If Dillon’s are so great

[AZDILLON1965]

Hello:

I am new to posting as I usually stay away drom forums although I must admit I have learned much from forums ( and not contributed) but I also find lots of misinformation on the net but that is another topic.

 

I am just a recreational reloader and reload on a 550b and/or a Lee single stage.  I have a mix of equipment from different manufacturers but probably lean towards Dillon because I have owned one for 25 years and have good and bad experiences but mainly good ( rifle and pistol reloading)

 

To be honest, because I don’t compete in any form ( BR, F- class etc) I keep things fairly basic and I believe I have seen a slight decline in accuracy when reloading rifle ( 223 and 30-06) vs single stage but not bad enough for my recreation.  I do experiment with bump size, mandrels etc but I bump size more for case longevity and yes accuracy.  
 

anyway, the other day at the range I got into a conversation with a fellow that had this nice rifle and he was shooting a 6.5 PRC and was producing 5 shots group almost dime size at 200 yards. Some groups were bigger than others but impressive.  We got to talk reloading and he mentioned he kept things simple and used a single stage like many others. I mentioned I use a single stage or a Dillon 550 and explained to him that for my standard the decline in accuracy was there but minimal.  He did ask a valid question that was asked of me before and to be honest not sure if I answered them to the best way possible.  So he mentioned the Dillon leaves much to be desired for precision reloading because of the tool head flex and the shell plate etc.  I did answered that there was many ways to mitigate all those issues.  He proceed to ask: “ if you spend all that money on a Dillon and then you have to buy a special tool head with dies with floating this and floating that then why buy a Dillon when it would be cheaper to buy a Forster and get it done and no need to purchase extras.  
what is your opinion.  We know that for pistol the Dillon is amazing fast and for my gas gun .223 is a fast machine.  
Can a stock Dillon produce match class ammo with no modifications?

He also mentioned the powder drop issue with extruded powder and I mentioned I have not seen a powder measure flow extruded powder well. He agreed but said his Hornady powder drop does best than any in the market.  I did not argue his statement as he may have a great powder drop.  You would think that with all

the technical advances that someone would make a powder drop that would flow any powder like water    I am texting from my phone and multitasking so probably make no sense at all but would

like to hear your opinions on why if Dillon is so great why do we need to

modify it to get precision ammo from it 

 

 

[RJH]

Idk what mods are done, but I believe David tubb loads much of his ammo on a Dillon 550, or at least he has in the past. And if you are comparing Dillon to Forster and worrying about mods to make the Dillon more accurate, you also have to consider if there are any mods to make the Forster as fast to the Dillon. 

 

Basically there are always tradeoffs, you just gotta pick what is most important for you and what battles are worth fighting

[MemphisMechanic]

Dillon machines excel at making a lot of pretty accurate, really really quickly. 
 

Pretty accute. Not REALLY accurate. You’ll be able to dial in your loads to you guns, and thus they’ll be more accurate than factory ammo.

 

That doesn’t mean a 550/650/750/1050 is the right machine for someone who wants ammo as accurate as they can possibly get.

 

These machines weren’t built for that purpose. If my 650 and 1050 can crank out 2,000 rounds of handgun ammo in an evening that can hold 1.5” at 25 yards, it is exactly what I want.

Edited January 9, 2022 by MemphisMechanic

[AZDILLON1965]

Great replies. Obviously the Forster single stage won't be as fast but allegedly it provides better alignment and run out etc etc.    I do like the point made that it will make Pretty accute. Not REALLY accurate.The convesation is more for "rifle" than handgun because there is no way a single stage will even compare to a progressive for handgun

[AZDILLON1965]

20 minutes ago, RJH said:

Idk what mods are done, but I believe David tubb loads much of his ammo on a Dillon 550, or at least he has in the past. And if you are comparing Dillon to Forster and worrying about mods to make the Dillon more accurate, you also have to consider if there are any mods to make the Forster as fast to the Dillon. 

 

Basically there are always tradeoffs, you just gotta pick what is most important for you and what battles are worth fighting

The mods are many from a different toolhead to grinding the shellplate to even sanding the primer cups....and more. It is my understanding that Tubbs 550 has been modified.    I forgot to mentioned that long time ago a gentleman told me that he relaoded on his 550 with no mods and made no difference to him to about 300 yards. He did notice a degradation when shooting 500 yards + and for those rounds he did reload on a single stage

[AHI]

It all depends on your expected end result.

