Combination Seating/Crimping Die

[alien_pickles]

I've been having a lot of trouble with station 1 on a 650 crushing about 10% of the cases that go into it. They tend to pull out just a little bit after they get pushing into position. I'm fairly certain that my FW arms decapping die will fix this problem. However, this press is also running a Mr Bullet Feeder, so I don't have a spare station to decap and size separately. I've heard they make combination seating and crimping dies, but I don't know anything about them or if they're reliable. I love my lee factory carbide crimp die, but I think I'm just using the Dillon seating die. Is anyone using one they'd recommend?

[Sarge]

Whenever my cases pull back like that I put some mineral spirits on a qtip and clean the face of the sliding thingy. Gets gummed up and sticky

[3Dflyer]

Watch to see if your brass is being fed too far into position, causing the top of the brass  to lean towards the center of the shell plate, then when the feeder pulls back, watch to see if the brass rocks back and moves away from the center of the shell plate, causing the brass to no longer be centered under the die. 

 

If if the top of the brass is rocking, your feeding mechanism need to be adjusted. 

 

I had had this problem. 

 

[George16]

Clean adjust the sliding mechanism per Dillon instruction. I just went through this as part of replacing the platform and pawl indexer due to a crack.

[muncie21]

OP: If you're getting 10% of your cases crushed in station 1, I'd suggest figuring out what the issue is before trying to band-aid it with a different sizing die.  If you need help diagnosing the issue, give Dillon a call.

[alien_pickles]

52 minutes ago, muncie21 said:

OP: If you're getting 10% of your cases crushed in station 1, I'd suggest figuring out what the issue is before trying to band-aid it with a different sizing die.  If you need help diagnosing the issue, give Dillon a call.

 

I totally agree. However, we've been struggling with this for months and have not been able to get it solved. The band-aid is sort of a last ditch effort to get it to work. 

 

I will check on if it's potentially pushing it in too far. That is one thing we definitely haven't thought of. Had been more concerned that it wasn't going in far enough, but what you're saying makes sense. It's a shared press, so I'll have to wait to get access to it. It's been taken apart and cleaned what feel like a million times trying to get it to work!

[3Dflyer]

Remember, you can always call Dillon while standing in front of the machine and they will walk you through the troubleshooting steps. Great service crew. Bet they can have you running in 20 minutes. 

[Balakay]

I had similar issues.  I got a new station 1 locator and the problem went away

Edited December 18, 2019 by Balakay

[alien_pickles]

So watching it, it looks like the brass actually "jumps" out of position when the index pawl clicks into place on the shell plate as it's going up. So the big black triangle thing is putting it in the correct spot, but as the shell plate moves up to the die, it bounces out. I tried tightening the shell plate, since the index pawl going into position shouldn't really cause it to move, but I can't tighten it any further and still have it be functional. We installed an after market bearing washer to the shell plate bolt so that it could be tightened a bit further. It helps, but it doesn't solve the problem completely.

 

Additionally, sometimes the arm on the black triangle thing hits the ejector wire, and then the case only goes half in. It doesn't happen a lot, but more than it should. We have tried replacing the station 1 locator, the ejector wire, and the black triangle thing, but all the problems continue with the new parts. 

[Furrly]

First step, Call Dillion 

[steve25680]

I have been fighting this problem with a 650 for about 15 years.  In my opinion, the design of the 650 was not one of Dillon's finest moments, perhaps why it has apparently been discontinued.  Anyone who has owned one can attest to having "650 finger", which is where you have your finger trying to push the case into position while you also are pushing ram up.   I know that seems kind of stupid on my part, but at least I am not the only one.  Hurts kind of the way hitting your thumb with a hammer does, and it will eventually stop bleeding. 

 

Additionally, the kind of advice and help you will get from Dillon when you call them depends on the person you talk to and the mood that he (never gotten a she on the phone) is in.  I have had some great help and some real crappy help.  Now, before anybody gets upset with me about all of that, let me also say that NO ONE stands behind their products better than Dillon.  Not too long ago, I got authorization from them to send back my very tired 650.  About 10 days later, I received a new one.  Didn't even pay shipping.  I have also reloaded about 200k rounds or more on my Super 1050 and have never had a problem that was not of my own creation.

 

I have found a couple of things to be helpful, but not foolproof.  First, as someone mentioned, make sure the mechanism that pushes the case into station one pushes it just the right amount.  Too much travel and it wants to bounce out, not enough is not enough.  Also, as mentioned, keep the face of that clean.  Two, make sure the grooves in your shell plate that hold the case are clean, I use a dental pick to clean those out periodically.  Third, get some heavy grease and put a fair amount in between the ramp (under it) and the body of the machine.  Replace this as needed, because it will disappear.  This dampens the vibration when the shell plate snaps into position.  Four, keep the shell plate as tight as possible to the frame without it binding, and if your ball bearing that indexes it is too snappy, consider cutting the spring a little.  I have also found that the faster you try to cycle the machine, the more of this "bouncing" occurs, and smoother and slightly slower cycling helps.  It is also helpful to have that thing firmly anchored to a really solid bench.

 

Lastly, and this is probably going to give you the best results, use a sizing die that has a generous radius on the bottom.  I was using a Lee sizing die in .40 caliber because it's design would size the case further down than most others.  I had problems with fat cases near the bottom and this helped, but did not totally solve that problem.  I finally just gave up on that and chose to deal with that problem a different way, but am now using the Dillon sizing die which is more forgiving, and it reduced the indexing problem a lot.

 

It is also possible your machine's part under the shell plate, don't know what it is called, aluminum thing with two Allen screws holding it down, has gotten out of alignment.  Dillon has a tool that you can use to re-align everything.  They sent me mine for free.

 

Hope you find some of this helpful.