Reloading First Timer

[SynnerG]

Hey all, just stopping by to register and say Hi as I just sent in an order for my first press, that being a 550B as recommended by a friend. I'm from Indiana and live in a gun range dead zone and have to travel far and wide to find a range or use the free DNR land. The drive plus the cost of ammo has been keeping me from shooting a lot so even after owning my firearms for years, I still suck at target shooting. Hopefully with the press I'll be able to reload for cheap and feel better about loading up with boxes of ammo, instead of shooting off one or two Walmart boxes and then looking at my wallet with sad eyes, lol.

Reading everything on the BE site pretty much guaranteed my purchase. I got all the bullets, brass, primer, and powder just sitting, ready to be used for a while now. Just needed that push over the top when I looked at my paycheck and saw my vacation pay was added in and I could easily afford the purchase. Anyway, seems like a good group of people around and I'll have *plenty* of questions about reloading to fill the forums.

[GrumpyOne]

Welcome to the forums! What are you planning on reloading? BTW, I load on a 550B as well, have for years.

[SynnerG]

I got the press in .40 for my pistols (XD-M and PPS), but I also have an AR-15 I'll start loading for after I get comfortable with the press. I kept my brass from both long before I decided on buying the press, so I was able to buy a tumbler and stuff a few months ago and clean up the brass. It's been sitting in bins, waiting to be used. I have some questions about caliber conversions, but I can keep it to the Reloading sub-forum to keep things organized.

[Corey]

Welcome from a fellow Hoosier!!

What parts of IN are you from?

[Sarge]

Welcome to the forums! Like Grumpy I too am a very happy 550 user. It's a very good machine.

When you get ready to talk conversions, save yourself some time and just call Brian and tell him what you want to load and he will set you up with what you need.

[SynnerG]

I'm down around Bloomington Indiana and the closest DNR land is in North Vernon. Free and usually sparse on the people except hunters sighting in their black powder rifles. It goes from 15 yards to 200 yards and also a skeet field, so I can shoot anything there. Never going to pay for a range again, haha. I only did it early on to try out different pistols before my first purchase.

[Corey]

go to www.uspsa.org and on the right hand side under Club Finder, type in your zip code. I used 47405 as a guess and there were 8 clubs within 82 miles. may vary depending where exactly you live, but that should give you and idea of where teh USPSA matches are held and where you can look into becoming a memeber of not only the club itself but USPSA as an organization.

[MARKAVELI]

Welcome to the forums! Like Grumpy I too am a very happy 550 user. It's a very good machine.

When you get ready to talk conversions, save yourself some time and just call Brian and tell him what you want to load and he will set you up with what you need.

+1 I also use a RL550B and its easy to put together and use, I too am very happy with it! And I also ordered from Brian, great service! I am loading in .40,44Mag,and when it comes in 45acp! any hoo, welcome from a fellow Hooser!

[SynnerG]

+1 I also use a RL550B and its easy to put together and use, I too am very happy with it! And I also ordered from Brian, great service! I am loading in .40,44Mag,and when it comes in 45acp! any hoo, welcome from a fellow Hooser!

Thanks Mark, I'm originally from NW Indiana, around the Portage/Hobart gap, hah. Moved to southern Indiana for school and haven't looked back, lol.

[MARKAVELI]

+1 I also use a RL550B and its easy to put together and use, I too am very happy with it! And I also ordered from Brian, great service! I am loading in .40,44Mag,and when it comes in 45acp! any hoo, welcome from a fellow Hooser!

Thanks Mark, I'm originally from NW Indiana, around the Portage/Hobart gap, hah. Moved to southern Indiana for school and haven't looked back, lol.

How cool! I'm from South Chicago but moved to Hammond/Hessville area, and I got a few friends that live in Hobart and Portage is a hop,jump, skip away! Maybe catch you at the range, I normally go to Debs cause its only a few blocks away! I'm in the process of buying a house and once I get settled in I'm going to join the uspsa! Well kit if your in the area and you can crank out a few rounds on my press to see if you would like the 550..... Any how good luck, oh try youtub ing the press you got your eyes on!

