550 Casefeeder Works Great

[Chris Keen]

Great idea, but now I have to change my counter to 248 little tweaks ........

[dbglock35]

I used 3 washers on the top side of where the handle goes through the press base. A freind only needed 2.

Works perfect now

[Donnie]

Another, easier good idea! I tried this but did not have enough threads left to get a full nut on bottom of handle. Did you take the bottom washer off completely?

[dbglock35]

yes i did, It has nyloc on it , so it shouldn't come loose

[rwmagnus]

Updated edits in red

Below are some initial comments after setting up and loading about 200 rounds. Both pro and con.

The unit is well made, that's to be expected it's a Dillon! When I first looked at the written instructions my first thought was "now what did I get into". I then said this can't be that hard and dove in. It goes together pretty easily. Everything fit perfect fo me.

It is very trick not to reach for cases, just pull the handle index the plate and grab a bullet. It is also pretty quiet when running as well. I still think some kind of hinged lid would be beneficial. It would keep potential debris from getting in the casefeeder and make it even quieter. Overall it's a pretty good piece of gear to have. After using it for awhile I'll post what it does for speeding up the reloading which after all is the primary reason for getting it.

Never having a case feeder before I have now learned the value of inspecting cases before dumping them into the feeder. I found 3 split cases during the powder filling stage. So much for once fired brass. LOL.

Pros

Easy assembly

Faster reloading

Quiet operation

Quality equipment

Cons

Using an EGW undersizing die (I shoot a Glock) for 40S&W sometimes the case doesn't line up perfectly to enter the die, now there is a lot less room to manually push the case into alignment. Net effect it slows down the operation. Still happens but not very often.

I also get some bounce back from the case not staying in the shell plate thereby not allowing for correct primer alignment. It's not often but when it happens it brings everything to a halt. I'm guessing the unit need a tweak adjustment somewhere to end this. I'll have to call Dillon for some of that service and support! Slight adjustment & it's fixed.

It's very difficult to clear debris from the unit, ie corn cob, broken primer etc. There just isn't that much room to get it cleared out. Compressed air works fine.

On assembly you have to use a tool head and powder die to check the alignment. I was very happy to have extras. It would be disappointing to disassemble a set of dies that were already dialed in.

Last downside is it's not easy or quick to change the 550 back to a manual machine. Mine will be set up for just 40S&W w/ the feeder. I'll use the second 550 to do different calibers.

Hope these initial comments help. More to follow as I get more time with it.... Learned another hard lesson. After getting the case feeder working properly I loaded 300 rounds. Never thought to double check the OAL since I left the tool head and dies alone but guess what? Yep I was into the new ammo by stage 3 and I got 6 of 15 targets engaged when the gun wouldn't go into battery. Rounds were too long! Lesson learned..... measure the OAL AGAIN!

Overall I'm very happy with the case feeder.

Edited March 27, 2006 by rwmagnus

[Chris Keen]

Sounds like you just need to fine tune the casefeed cam (lower mounting plate) a little. I use an EGW die for .40 also and have less than 1% jams with brass going into the die, but 0% problems on the bottom end of the stroke (primer seating).

Try to tweak this mounting adj. one more time on your own, or call Dillon and let them walk you through it.

[Trisha Lowry]

RWMagnus....I experienced the exact same problems that you seemed to be having. After I got thru the first 'oh shit' moment when I saw the directions I got it together and promptly hated the case feeder. The bounce back of the brass was causing me to throw away too many rounds due to smashed primers. It turned out to be a simple adjustment of the cam. Also Gary at Dillon replaced my EGW die with a new Dillon die and also tighted my shellplate. He said all 3 were causing the issues that I was experiencing. He is "Dillon" on this site if you want to give him a holler and is great to work with. I am lucky enough to be local to Dillon so I just brought my machine in and had them do all the tweaks on it and now LOVE my casefeeder. Don't sweat it out...call and they can fix it easily.

[schoonie]

Gary,

I'm having the same bounce back problem as Trish, how do I adjust the cam? What's the procedure?

