Which Press to Purchase

[poke_53]

I am having a tough time choosing a press. I need help. Which one should I buy. I didnt know how to post a poll. I will be purchasing it around the end of the month. I will be loading 6.8 spc also. Shell plates seem to be hard to find.

Dillon 550

Dillon 650

Hornady Lock N Load AP

Lee Load Master

Lee Pro 1000

Thanks

[k_day64]

I am a huge n00b. I just reloaded my 30th round on my dillion 550. It is not hard to get into a groove I am guessing and unless you are the type to forget to index... go for the 550. Some day I will spend the 3 grand to get a fully automated 1050 making .308 just because I love shooting my M1A and gadgets.

Like I said I am very pleased with my first 30 rounds off my 550. I also spent a lot of time preping my reloading room. I added some lights and built a nice workbench, added some pegboard to the walls and cleaned the place top to bottom!

~k_day64

[M'Lady]

I would recommend that you go with the Dillon, I would opt for the 650 myself, I really prefer the auto indexing function.

Non-dillons may be less expensive, but Dillon offers excellent customer support and a more user friendly machine.

[h2osport]

I am a huge n00b. I just reloaded my 30th round on my dillion 550. It is not hard to get into a groove I am guessing and unless you are the type to forget to index... go for the 550. Some day I will spend the 3 grand to get a fully automated 1050 making .308 just because I love shooting my M1A and gadgets.

Like I said I am very pleased with my first 30 rounds off my 550. I also spent a lot of time preping my reloading room. I added some lights and built a nice workbench, added some pegboard to the walls and cleaned the place top to bottom!

~k_day64

Dude! How can you have only loaded 30 rounds? That is about 3 minutes of loading. You must have been doing load development!

As far as the press goes, I would recommend Dillon! Determining all of the calibers you want to load may affect whether you go with the 650 or the 550. Auto index is nice on the 650, and if you really want to have some fun add a case feeder and a bullet feeder.

edited to add: Use the search tool, as there is alot of info on press choices!

Randy

Edited May 5, 2009 by h2osport

[Storm52]

Poke: You can't go wrong or be directed to any better place than here:

http://www.brianenos.com/store/dillon.ez.550.html

[steveyacht]

I am having a tough time choosing a press. I need help. Which one should I buy. I didnt know how to post a poll. I will be purchasing it around the end of the month. I will be loading 6.8 spc also. Shell plates seem to be hard to find.

Dillon 550

Dillon 650

Hornady Lock N Load AP

Lee Load Master

Lee Pro 1000

Thanks

I just went through the same process but after years of shotshell reloading. I pondered, researched and agonized for about a month. What really helped me was watching YouTube Videos of the various loaders in action. This included not only loading, but the use of the powder measures, case feeders(if you want one) how to set up a multi-stage loader, ease of changing calibers, etc. I also read a review on here that compared the Dillon, Hornady LnL and a Lee Progressive. After all that, I decided upon and ordered my Hornady today. THe promotion for free bullets also ad a slight effect. It made the effective cost of a new loader around $225 with shipping.

Just remember, many folks will compare the Hornady LnL to the Dillon 550 even though the 55o is not a self indexing press, the more accurate comparision is against the Dillon 650.

For what it's worth, After reading a bunch here, I never gave a Lee a second look.

Just my opinion.

[njl]

If you don't know what you want, you probably want the 550.

But...I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone buy a press right now. Look around and see if you can actually get powder and primers first. Without primers, that RL550B is just modern art.

[gmantwo]

If you want a press that you don't EVER have to fiddle with, get the 550. I finally bought a 650 after loading on a 550 for years. Thought I'd take advantage of the increased round output. Big mistake. I was constantly having to adjust this, reset that, re-tighten this. If you set it up, and never change calibers, it works well, but if you change calibers, or change to rifle rounds, definetely go with the 550. I have 2 now and I am a very happy reloader. I am thinking about trying a case feeder for one of my 550's. Auto indexing never caught on with me either, if you raise the handle and then realize something isn't right, you have to manually reposition each case, there is no way to back things up. The primer feed system is the biggest problem I had, when it worked it was good, but when it didn't it folded up primers one after the other.