[SynnerG]

Ah, well, god willing I won't be up there again for some time. But I've been to Deb's before! I tried out their .50 DEagle and the Tommy Gun on one of my birthdays just to say I did it, lol.

[MARKAVELI]

Ah, well, god willing I won't be up there again for some time. But I've been to Deb's before! I tried out their .50 DEagle and the Tommy Gun on one of my birthdays just to say I did it, lol.

Tried the Tommy and the DE but now they don't have em out to rent no more someone dropped and broke the DE!

[GrumpyOne]

Ah, well, god willing I won't be up there again for some time. But I've been to Deb's before! I tried out their .50 DEagle and the Tommy Gun on one of my birthdays just to say I did it, lol.

Tried the Tommy and the DE but now they don't have em out to rent no more someone dropped and broke the DE!

Yeah, they are sooo delicate....

[MARKAVELI]

Ah, well, god willing I won't be up there again for some time. But I've been to Deb's before! I tried out their .50 DEagle and the Tommy Gun on one of my birthdays just to say I did it, lol.

Tried the Tommy and the DE but now they don't have em out to rent no more someone dropped and broke the DE!

Yeah, they are sooo delicate....

@ grump, your not playing, I gotta oil my DE with a pamper!lol..

[GrumpyOne]

Ah, well, god willing I won't be up there again for some time. But I've been to Deb's before! I tried out their .50 DEagle and the Tommy Gun on one of my birthdays just to say I did it, lol.

Tried the Tommy and the DE but now they don't have em out to rent no more someone dropped and broke the DE!

Yeah, they are sooo delicate....

@ grump, your not playing, I gotta oil my DE with a pamper!lol..

If you sell it, you could probably finance a very good gun out of it...There's a sucker born every minute.....especially for a big bore wrist breaker that breaks often....

If you really want a big bore pistol, get a 500 S&W or a 460 S&W...Someone might even trade even for the DE.

[SynnerG]

Welp, I got my 550B on Friday, set it up and mounted to my work table on Saturday and churned out my first completed round on Sunday! Setup was pretty much a breeze, tho I had two mess-ups. First, I mounted it a bit too far back on the table so that the level couldn't reach full extension. No biggie, just moved and re-drilled the mounting holes and it was fine. The next was that the direction for the primer magazine weren't specific enough I think. It comes with the Large rod installed so I needed to put in the small pistol one. I dropped it in and screwed down the nut, but it wasn't seated all the way down. When I put my primers in, they spilled out of the bottom of the primer tube. After cleaning up that mess I took the whole magazine assembly and checked what was happening. The tube has a notch that needs to be lined up so it will drop just a bit further, but even then there's a gap between the tube and the primer catcher. It took even more wiggling for it to touch the retaining pin that keeps the primers from falling out. After putting that back together it ran fine.

I did the usual first timer stuff like basically checking each round at each stage to ensure I was doing it right and each had a primer and the correct charge. I even loaded up a magazine and cycled thru each one to make sure it would chamber and eject properly. The toughest part to remember seems to be the push forward to seat a new primer. Once the lever is raised to a resting position, normally you are done, but not in this case, so I usually have to say out loud like "Forward" or "seat primer" until I can develop some sort of muscle memory for that. Anyways, just thought I'd share my first time on the press. I'll take em to the range and report on how they shot.

[MARKAVELI]

Doesn't it feel like Christmas in the summer?!!! lol... it takes a few 100 rnds to get use to, just take your time and have fun and be safe.. its a nice little toy you got there!

[GrumpyOne]

Think of it like a rocking chair, back and forth, stop to stop.

[AirBorne]

[quote name='SynnerG' timestamp='1281963901' post='1270269'

I have the 550 as well got mine with .45 and the 9mm conversion kits. I have to hand it to Dillon when they say it's ALL guaranteed for life they aren't kidding. I had an E ring break on mine the other day and as luck would have it Home Depot, Wall Mart ect didn't have any, called Dillon today and they got some in the mail to me at no charge. Also I didn't get a small primer tube that fits into the primer holder even tho it had been a month or two since I got the press, (changed from .45 to 9) when I called them about why the primers kept falling out they walked me thru taking it apart over the phone, figured out the problem and sent me the correct part right away again at no charge. If you have any problems don't hesitate to call them and if something breaks even something small like the E ring (which I understand is rare)they take care of you right away.