Also I'm getting a jam when ths case slides onto the base (I don't recall the technical name of the part that the shellplate mounts on). The aluminum insert that the brass slides in is a couple of thousandths taller that the base and the brass sometimes tilts down at the junction point between the two pieces and stops sliding into position. Should both parts be on the same plane? My 550 was purchased in the early 80's if that makes a difference.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[dillon]

Schoonie,

The most likely cause for the bounceback is that the cam is set barely too far away, allowing the plunger to push the case into the shellplate at an uncontrolled rate. How I set Trish's cam was to barely loosen the cam mounting bolts;they should still be very snug;then use a large flat blade screwdriver as a lever to gently push the cam towards the plunger. Have a case in the shellplate when you do this, and hold the handle in a position to allow the plunger roller bolt to be in the center of the cam.Set the cam so that it barely touches the roller, and snug the mounting bolts. This method works better for me, as it allows for tinier adjustments.

Regarding the cases sliding into the shellplate, it is normal that the station one locaotr is a couple of thousanths taller than the top of the platform. Try greasing the underside of the head of the shellplate bolt where it recesses into the top of the index sprocket. Then, after adjusting the shellplate bolt tension, push down on the edge of the shellplate between stations 2 and 3. If it feels very springy, then snug the shellplate bolt a bit more. Additionally, in 40S&W, check for tweaked rims on the cases.

[schoonie]

Thanks for the rapid response, I'll try the adjustment this weekend and report back.

[R/T Performance]

WOW after reading this and seeing both videos.I SHOULD HAVE LISTEND TO BRIAN AND BOUGHT A 550 instead of my Square deal b .

Good news I have a fellow shooter how wants mine Now 550 or 650?

Thought I found a buy on a 550 but haven't been able to get a response from him yet

[benos]

WOW after reading this and seeing both videos.I SHOULD HAVE LISTEND TO BRIAN AND BOUGHT A 550 instead of my Square deal b .

I should link this post in my Which Dillon article.

.... "The only time I ever recommend a SqDeal (over the 550) is if you have loaded on a friend's SqDeal and liked it."

Edited March 27, 2006 by benos

[R/T Performance]

WOW after reading this and seeing both videos.I SHOULD HAVE LISTEND TO BRIAN AND BOUGHT A 550 instead of my Square deal b .

I should link this post in my Which Dillon article.

.... "The only time I ever recommend a SqDeal (over the 550) is if you have loaded on a friend's SqDeal and liked it."

Bieng I had nobodys stuff to play with and I mainly shoot just pistol but seeing all that extra room .

I Have a buddy lined up to buy my SDB and I think I may just choke the extra down and buy a 650 .After seeing that videa I must have a case feeder

[rwmagnus]

WOW after reading this and seeing both videos.I SHOULD HAVE LISTEND TO BRIAN AND BOUGHT A 550 instead of my Square deal b .

Good news I have a fellow shooter how wants mine Now 550 or 650?

Thought I found a buy on a 550 but haven't been able to get a response from him yet

Ahhhh the ole case feeder decission. I think Dillon should offer a case feeder for the Sq Deal becauase it auto indexes! If your buying new and starting from scratch the 650 is the way to go. If you need to do alot of caliber changing get a second press like a 550 or keep the Sq Deal, because anything with a case feeder on it will be a pain to change.

The more I use the 550 case feeder the more I like it. It really is pretty trick.

[Caspian_45]

because anything with a case feeder on it will be a pain to change.

I have to disagree with you here. It depends on the calibers you are swapping. If you are not needing to change primer systems the 650 XL is a beeze to swap out.

9mm, 38 super, 40 S&W all use the same case feeder setup. You only need to swap tool heads, but thats simple. Unless you are switching from rifle to pistol and back again, you are only really needing to change out the feeder tube parts and maybe the case feeder plate. Most everything else you are going to have to change even if you don't have a case feeder.

Edited March 28, 2006 by Caspian_45

[rwmagnus]

because anything with a case feeder on it will be a pain to change.

I have to disagree with you here. It depends on the calibers you are swapping. If you are not needing to change primer systems the 650 XL is a beeze to swap out.

