Dillon 650 Primer Kaboom

[Bear23]

So there i was Friday evening. Loading some .40's for my upcoming matches, WSSC...local matches, etc. Had about 50 primers left in the tube, wasn't even seating a primer....Whenever the primer disk rotates...upstroke or downstroke??

BOOM..

Ok, can't really hear well...Thoughts of Saving private Ryan came to my head when Tom Hanks had a tank round go off near his head...

Oh, crap a primer went off.... Felt the primer tube....mucho hotto...Crap..ALL my primers went off...

Disassembled everything. Primer buzzer landed in my 90 gallon reef tank. primer stick in 43 pieces over the room. primers melted in tube, disk bent and warped, thick tube bulged..

Apparently a primer didn't get dropped out of the disk on a case i had pulled because it was defective after going through station one. Primer sheared setting off remaining primers.

Thank god these things are built like tanks. If it was another press, i'd be pulling bits of brass out of my chest.

[AZ38super]

I've heard a few people say this has happened but I can't see how the whole tube goes off the way they are seperated in the disk for the priming station.

Now in some other presses, I can see where this would be very easy to have happen.

This actuaaly was going through mind mind last night as I ran off three hundred rounds when I had a few spare miutes.

Other than a few parts to replace its good to hear your okay.

[Genghis]

A couple of months ago my Dad was loading on our 550, and we heard a "Boom!" throughout the house. He was trying to seat a primer, and only that one primer went off. The brass looks line a nice, pretty flower.

[Catfish]

My Square Deal did that 6-7 years ago - it's enough to make you paranoid for a bit.

The plastic weight that pushes down on the primers in the magazine got stuck in the ceiling!

Glad you're ok!!!

[Jim Norman]

I have had two detonations in my 650, both while loading 9mm with win SP primers. Only the primer being seated went off. Still scared the crap outta me!

I figured that it was military brass and the crimp proved to much. I've (knock wood) not had the problem with SR primers or any other caliber.

Thankfully you are OK.

Jim Norman

Edited January 16, 2006 by Jim Norman

[Squishy]

I have had 3 primers go off while seating primers on my 650. 2 of them were Federal the other was a Winchester. Only the primers blew . Thankfully not the whole tube. Sure wakes you up. (Loud) Never had this happen on my 550.

[davidball]

I had 95+ go off in the tube on my Super 1050. Very loud bang. The only damage was the removeable tube inside the system. Full of melted primers. The outside look like it had a very bad case of cellulite. This was within the first month I owned it. 60k+++ rounds later, no similar problem. I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure I tried to seat a primer in a case that the previous spent primer had not gotten removed. It's all kind of fuzzy.

[Larry White]

My 650 locked up and I pulled all the brass of the shell plate to see why. There was a primer cocked side ways at the priming station. Without thinking I reached and just slapped the handle with the palm of my hand. That one went off and they just chain reaction back around the wheel and up the tube. The primer stick was hanging out of the sheetrock, bits of metal all over the room and smoke everwhere. Metal shield bludged out lo primer buzzer blown all to hell. I just turnrd out the light and went in the house, called dillon and didnt go back til the new parts came in. I installed the new system and moved the powder measure to station 3( think about that). Never had a problem again, But if that handle even drags a little bit I STOP. Its every bit as bad as a squib. Not fun stuff.------Larry

[Singlestack]

You are not alone.

Poll: 650 Primer Detonations

Primer system detonation

dillon 650 blowouts

[Dave Marques]

What happened to Jim Norman happened to me too-Twice-both were Federal SP primers-They don't seem to like getting crushed as much as W-W's!

[kspeer]

Scary, glad to hear you are O.K.

KS

[Bear23]

Should be getting my new parts this week. I spoke with Dillon early saturday and they were to ship an new assembly. Gentleman remarked that this 'happens'. It was winchester primers i was using this time, i usually use federals.

I'm pretty sure it was just after the upstroke of the ram, that's when the disc apparently moves...I can't say i felt any resistance...it all just happened too fast. I had just done about 400 rounds, and was moving 'in the groove', as we say.

[Bronson7]

Yeah, I don't see it happening on 550. Station #1 is a country mile from the primer tube. I could see one being detonated but not the entire tube.

Broson7

[dillon]

We've seen primer magazine explosions in every type of machine we have ever made.

