Reloder to srart with?

[leroy]

Hi Lester. Good to hear from ya. I hadnt thought of the headlamp thing. It is an excellent idea. As you have opined, lookin in the case is a "must do" to make sure the case is charged correctly.

Keep up the good work!

leroy

[SHARPPOINT]

Thank you. I have herd of the double charge and that IS on my mind... Can you put a powder chercker on the 550? If not, I may need to back up and cancel my order??

[leroy]

Thank you. I have herd of the double charge and that IS on my mind... Can you put a powder chercker on the 550? If not, I may need to back up and cancel my order??

I wouldnt cancel my order, dillon is a good machine. RE: Your question on the powder check die. I think ya can. I looked at the 550, it's a 4 station press. I would put a powder checker die (....like this one by Hornady: Powder Cop Die ...) in the third station and set the fourth one up to both seat the bullet and apply the crimp. I also like Lester's solution of using a head lamp to look directly into the cases (...see post #25...). You may also have to order a combination seating/crimping die as the dillon uses two separate dies for that. Just pick out an RCBS, Lyman, Lee, or Hornady seating/crimping die when ya order the powder check die. Here is one i found at midway too: Taper Crimp Seater Die 9mm Luger . My guess is that all this "extra stuff" will cost about $70 or so dollars and fix ya right up.

Have fun and enjoy reloading for your stuff!!

leroy

[SHARPPOINT]

Thanks Leroy and others for all this help.

[SHARPPOINT]

Sorry, one more thing, is there any downfalls using a die to "seat the bullet and apply the crimp" at the same time?

[leroy]

Sorry, one more thing, is there any downfalls using a die to "seat the bullet and apply the crimp" at the same time?

I dont think so. Especially for pistol calibers. Some of the rifle guys might wince a bit, but i dont think it matters.

leroy

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I had bought three different dillon powder measures for .357, 9mm, and .380, because I'm lazy and don't like messing with stuff. The quality control seems good because all three work fine. I haven't had to mess with them except mount with proper adjustment (not difficult) and set the powder weight (which is not difficult but takes me some time because I'm naturally slow). I rarely change settings once I find something that works.

I double-check the powder measure weight against the scale before each reload session and it doesn't seem to drift much. It rarely needs readjusting. When first beginning I checked it more often until confident that the powder measure seems stable and repeatable.

People claim that ball powders meter better than flake powders, at least in the dillon powder measure. Lately I like a powder that takes up a little more room in the case. Some folks claim that if a load uses a fast powder that doesn't take hardly any space in the case, that the ammo can perform different depending on where the powder happens to be laying in the case when you take each shot.

On the other hand if somebody likes making lots of weak practice ammo, it may be cheapest to use fast powders like W231 which hardly needs any weight to work fine. So a penny pincher can load more rounds per pound of powder with some of the fast powders. I've lately decided that within reason for pistol ammo, the cost per round of powder is so low that it doesn't matter so much if one powder costs a fraction of a cent more per round than another. The per-round cost of bullets and primers is a lot more than the powder.

Apologies rambling. That powder cop look like a neat die that I would use if I ever get a press that will hold it.

Another one that looks promising is the RCBS Lock-out Die--

Lock-Out Die

As far as looking down in the case and eyeballing each load before seating the bullet, it is nearly impossible to judge whether the weight "looks like" 5.0 gn versus 5.5 gn versus 6.0 gn. But once confident of the powder measure repeatability, you can look down in the case and pretty easily tell if there is little-to-no powder or if there is way too much.

Reading about the Powder Cop and Lock-Out Die, it appears maybe the same with those. People say they do not work very well with tiny charges with fast powders. You can tell if it is empty or over charged but not necessarily reliably know if the weight happens to be 1 grain off? However, the window of min-to-max load on many pistol powders is 1 grain or less. So perhaps somebody could use the safety die correctly and still experience an occasional very weak or very hot round, if the powder measure is not working reliably?

So maybe the dies are not drastically better than just looking down into each case? Looking down into the 9mm case is easy on my setup, but maybe on some gear it would be difficult/impossible. Or maybe using the die would save a neck-ache from peering down for hours at an odd angle?