In rifle I use my 550 un modified for .223/6.5 Grendel. For ammo out to 500 yards. It produces moa ammo to that distance.

In my 6BR every thing is loaded on a single stage press.  1/4 MOA to 1000k yards.

It all depends on what you need/wont the ammo to do.  

[AZDILLON1965]

Agreed. Great answer 

[Boomstick303]

To me it seems there are plenty of people plenty accurate out to 500-600 yards using various Dillon presses. If you are talking PRS, I would think use the right tool for the right job. There is zero need for high volume press use for PRS ammo. I would think every aspect of PRS ammo would require the need for QC. 

 

If I am going to participate in anything I want to compete at the higher levels, so I would purchase a single stage press for PRS.  If I was ok with just participating in PRS, I doubt I would make that investment unless it was absolutely necessary.   

[Nc1911]

2 hours ago, AZDILLON1965 said:

if Dillon is so great why do we need to

modify it to get precision ammo from it 

If you think Dillon needs mods to make it work you have obviously never used Lee presses.

[AZDILLON1965]

I have reloaded with lee single stages with no issues.  You must be referring to lee progressives ?  I did try a Lee turret back in the mid 90s and had lots of issues 

[Chills1994]

Since somebody mentioned G. David Tubb, probably over 10 years ago somebody uploaded his reloading video to YouTube.  Way back then, I had the good sense to take a few screen shots off it.

 

[Chills1994]

For this next pic, just to be clear I have absolutely ZERO idea what kind of accuracy Palma matches require:

 

 

I am in southern Illinois, still, and I have never shot anything beyond 200 yards.  
 

Rumor has it that Tubb actually weighs and sorts his primers.

 

I’ll never be at that level.

 

It has long been internet “lore” that the weak link for getting accuracy out of a Dillon progressive press is the Dillon powder measure itself.  Especially with “long grain” extruded stick powders
 

In the past year or three, I have weighed say 10 or 20  .223 cases, 10 to 20 Winchester small rifle primers, and 10 to 20 69gr SMK’s.  Just to get an average for each.  Then I have weighed each loaded round in my entire batch, but that was just to see if any completed rounds were light by say 20 to 25 grains of powder.

 

Next time, I will have to actually record their completed weights ASSuming I sorted the cases by weight.  The underlying premise being that any differences in loaded round weights would be caused by the inconsistent throws of the Dillon powder measure.

 

I have the fluorescent light fixture grid.  I just haven’t used it yet to sort brass by weight.

 

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Chills1994

[Jim Watson]

The Palma match is shot at 800, 900, and 1000 yards, prone, sling, iron sights. Must be .308. Bullet not heavier than 156 gr in International Palma but US only matches allow heavier.  (It used to be shot with GI hardball. Shooters kept American barrels and British barrels for the different diameter bullets.)

 

I could not find Bart Bobbitt's article on Dillons for the Palma, but it was in the 1990s. I don't know what they are doing now. 

 

I have read of loading match rifle ammo on Dillons but it is not full progressive.  Two machines, electric powder dispenser/scale. Probably other stuff I don't remember since the brag article in Blue Press. 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Jim Watson

[Chills1994]

10 minutes ago, Jim Watson said:

The Palma match is shot at 800, 900, and 1000 yards, prone, sling, iron sights. Must be .308. Bullet not heavier than 156 gr in International Palma but US only matches allow heavier.  (It used to be shot with GI hardball. Shooters kept American barrels and British barrels for the different diameter bullets.)

 

I could not find Bart Bobbitt's article on Dillons for the Palma, but it was in the 1990s. I don't know what they are doing now. 

 

I have read of loading match rifle ammo on Dillons but it is not full progressive.  Two machines, electric powder dispenser/scale. Probably other stuff I don't remember since the brag article in Blue Press. 

If my memory is correct, was this the article about making reloads/handloads for their junior team?

 

If so, IIRC, they were using two different Dillon presses to process/load the brass…. One was a 1050 and the other was a 650 .

 

 

[AHI]

6 hours ago, Chills1994 said:

If so, IIRC, they were using two different Dillon presses to process/load the brass…. One was a 1050 and the other was a 650 .

Yes you memory is correct. 1050 was used to process the brass.  The 650 was used to load 308 palma ammo.

[Jim Watson]

I think the one in Blue Press was about a school or college team loading High-power ammo on Dillons, not Palma.

 

I wish I could find Bart's piece.  I'll look again.