Federal primers, being softer require less encouragement than other brands, but all brands of primers have been known to go off, given the right encouragement. Primers are merely sheet brass, designed to be easily dented to ignite the priming compound.The most common cause seems to be an out of round primer, or a primer with the anvil seated too high, so that it snags. On the 650, the primer disc is rotated on the downstroke of the handle. If a primer is jammed between the bottom of the magazine and the top of the primer disc, the machine has enough mechanical leverage to apply sufficient force to ignite a primer.The steel magazine shield is meant to contain the blast; typically the aluminum magazine tube expands/ruptures, capturing most to all of the exploded primers. The plastic follower rod hits the ceiling, converting into a twisted black strand of spaghetti.

Please don't position florescent lights immeadiately over the machine. The broken lights are a much bigger mess to clean up.

If you blow up a primer system, please contact us for a warranty replacement primer system. Wear safety glasses just in case, but don't worry about setting off the powder in the measure. We have tried to, even leaving the lid off, and were'nt able to ignite the powder by exploding the primers. We have had customers set the powder on fire, but this involved unusual circumstances, such as filling the hopper, leaving the lid off, then taking a power disc to do car body work, pouring powder into the hopper, then spilling powder onto a hot room heater plugged in under the bench, or having the lid off a powder measure, having a hot lead melting pot adjacent to the loader, and having a can of pop tip into the lead melting pot, causing lead to splatter all over. If you leave the lid on the measure, you should be safe.

[AlamoShooter]

Reef Tanks!,, in the loading room!?

Reef tank? a shooter should not have time for a reef tank. I can't get a reef tank cause of the traveling to matches and I don't have time to mow the yard. Tell me you don't have a yard and I wont feel so ,, left out.

Alamo

[Bear23]

Reef Tanks!,, in the loading room!?

Reef tank? a shooter should not have time for a reef tank. I can't get a reef tank cause of the traveling to matches and I don't have time to mow the yard. Tell me you don't have a yard and I wont feel so ,, left out.

Alamo

No yard, just cactus and rocks....pretty easy to maintain..

As far as the Reef tank...I've tried to get my Yellow Tang to reload, but he is too small to grab the roller handle on the 650.

Dillon parts should be coming soon. The primer tubes did contain the explosion, and my lights are not directly above the press. But the primer plunger had to be doing at least 650 fps upon exiting the priming system.

[Dave Marques]

By no means is this a jab to the 650 or Dillon in general-Their machines are the BEST!

It usually the one thing they don't include with the press that is the problem-(the user)

Hey Mike-Got any of those around? (esp. ones that don't eat?) Even if their outa warranty!

Dave M.

[AGYoung]

[attac

ment=4980:attachment]This is an email I sent on Saturday evening

Dear Mr. Dillon.

I need a little help and a couple parts. As you can see from the attached photos, my priming system on my 650 is broken.

I was enjoying a normal Saturday loading session and all of a sudden, BOOM! The whole thing blew up. Yes, I was seating a primer and No, I wasn’t hurt. The primer following rod hit the ceiling and bent into a circle and I couldn’t get the primer feed to work. The fail safe assembly had flew off.

I took everything apart and what I thought was a single primer detonation was an entire tube as well as what was in the primer magazine.

Your design confined the damage to the internal primer tube; I’ll need one of those and the primer follower rod, need that too. The primer support shim took a nice bend too, so I’ll need to replace that. I’m not sure what else I should replace. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Since you folks designed the machine so well, what could have been a deadly day turned out to be a little bit of a scare. The damage was contained so no one got hurt. My wife thanks you as she says she still needs me to cut the grass on Sunday.

Let me know how much the parts are & I’ll remit the amount. I would have called but you were already closed and I think the pictures are kind of cool. Some are better than others. I’ve saved the parts in case you want them.

Dillon makes the absolutely best reloading equipment I have ever used and now I can say with out reservation the SAFEST.

Thanks;

Al Young

I called Dillon the following Tuesday and had a conversation with tech support with a happy result. What size primers and where do you want us to send a new primer system.

I'v been a Dillion customer for over 15 years and won't use any other equipment, just because I'm stuborn. Now I know I'm smart too.

[Kyle O]

Well, add me to the list of full magazine detonations.

