Light Charges Out Of My 550

[Vlad]

For my 9mm minor load I've decide to try 124s instead of 147 for a bit. While I was reseting dies anyway, I took my 550 apart and cleaned it which it really needed. I took almost everything apart, including the powder mesure, cleaned everything and put it back together.

Last nite I tried the first 100 rounds of this new load. The first 10 rounds went over the chrono and looked good. The rest where shot at our local 4 stage practice match. About 5 of those rounds where underpowered. They had enough powder to make the bullet leave the barrel, but not enough to fully cycle the gun. I've loaded over 10,000 rounds on this press and I've NEVER seen this problem until now. It is quite possible I screwed up something when I took it apart. Does anyone have any ideas where I should start looking?

[dillon]

Do you have the lock-link assembly on your powder measure? If so, be sure the blue wing nut at the bottom of the return rod is tight enough. When you push forward on the handle to seat a primer, the spring above the blue wing nut should be compressed by at least 1/3.

Make sure that there aren't any contaminants blocking the bottom of the powder hopper,

and the powder funnel and steel drop tube in the bottom of the powder measure are clean. Suggest using a cotton swab and alcohol to clean them.

Make sure the powder bar goes full travel before the handle bottoms out. I suggest flaring the case mouth at least .010" larger than a sized, unflared case to ensure full powder bar travel.

Be sure the white delrin bellcrank cube is present, and that the nut and bolt attaching the bellcrank are tight enough to keep the bellcrank cube in the notch in the side of the powder bar.

[Vlad]

Thanx, I'll try all of the above. I know the white block is in place, but now that I think about it I dont remember how much I tightened blue wing nut.