even if it means dropping 1 case in at a time?

I'm surprised so many of you like the Frankford Vibraprime. If you read the reviews on Midway, it's about half the people giving it 1 star and half giving it 4/5 stars. I bought one on a lark because filling primer tubes was cutting into my loading efficiency, but I was pretty disappointed when I got it. In terms of fit and finish, mine echoed many of the other reviewers. Mine had glue ooze, the two halves of the handle weren't even even mated properly, and the trigger was glued frozen, too. The small pistol opening in the tray (which I never used) wouldn't have been usable without some kind of reaming and chamfering. In actual operation, it worked "OK" with Winchester primers, but I had to use such a specific technique that it was only nominally faster than me with a Dillon pickup tube, and slower if a primer got flipped and I had to start over. Mine has been unusable with Federal primers, I get flipped ones 100% of the time. I just ended up buying 4 more pickup tubes and fill them manually. It's slower, but it's also much less headache. I still have to stop after 500 rounds and load them again, but after 500 rounds I need a soda and to walk around for a minute anyway.

I just sold my SDB and bought a new 650 this weekend. The warning to adjust the station 2 locator when changing calibers is printed on a sticker on the primer magazine shield. My guess is that Dillon belives that failure to adjust this is a source of problems as well. My machine came .44 Mag/Special and after loading a couple of sample rounds, I'm converting it to .32 Auto (new Seecamp, need some practice ammo). I can see where that adjustment would get easily overlooked in the manual, and without that sticker to make it top of mind, I probably would have missed it as well. I think the 650 manual is better than the SDB manual, but I'd still like to see a couple of checklist/quick reference pages with clearer color photographs that a guy could post on the wall. The instructions as printed are almost too detailed and tricky to easily follow as you do them.