As far as other brands, I wouldn't even consider one. Dillons customer service and NO BS warranty is unbelievable. They've sent me parts when it was clearly my fault that they broke or became unserviceable.

[paul788]

Don't buy a press! Find other shooters who have presses and try before you buy anything. We are all willing to let a noob try our toys. I have used every brand except Redding and own three different presses. After you try the different brands and grades of press(single stage, turret indexing and non-indexing, progressive with and without case feeder, etc) then decide what you need. Brand should be the last thing you decide on.

Paul

[poke_53]

Thanks for all the input. I have about 5k lr rifle primers,2k small pistol primers, 11lbs of H322, 7 lbs of varget, and 7lbs of hs6. I use to load on a rock chucker.

Thanks

[poke_53]

I am having a tough time choosing a press. I need help. Which one should I buy. I didnt know how to post a poll. I will be purchasing it around the end of the month. I will be loading 6.8 spc also. Shell plates seem to be hard to find.

Dillon 550

Dillon 650

Hornady Lock N Load AP

Lee Load Master

Lee Pro 1000

Thanks

[Dan Hefta]

DON"T BUY A PRESS?? That is something that I would never advise someone that loves to shoot. I started reloading a couple of years ago and I love it, I have a Dillon Suare Deal B and have had no issues with it, the primer and powder issues will go away, as soon as everyone comes to their sences. Good Luck with your decision.

[Jman]

Lee's Classic Cast Turret is a great press. Takes up very little bench space. IMO it's primer system is the slickest, safest and most convenient to be had. I spend maybe 90 minutes with it during the week and load all I need. ~350 rounds

Dillon products and support are second to none. They're neighbors as well. The 550, 650 and 1050 are the best high output progressive machines made period. Buy Dillon products here from Brian's store.

I bought my Lee Classic Turret from Cabela's a couple years back for around $ 85.00 and am very satisfied. Works for me.

Jim

[3quartertime]

Around here I think your gonna get mostly Dillon advise. If you do decide to seek a Dillon take a look here.

Brian's Dillon Info

[XD Niner]

To some extent it depends on the production volume you're going to want. I reload about 2000 rounds per month. I started out with a LnL but quickly replaced it with a Dillon 650 because I wanted greater reliability. If I were only going to load a hundred rounds or so each week I would have gone with the 550.

One thing to consider is that no matter which press you buy that you can always resell it if you don't like it. I sold the LnL for 90% of what I paid for it after three months of use.

[slowhand49]

I am having a tough time choosing a press. I need help. Which one should I buy. I didnt know how to post a poll. I will be purchasing it around the end of the month. I will be loading 6.8 spc also. Shell plates seem to be hard to find.

Dillon 550

Dillon 650

Hornady Lock N Load AP

Lee Load Master

Lee Pro 1000

Thanks

FWIW,

I loaded on the LNL for several years, recently buying the 550B from Brian.

There is NO comparison, to me, the 550B is so much easier to use, so

much smoother operation, and the primer system beats the LNL all the way.

And, the NO BS Warranty from Dillon helped make it an easy decision.

[Bacon]

you can't go wrong with a dillon 650, or a hornady.

[steveyacht]

I just loaded my first rounds with my new Hornady LnL AP yesterday. Was a breeze to set up, the lock and load bushings make changing a breeze, the powder throws are very accurate and consistent. I particularly like the smoothness of the indexing. That and the 1000 free Hornady bullets helped mitigate the price by a fairly significant amount. I may be a newbie to metallic reloading, the last press I owned was an RCBS Rockchucker in the late 70's but I have loaded thousands upon thousands of shotshells on a variety of MEC loaders. Comparatively, the Hornady is a dream.