I decided I was gonna load up some 9mm on my brand new xl650. I have loaded 10-15k on a 550, and never had an issue, but somewhere between 200 -300 on the 650 I had a primer detonate on seating. Rung my ears, and it was just one primer, so I checked out everything, and continued on. Funny thing though, I thought, "Damn, that was loud, so I reached up on the shelf, and grabbed my ProEars, and continued on. Good thing I did that, because on the same magazine tube, about 20-30 strokes later....KABOOOM!

That rattled my cage a little bit LOT! I took the toolhead off, poured the powder out, and walked away.

I'll be calling Dillon in the morning.

[Tom S.]

Well, add me to the list of full magazine detonations.

I decided I was gonna load up some 9mm on my brand new xl650. I have loaded 10-15k on a 550, and never had an issue, but somewhere between 200 -300 on the 650 I had a primer detonate on seating. Rung my ears, and it was just one primer, so I checked out everything, and continued on. Funny thing though, I thought, "Damn, that was loud, so I reached up on the shelf, and grabbed my ProEars, and continued on. Good thing I did that, because on the same magazine tube, about 20-30 strokes later....KABOOOM!

That rattled my cage a little bit LOT! I took the toolhead off, poured the powder out, and walked away.

I'll be calling Dillon in the morning.

Hmmm, first new one in nearly 5 years?

[Kyle O]

Yea, guess it wasn't worth starting a new thread.

Update, I got the parts 2 days later, went home and loaded 1,000 rounds without a problem, and in just a couple of hours

So glad I went with blue.

[JKSNIPER]

Wow!

Some of you guys have had some scary stuff happen while reloading.

Not trying to be a wiseass here but I have to ask both because I'm pretty much a newbie to reloading and ONLY have experience on an old Lyman turret press.

Is this primer detonation syndrome pretty common to reloaders on progressive machines?

I was thinking of locating my progressive reloading machine in my son's room when he moves out to his new digs in a month or so but am leery about having it inside the house after reading about these detonations.

One thing I DO notice about these accounts is they all lack something and they almost all also contain two things.

They lack that there are no injuries reported in any of these accounts.

They containpostings that say they weren't injured due to the design of the Dillon product.

They all still profess loyalty to their Dillon product whether its a 550, 650, or 1050 reloading press.

Let me tell you....you can't BUY that type of loyalty and these accounts have been an education and have made my mind up for me.

You see I was thinking of "saving some $" by purchasing another brand of press as my first progressive reloading press ..... not anymore.

As soon as I get my retirement check paying me for my unused vacation time I'm buying the Dillon 1050 through Brian's site.

IMHO Dillon owes all you guys commission on the sale.

As a side note we were having sniper training one day a few years back and its worth noting that we used ONLY factory match grade ammo in our department rifles.

One guy had a failure to fire and waited the minute for the possible cook off.

Extracted the round and found a primer seated upside down in the casing.

Later the same day another sniper using the same lot# of ammunition had a failure to fire and after his waiting the minute for a cook off found NO primer in the round.

We sent a letter to the company.

Got nothing in return other than a lot of blah blah about millons of rounds without problems etc....

IMHO a company selling match grade ammo to police snipers for field use and practice should have ZERO tolerance for failure.

The point my addled brain is trying to make in a roundabout way is that if this company (that shall remain nameless) could have this sort of problem with their priming system for their super duper match grade stuff then ANY system out there involved with the manufacture of ammo can and probably WILL have a problem somewhere in its lifespan.

I just don't want to have this problem inside HER house....er I mean OUR house...well....inside the one room inside the house I'm allowed to have to "play" in.

Where do you guys/gals locate your reloading rooms so when this happens its not a major issue with your significant other?

It gets cold here in the winter (especially this past winter) and I'm tired of freezing my toesies off in the garage when wanting to reload and moving to AZ is not an option I'm sorry to say.

Thanks,

JK

[Kyle O]

It put a little black smudge on the ceiling, and some broken plastic pieces on the floor. Aside from the loud bang, everything is ok. If it were to happen with a 1050, you'd have to pay for new priming system. No lifetime warranty with the 1050.

I reload in my shop, but have a "gun room" in the house.

[ALBY]

i wish dillon made hot water heaters too

outstanding customer service

[DyNo!]

Makes me want to wear earpro while reloading.

I've blown up dozens of primers but not a tube yet (knock on wood).