9mm, 38 super, 40 S&W all use the same case feeder setup. You only need to swap tool heads, but thats simple. Unless you are switching from rifle to pistol and back again, you are only really needing to change out the feeder tube parts and maybe the case feeder plate. Most everything else you are going to have to change even if you don't have a case feeder.

I stand corrected. You said what better I meant.

Edited March 28, 2006 by rwmagnus

[Jeff Phillips]

I need help bad. I got my casefeeder all set up, and started loading with it, and was getting bounce-back out of the shell plate. I went through the manual, and did the fine-adjustment it recomended, and got even worse results. So I started reading through this thread for ideas and tried them all, and still no luck. THEN I called Dillon, and got some brainiac who told me to set the cam adjustment all the way back because "we found that works best for us" and when I told him I tried that, he just repeated himself. So thus far, here is what I've tried:

[*]Tightened down the shellplate

[*]Adjusted the Cam as per the original instructions

[*]Adjusted the cam all the way back

[*]Adjusted the cam per the troubleshooting instructions

I'm still bouncing 1 in 10 cases at least.

And on top of it not working, the tolerances were very dissapointing. the relief in the plunger mount where it attaches to the ram that allows the primer plunger to go up through the shellplate was machined wrong. there wasn't enough room for the plunger to enter, so I had to take a Dremel and very carefully grind it larger so I could prime a case.

And then, when I ordered, no one told me that 9mm probably wouldn't work very well because of the jamming issue in the drop tube. So while it works, and I've done it, its kinda cheesy having a rolled up piece of plastic inside of a $230 piece of hardware.

I usually really like Dillon, but this is ridiculous.

Does anyone have any more ideas about how to fix the bounce-back issue? I know I got kinda off-topic on this, I've just spent 2 hours taking this thing apart twice and putting it back together to try and figure out what is wrong.

[dillon]

Try resetting the cam with a piece of brass in the shellplate. I recommend to barely loosen the frame bolts, then use a large flat-blade screwdriver as a lever to pry the cam position. This method allows you to make smaller adjustements. Case bounce is almost always due to the cam being too far away from the plunger roller, allowing the plunger to move forward at an uncontrolled rate.

We will have an aluminum sleeve for the upper part of the microswitchhousing in a few days. Once those arrive, they will be sent out to everyone that ordered a casefeeder automatically.

We can send you a replacement platform to correct the primer cup catching. This is due to tolerances from the variety of subcontractors that have made 550 platforms over the past 20+ years.

[nhglyn]

dillon, need your help.

After having the casefeeder for a while I have only two small complaints:

1. The screw that holds the hopper in place on the support pole goes through just the plastic housing, it has stripped and the hopper now rotates a little on the pole. You can't tighten it anymore because the plastic won't hold the tightness so I have it held in place with duct tape. Should I take screw out, drill hole into metal pole and then use metal screw to hold firmly in the position I want?

2. A number of spent primers drop onto my table and floor rather than into the spent primer cup. It rotates on the cotterpin just fine and I have replaced the decapping pin so that is not the problem. Any solutions?

Thanks.

Edited March 30, 2006 by nhglyn

[dillon]

nhglyn,

You can either ship the bowl in so we can install a new threaded insert, or else do as you described and drill a hole in the post and use a self-tapping sheet metal screw to keep the bowl from moving.

As far the the wayward spent primers go, pull the toolhead and look down through the hole where the spent primers fall. See if the pivoting catcher completely obscures this hole, then open it up by hand and see if you can see the spent primer catcher cup. It is possible that the catcher assembly is shifted a bit too far to the right. If this is the case, then spent primers can hit the back top edge of the cup, and bounce. In this instance, just shift the spent primer catcher assembly a few thousanths to the left. Then primers will go into the cup.

[vettman1]

I'm having nothing but problems with mine. I'm loading 38 super comp. The station one locater piece that guides the shell toward position one keeps getting dinged. This time it was because a case got flipped upside down and I didn't catch it before I pulled the handle and the case hit the top of the press. The first time was because the case must have gotten tilted a bit on the downstroke and got caught between the wedge of the pusher. It's the second one that I've had at this point and I'm about ready to send this thing back.