[Graham Smith]

Depends a lot on the volume of ammo you load and the amount of automation you want.

The LoadMaster is the least expensive and if you are not loading a lot of ammo will work find once you get it tuned it. But it does take a lot of fiddling and tweaking to get it working right to start with and if you volume starts going up, you will start to find that it has some eccentricities that can be a pain if you are not extremely diligent.

While I have not used the LnL press, I have heard very few complaints about it. It seems to be a very good press with a price in the middle range.

I understand that if you are only going to load pistol and don't care about being limited to proprietary dies, the Dillion Square Deal is a good press to start out with.

My personal choice is the 550, but it lacks some of the automation that the 650 offers. For me, however, that's just fine because after a couple years using a Lee Pro and Loadmaster, I find that I actually prefer a non-auto indexing press.

As to the 650, again I'm told it's a fine press, but it's also more press than I need or expect to need unless I can find a lot more time to shoot than I now enjoy.

There are a lot of detailed comparisons of presses in the forum. If you cannot find all you ever wanted to know about the presses mentioned here, then just ask and you'll get lots of answers. Remember, the search button is your best friend for finding information.

[bayouman]

My first pressss was a Dillon 650 with case feeder. It was no problem setting up about a year and a half ago. I just bought a second 650. I couldn't imagine loading on a 550 after having a 650. One big advantage of the 650 is the auto indexing. I have never had a double powder load.

My only experience is with Dillong so I cannot comment on others.

[Chris iliff]

I don't know of any company that has a "No Bull Sh**" warranty save one, and that's DILLON. Believe me brother, when they say NO B.S. they mean it!!! Best company in the shooting world for reloading, PERIOD.

[Nemo]

First of all, don't listen to those telling you not to buy a press. Unless you have access to an unlimited supply of ammo or money, if you're a shooter you must reload.

I own a 650 and load about 1800 mo on it for 3 shooters for 3 local matches (actually this volume has gone down a bit but still more than 1000 rounds per mo). I also just sold my SDB. However, the best quality ammunition I've ever loaded was in my 550. The auto indexing is very nice but indexing the 550 is very easy and when you get in the groove you don't even think about it.

BUY A DILLON.

I helped a friend setup his LnL and all I can say is it has potential.

Edited May 24, 2009 by Nemo

[Denny45ACP]

I am having a tough time choosing a press. I need help. Which one should I buy. I didnt know how to post a poll. I will be purchasing it around the end of the month. I will be loading 6.8 spc also. Shell plates seem to be hard to find.

Dillon 550

Dillon 650

Hornady Lock N Load AP

Lee Load Master

Lee Pro 1000

Thanks

the real answer is how much do you shoot? and how soon do you want to recover the cost of reloading. and what your time is worth.

[badchad]

As to the 650, again I'm told it's a fine press, but it's also more press than I need or expect to need unless I can find a lot more time to shoot than I now enjoy.

The 650 gives you more time to shoot.

[MemphisMechanic]

I finally bought a 650 after loading on a 550 for years. Thought I'd take advantage of the increased round output. Big mistake. I was constantly having to adjust this, reset that, re-tighten this. If you set it up, and never change calibers, it works well, but if you change calibers, or change to rifle rounds, definetely go with the 550.

I agree. If you want to load a bunch of pistol, then switch and load a couple hundred 223s and some .308, then load a few 38 specials, then go back and load a ton of 9mm for your competition gun... The 550 is the press for you.

Auto indexing never caught on with me either, if you raise the handle and then realize something isn't right, you have to manually reposition each case, there is no way to back things up.

You just need to learn to use it.

Fix whatever jam/malfunction caused the problem. Then lift the handle 2/3s of the way while holding up the arm that causes the primer wheel to ratchet (so it won't rotate the wheel and spit out an extra primer), manually-index the shellplate backwards, and run the toolhead all the way up. CHECK FOR A DOUBLE CHARGE, as this is the only way to accomplish one on a 650 that I've found.