Welp, I got my 550B on Friday, set it up and mounted to my work table on Saturday and churned out my first completed round on Sunday! Setup was pretty much a breeze, tho I had two mess-ups. First, I mounted it a bit too far back on the table so that the level couldn't reach full extension. No biggie, just moved and re-drilled the mounting holes and it was fine. The next was that the direction for the primer magazine weren't specific enough I think. It comes with the Large rod installed so I needed to put in the small pistol one. I dropped it in and screwed down the nut, but it wasn't seated all the way down. When I put my primers in, they spilled out of the bottom of the primer tube. After cleaning up that mess I took the whole magazine assembly and checked what was happening. The tube has a notch that needs to be lined up so it will drop just a bit further, but even then there's a gap between the tube and the primer catcher. It took even more wiggling for it to touch the retaining pin that keeps the primers from falling out. After putting that back together it ran fine.

I did the usual first timer stuff like basically checking each round at each stage to ensure I was doing it right and each had a primer and the correct charge. I even loaded up a magazine and cycled thru each one to make sure it would chamber and eject properly. The toughest part to remember seems to be the push forward to seat a new primer. Once the lever is raised to a resting position, normally you are done, but not in this case, so I usually have to say out loud like "Forward" or "seat primer" until I can develop some sort of muscle memory for that. Anyways, just thought I'd share my first time on the press. I'll take em to the range and report on how they shot.

[SynnerG]

Hm, I had a bit of a scare last night when I decided to weigh each of my produced cases to make sure they weren't going to squib or explode on me. After the first 10 rounds I started to notice a patter and by the end I had exactly half of my cartridges weighing in at 250 grains and 255 grains. The worrisome difference being about the amount of a charge of powder. I had my roommate (who is more mechanically inclined and helped me build the press) watch me as I reloaded, so I know my powder was set right and I wasn't double charging, so maybe on each pull one case got a charge and the next round did not. So, to make sure, we pulled the bullets out of each, both looked like the right amount and the powder weighed out correctly. We finally weighed each piece of brass (with primer) on my scale and whallah! It turned out half my batch was using Federal and the other Blazer. After flipping over each group of bullets, the groups were uniformly one company or the other, with Federal being the lighter of the two.

So, I feel like I literally dodged a bullet on that one and everything turned out okay. I just guess I've never come across a forum post or anything in a HowTo video on presses that explained that the brass itself might vary in weight. For future reference I'll know now!

[GrumpyOne]

Hm, I had a bit of a scare last night when I decided to weigh each of my produced cases to make sure they weren't going to squib or explode on me. After the first 10 rounds I started to notice a patter and by the end I had exactly half of my cartridges weighing in at 250 grains and 255 grains. The worrisome difference being about the amount of a charge of powder. I had my roommate (who is more mechanically inclined and helped me build the press) watch me as I reloaded, so I know my powder was set right and I wasn't double charging, so maybe on each pull one case got a charge and the next round did not. So, to make sure, we pulled the bullets out of each, both looked like the right amount and the powder weighed out correctly. We finally weighed each piece of brass (with primer) on my scale and whallah! It turned out half my batch was using Federal and the other Blazer. After flipping over each group of bullets, the groups were uniformly one company or the other, with Federal being the lighter of the two.

So, I feel like I literally dodged a bullet on that one and everything turned out okay. I just guess I've never come across a forum post or anything in a HowTo video on presses that explained that the brass itself might vary in weight. For future reference I'll know now!

There actually have been several forum posts just about that. It seems to pop up for all new re-loaders. Even with the same head stamp, brass weight will vary some from piece to piece. You have to trust your powder drop.

Edited August 17, 2010 by GrumpyOne