Another question for all of you. When you have the handle of your press all of the way down, does your lower feeder assembly hit the top of the press? Mine does and pushes the assembly arm to the left a bit. I wonder if my machine is out of spec.

BTW, before I had problems this last time, I put 200 empty cases through it without a hitch.

[schoonie]

Gary,

The screwdriver trick worked great. The roller now stays in contact continuously with the cam. The cases don't move at all, no more crushed primers.

New problem; I switched from 45 to 40 and I'm getting a couple upside down cases and case jams at the top of the feed tubes. It appears that a case drops out of the large bin sideways (90 degrees from verticle) and gets jammed in the clear plastic funnel at the top of the drop tube. The brass keeps dropping on top, stacking up, and eventually jamming the rotary wheel. Have I overloaded the bin? I put about 500 cases into it.

[dillon]

vettman1,

Contact Dillon for a #5 staion one loacotor, and for a replacment platform. We had one other customer report problems loading 38 Super Comp;we sent him a #5 locator and that corrected things. The replacement platform is a bit thinner, which will eliminate the top of the case feed plunger housing contacting the underside of the main frame.

schoonie,

Try reducing the quantity of cases in the bowl to about 200 or so. I use a one-pound coffee can as a filler for my case feeder at home. Regarding cases flipping, please clarify:

Are they flipping at the clear plastic funnel attached to the top of the bowl, or are they flipping at the upper part of the microswitch housing?

Also, be sure that the spacer washer is not installed underneath the case feed plate.

[bberkley]

My 550 is a pretty old one, and Gary had me ship the press in because I couldn't get the primer assembly to not stick. Last I heard, it was getting pushed over to R&D.

I don't think I'll be needing it for a while, what with some type of back surgery coming up (either a Lumbar fusion or a discectomy), but I sure would like to have it back so I can load some 9 Major and finish getting my Open gun broken in and off to chrome while I am laid up recuperating.

[Jeff Phillips]

Well, I'm narrowing down my problem with the casefeeder, but its still not working. I took Dillons advice, and I pulled the cam back, with a case in the shellplate, and I still had problems, so I pulled it back as far as it would go ( which wasn't much further ) and it was now just barely getting the case in the shellplate all the way, but still I had issues where the case wouldn't feed into the shellplate.

Now, after running 200 pieces of brass through it with the toolhead off, I don't think my issues are from bounceback. I think the brass simply is getting tweaked and not pushed into the shellplate all the way. I noticed several things, but I'm hoping someone else can tell me what their press looks like, because I don't have a second 550 to compare it to.

First off, I have noticed that the insert that the case rides in as it is getting fed into the shell plate has several gouges in it, so when I push the brass through it, it kind of snags. Its probably my fault, because they match a 9mm head for the nicks, however I'm not sure how they got there, because even when the case doesn't go into the shell plate all the way and gets jammed down, it is still a ways away from the insert. The insert for 45 that I also have is very smooth and no snags occur when I slide brass though it. This may be contributing to the problem, but I don't think it is the primary problem if at all.

Secondly, when I look at the shellplate platform, there seems to be a lip right where the shell just starts entering the shellplate. From watching the cases, it looks as if the cases are hitting that lip and being tilted at a slight angle at times and, due to the soft spring in the ram, stopping there and not getting pushed all the way in. So my question is, does everyone else have that lip there?

Thirdly, as I was watching the cases, the problem seemed to occur 75% or more of the time with one particular shellplate station. I took a set of calipers and, while not looking at the marked station so as not to alter my perception of which station it was, it seems that that particular station MIGHT be 2 thousandths different than the rest. I say might, because trying to measure something that small, especially when it is easy to slightly tilt the calipers is difficult, and 2 thousandths really isn't that much.

Would it be asking too much just to have Dillon send me a new insert, shellplate platform, and shellplate? Spring is here, and that means shooting season, and I really need to get loading but my press has been out of comission for awhile.

Any input would be really appreciated.