Old 550b press tool head set up not working with Newer 550b press

[Nuke531]

I have 550b press that is about 25 years old. I just recently purchased a newer 550b press so I can run one for small primers and one for large primers. I seem to run into a dilemma. I took my .380 set up tool head and tried it on my newer 550b and I cannot get a full stroke out of the press. This caused me to reset all my dies to get it to work. Is there a longer stroke on the newer press or I'm I just missing something. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[GDIS46]

Sounds like a question for our friends from Dillon who should be able to tell us of any engineering changes that would affect the tool head.

[bowenbuilt]

I have several old and new 550B's and exchange tools heads on them regularly. I do have to set the OAL between the oldest and the newer presses but this I attribute to wear on the older pins and stackable tolerences in the ram assembly. I would expect a few thousands difference between 2 presses but not to the extent you are talking about. You may have some excessive pin wear in the older press if it has a lot of use on it. The frames on mine seem to be spot on from the eighties to date.

Edited September 7, 2014 by bowenbuilt

[Nuke531]

Thanks for the reply's. I will have to check with Dillon and see what it would cost to get them to recondition my older 550b press.

[Bob DuBois]

Did the two 550's for some time tool heads were set to each machine switching tool heads required slight adjustments to the dies.

If your going to load small primers on one machine and large on another the only issue I would see is 45acp loading both large and

small primers on one caliber. Other than that tool heads shouldn't matter.

I would think it would require a lot of effort to get both machines exactly alike.

[bowenbuilt]

Yeah, if you are going to dedicate one for small and one for large primer calibers I wouldn't do anything but just load.