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Dillon 650 vs. 1050


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I'm getting ready to upgrade from a Dillon 550 to a 650 or 1050.  Aside from the obvious cost differences, what are the pros and cons, functionally?  

I'm probably going to buy it in one caliber and leave it.  Time constraints are getting to the point where I have very little time to devote to reloading now, so I want to be able to walk up and crank out month's worth of rounds quickly without a lot of fuss.  

Also, does anyone out there have a Dillon auto primer tube filler?  Impressions?  Is it a worthwhile investment?

Thanks for any feedback!

Eric

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Do the 550 and the 650 use the same dies?  1050?

Carol Pilant at Sierra couldn't say enough about the electric primer filler from Dillon.  Of course, he reloads for a living.  I fill up my primer tubes, by hand, while watching the news (or whatever) on TV.

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Thanks Flex!

I still do the boob tube primer trip, but I'm on the road virtually all week, every week now, so I have just enough time to pack my gear, stuff it in the car, and head to the range.  

I guess Mike Dillon saw me coming...  I wish I could buy stock in the company so I could at least see *some* of my money again.  Sigh...

Eric

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The sole advantage the 1050 has over the 650 is the automatic primer crimp swaging station.  If you aren't going to encounter enough crimped cases to warrant the extra cost of the 1050, get a 650.

I used to gauge ammo and fill primer tubes while watching tv after loading.  Then I got cable, and found the reject rate went up while watching HBO late at night.  Something about movies with Shannon Tweed or Shannon Whirrey caused my ammo to stop working.

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the primer sytem on the 1050 won't drop a primer if there is no case in the station....the primer depth also looks adjustable on the 1050 which is good cuz you can't feel the primer seat. The auto primer filler is pretty cool....once in a while though it drops a primer upside down...love mine.

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  • 9 months later...

I'm going to sneak this thread back up to the top.  

What's the consensus on the Super 1050's?  Thumbs up or down?  I definitely believe that folks are having problems, but I'm still disbelieving that Dillon would ship anything so problematic.  I don't mind spending money so that I don't have to fiddle fart around with anything, but what I'm hearing is that the Super 1050 just isn't suitable for pistol calibers anymore.  I would consider a 650, but my understanding is that there is a litany of problems relating to it's priming system as well.  

Vrai ou Faux?  Would Dillon care to chime in on this?  What's really going on?  Bad design or operator error?

Thanks!

Eric

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Erik, I probably have close to 100k rounds loaded on my 650 and have never encountered one primer problem.  I had a switch on the casefeeder go bad and a couple small parts that broke... not to worry, Dillion has some awesome customer service.  I had the replacement parts in a few days free of charge with no questions asked.  

The shooters that upgraded to the 1050 love it and won't go back to the 650.  I've heard nothing but bad things about the new 1050 Super.  I can't see spending the extra $ when the 650 works perfect.  I rarely ever load more than 500 rounds at a time (it gets boring), so I'm sticking with the 650.  If it's not broke, don't fix it.

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  • 1 month later...

As a long-time 650 user that just added an old-style 1050 to the bench, here are my first impressions after 400 rounds--

Physically the 1050 is bigger and sticks out more towards the operator, but takes about the same amount of bench space. Everything looks super-beefy on the 1050. The operating handle location is much higher than the 650-- this was annoying since I built my bench for a non-strong-mounted 650 which makes the 1050 about 2" too high for comfort.

The 1050 has many many more parts and things going on and the manual is fairly minimal [update: I've discovered that the Super 1050 manual is much better]. Don't get one as your first machine. It's pretty easy to look in the 650 when it's operating and see everything behaving in one glance. The 1050 has a big main shaft in the way and so many more stations that you can't see all the parts working, tappets tapping and such every time. On the plus side, there's more control of the cases, so it's much less likely to misfeed a case or otherwise jam.

If it does, the primer feed doesn't feed primers if there's no case-- the 650 always drops one, which can get irritating.

Downstroke and adjustable priming is the cat's meow and probably where the 1050 gets most of it's speed over the 650. Downside is you can't tell when you're out of primers if you forget to put the warning rod in..

Speed? So far I'm probably not any faster on the 1050, but it feels so much smoother than cranking the handle on the 650, so I bet it won't be long.

(btw, a slightly-sized-up & cut-off .223 case also works great as a spent-primer dump tube attachment for the 1050)

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I just stuck the small end of the .223 case up into the hole where spent primers come out, sawed off the case and slipped a piece of clear tubing over it that runs down to a beer bottle on the floor, ala the 650 tips page here

I've heard that newer 650's have a square spent-primer hole, so maybe newer 1050's have something goofy going on there too.

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Ok,  I wouldn't have made this post 6 or 7 months ago.

Someone tell me how a 1050 could possibly better than a 650 w/casefeeder 'for the money'.  I am at a complete loss.

My 650 is literally a dream.  The only problems I have is the ones I input.    If had to buy ten more presses I would buy ten more 650's.

My 1.99 cents.

(Edited by 3quartertime at 1:49 pm on Oct. 9, 2002)

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Well, I got this 1050 for about what another 650 rig would have cost me new, and I'm pretty happy with the deal.. :)  The advantages I've found so far are the downstroke priming, and overall smoother running-- not having to shove the handle forwards every time, no live primers everywhere if the casefeed jams up

I'm keeping the 650 for other calibers since it's so much easier to convert and I have a bunch of toolheads already, but if I won the lottery, it'd be a row of 1050's.

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I've only know one person that had a 1050 and unfortunetly I didn't get to see it in action.  He sold it because he liked loading on his 550 better.  To me a 650/casefeeder is a pretty big impovement over a 550 with not really that much more invested.  Guess I haven't heard of any GREAT improvement of the 1050 to warrant spending so much more.

Unless you got a really great deal on one!!!

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