[leroy]

lester:_____________

Some good thoughts contained above. My main worry is a double charge with the progressives. I believe you can see them pretty easy. Try it and weigh out a couple of charges of your faborite load and dump them into two empty cases. A "good" charge on one, and a "double" on the other.

I load for 380 acp (...on a single stage press...). My load is 4.0 grains of 231. I can easily see a double charge. When ya get down in the 3 and less grain loadings it might get a bit hard to see; but your eye is a pretty good judge of like type things (...like powder charges in casings...); so i dont worry too much. Havin said all that, i like to use loads where a double charge will spill out of or almost completely fill up the case. You can see them pretty easy.

As to the 'little bit" overcharged thing; (...5.0 vs 6.o grain sort of thing....) ive got an interesting story. When i first started reloading in the mid 70's, we shot tons of hot loads out of ruger blackhawks. One of my favorite 41 mag. loads was a maximum load of Winchester 630 ball powder and the old 210 grain speer 3/4 jacket hollow points. I used an old sierra loading manual that listed the maximum load of the PREDECESSOR to Winchester 630, called 630P. My pet load was a pretty good overload. Lots of time, the cases would stick in the ruger and i would peck the spent cases out, swab the cylinder with denatured alcohol to clean up oil (...which i thought was the problem...) and keep on shooting. It was great to shoot these loads. They were accurate and plenty powerful. We used a pretty good sized black pine tree for a backstop and the 41 mag loads would tear big chunks out of the tree from time to time. I FINALLY NOTICED in the reloading manual what was goin on. It turns out that my regular shootin load (...that i had shot hundreds if not a thousand rounds of....) was about a 20 or so % overload. The brass was fine and the gun was fine; the brass just stuck in the cylinder. After i discovered what i had done, i took a good look at the cylinder. No bulges, it looked (...and still looks...) like a million dollars. I still have that old 41 mag blackhawk and it is still one of our best shooters despite the beating i gave it. The point of all this rambling is that todays stuff is pretty tough. A proof load for a handgun is twice what a "normal' load is. I dont advocate anyone doing what i did; it was foolish. My point is that other things may well point to an overload. Pay attention when ya see 'em.

leroy

[Dave Shooter]

Sorry, one more thing, is there any downfalls using a die to "seat the bullet and apply the crimp" at the same time?

Yes, since the brass varies in length (no one I know bothers to trim 9mm brass) you get some inconsistentcy as on some cases the bullet will still be finishing seating as the crimp is applied and others not. With a modest taper crimp I don't think it will be a big deal; with a heavy roll crimp like you'd use on magnums it can make a difference. This is one of the reasons Dillon recommends seating and crimping as separate stations.

Personally I powder check by eyeballing the case as I put the bullet on it; I have to look at it anyways so might as well look for the right powder level. I do this with both 550 and 1050.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I load for 380 acp (...on a single stage press...). My load is 4.0 grains of 231. I can easily see a double charge. When ya get down in the 3 and less grain loadings it might get a bit hard to see; but your eye is a pretty good judge of like type things (...like powder charges in casings...); so i dont worry too much. Havin said all that, i like to use loads where a double charge will spill out of or almost completely fill up the case. You can see them pretty easy.

As to the 'little bit" overcharged thing; (...5.0 vs 6.o grain sort of thing....) ive got an interesting story. When i first started reloading in the mid 70's, we shot tons of hot loads out of ruger blackhawks. One of my favorite 41 mag. loads was a maximum load of Winchester 630 ball powder and the old 210 grain speer 3/4 jacket hollow points. I used an old sierra loading manual that listed the maximum load of the PREDECESSOR to Winchester 630, called 630P. My pet load was a pretty good overload. Lots of time, the cases would stick in the ruger and i would peck the spent cases out, swab the cylinder with denatured alcohol to clean up oil (...which i thought was the problem...) and keep on shooting. It was great to shoot these loads. They were accurate and plenty powerful. We used a pretty good sized black pine tree for a backstop and the 41 mag loads would tear big chunks out of the tree from time to time. I FINALLY NOTICED in the reloading manual what was goin on. It turns out that my regular shootin load (...that i had shot hundreds if not a thousand rounds of....) was about a 20 or so % overload. The brass was fine and the gun was fine; the brass just stuck in the cylinder. After i discovered what i had done, i took a good look at the cylinder. No bulges, it looked (...and still looks...) like a million dollars. I still have that old 41 mag blackhawk and it is still one of our best shooters despite the beating i gave it. The point of all this rambling is that todays stuff is pretty tough. A proof load for a handgun is twice what a "normal' load is. I dont advocate anyone doing what i did; it was foolish. My point is that other things may well point to an overload. Pay attention when ya see 'em.