Not the piece I was thinking of but here is what he said on one occasion

Best example I know of was back in 1991 when Sierra's new 30 caliber 155-gr. Palma bullet was prototyped, a few folks worked up loads in their .308 Win. rifles with new, unprepped cases. The most accurate load was selected to be produced on two Dillon 1050 progressives. 

First one used a Lyman M die to uniform new .308 Winchester case necks' diameter to gently hold the bullets as well as prime them with Federal 210M's. No other case prep was done. Second progressive metered 45.3 grains of IMR4895 (3/10ths grain spread) and seated bullets (.004" max runout). 

20 rounds randomly pulled from the loading area were tested in a rifle clamped in a machine rest. All shot into 2.7 inches at 600 yards. A few months later, some of the ammo was used in a big long range match; couple dozen top shots from around the world reported it had no worse than 1/2 MOA accuracy in their rifles at 600 yards.

If you're reloading fired cases, a single stage press does a better job of that than progressives. There's more uniformity in full length sizing them than a progressive can easily do. And weighing powder charges will shave another 1/8th to 1/4 MOA off your long range groups. Bullet seating also better with a single stage press or hand operated one.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Jim Watson

[HesedTech]

20 hours ago, AZDILLON1965 said:

why if Dillon is so great why do we need to

modify it to get precision ammo from it 

Dillon progressive presses work great as is for volume reloading and can be used for precision. But, like mentioned shooters like Tubbs and F-Class John do use the Dillon press for precision, but they do not use them in a stock form.

 

They float the dies and lock the tool head to eliminate the occasional randomness of sizing and seating. They also use precise powder measures rather than the drop measure when accuracy is an issue.

 

The whole point is this, a 550/650 can produce precise ammo but all the same procedures from brass prep, powder measure to the finale seating and crimping apply. It's just a tool the reloader has to master. We can't just throw brass, powder, primers and bullets in a bin and expect quality ammo to come out the other side after pulling the handle a few times.

 

Check out these videos:

 

[AZDILLON1965]

You are correct and thanks.  That is why the fellow that I was speaking to was saying that if so great why do one have to modify the tool head the shell plate float the dies etc.   For me personally it has been a useful press for 25 years ( on and off) and the lee single press has been good to me 

if I ever shoot F-class or BR I may consider a foster co-ax or I may not 

[RGA]

This worked pretty well for me out to 600 yrds. Semi-progressive.

[AZDILLON1965]

Very cool.  The 2 dies with the micrometers, one is the seater and what is the other?

[HesedTech]

11 hours ago, RGA said:

This worked pretty well for me out to 600 yrds. Semi-progressive.

The Harrell's drop is known as the best/most accurate powder drop.  Looks like you have the tool head locked up, but not the floating die mods.

 

For precision rifle rounds I chose to use an auto trickler, it is a slower process, but it works well for stick powders.

 

 

[RGA]

Hi AZDILLON1965, the dies are Redding Competition and a Sinclair expander mandrel in the following order: Neck sizer, body die, mandrel, powder die, seater.

 

Hi Hesedtech, I played with floating using the Whidden toolhead (the toolhead in the pic is also Whidden without the pins) but in this case I use Lee rings with the rubber o-rings under them. I like to call it 'semi-floating'.    For me this yields the same results on target as using 'real' floating die rings.

 

Kind rgds,

RGA

[AZDILLON1965]

I was going to ask about the Lee rings because I have read other posts where it was indicated that they felt the Lee rings provided some type of floating benefits.  Most of my dies are Lee because of the price.  Would like to hear if others feel the lee dies could provide some of the floating benefits 

Edited January 12, 2022 by AZDILLON1965

[Ryan67]

I've have loaded and shot ammo out to 1k with a 550 and a 750. Measuring and dropping powder by hand similar to the fclassjohn video. Works great if you know how to get it done. The Dillons are awesome and the modifications are cheap. Then you can load ammo in a quarter of the time as guys on single stages. I don't shoot f class and have no desire to but I do know guys who process brass for competing pretty high up in fclass on a automated 750. Then you just dump powder and seat. 

[AZDILLON1965]

I have no modifications on mine other than the shell plate bearing and have loaded dropping powder by hand from the chargemaster and to me there is a slight difference between reloading my 30-06  on a single press and the Dillon but not enough to make a huge difference for the recreational type of shooting I do.   As long as I have a case in station one the seating die seats consistently but huge difference if I seat with no case in station one