leroy

Thanks Leroy

When I was using W231 in 9mm it was a little more trouble seeing powder in the case (lower level), but no big problem. Several thousand W231 rounds shot very accurately as best I could tell. Only reason I switched powder was with 124 gn bullets, a couple of pistols with stiff slides needed near-max load in W231 to work the action and I didn't want to work that close to max (in case variance in the powder measure might drop some over-max loads).

With a slower bulkier powder, am hoping that an accidental "slight" overcharge in the ballpark of 1 gn wouldn't tear up a pistol, especially if loading a few tenths of a grain below max to begin with. Hopefully it wouldn't be much worse than a +P+ round. Seems very little way to avoid an occasional hot load by eye, if it is possible for a Dillon powder measure to all of a sudden accidentally drop an unusually heavy charge in the "normal" range. As opposed to operator error causing a double-charge. It would seem low probability that the measure could all of a sudden drop a whole lot more for a single unusually hot round, unless some powder was clumping together underneath the powder bar and suddenly dropping that clump? Which would encourage use of an easy-metering powder.

The Sillhouette at 5.5 gn is 0.5 gn below max and pushes the 124gn bullets pretty good, and fills about half the case. A double charge might not spill out, but the case would definitely be full of powder.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Personally I powder check by eyeballing the case as I put the bullet on it; I have to look at it anyways so might as well look for the right powder level. I do this with both 550 and 1050.

I notice the slight difference in 9mm case length (I think) because an occasional case does not get quite a big enough bell and I have to hold the bullet in place going up into the seating die. Am pretty sure am doing full strokes all the time, so slight variation in case length might be the most obvious explanation why some cases don't get quite enough bell. I use just barely enough bell to get the bullet to sit ontop of the case, and it looks like maybe a few cases happen to be slightly too short to bell that "barely sufficient" amount?

Or maybe some cases have less-ductile brass and do not take a bell as easy as the average case?

Do you load pistol ammo in your 1050? Is the 1050 a reloader's nirvana? The feature I like most on the 1050 (just reading about it) is the built-in primer pocket swage. Does the swage work good enough to near-completely eliminate priming trouble on occasional tight pockets? Tight primer pockets are my biggest annoyance.

How picky is the swage adjustment? For instance, do you have to go to the trouble of sorting brass by headstamp and slightly re-adjust the swage for different batches because of varying web depth in the different batches?

[Dave Shooter]

Do you load pistol ammo in your 1050? Is the 1050 a reloader's nirvana? The feature I like most on the 1050 (just reading about it) is the built-in primer pocket swage. Does the swage work good enough to near-completely eliminate priming trouble on occasional tight pockets? Tight primer pockets are my biggest annoyance.

How picky is the swage adjustment? For instance, do you have to go to the trouble of sorting brass by headstamp and slightly re-adjust the swage for different batches because of varying web depth in the different batches?

Lester,

I load both rifle (223) and pistol on an RL 1050. I can also prep military 308 cases after modifying a case feed apaptor. The RL stroke is too short to seat bullets in 308 but the Super 1050 will.

I don't know about Nirvanna since I haven't tried a Camdex yet, but it is extremely nice for volume loading of one caliber. The primer swage and the fact that primers are seated mechanically on the downstroke (seating depth not dependant on how hard you push) are to me what really sets it apart from 650.

Yes, when properly adjusted the swage eliminates most primer pocket problems. Mixed brass usually isn't a problem; the press runs a little less smooth because of different amounts of force required. Same can be said of sizing.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester,

I load both rifle (223) and pistol on an RL 1050. I can also prep military 308 cases after modifying a case feed apaptor. The RL stroke is too short to seat bullets in 308 but the Super 1050 will.

I don't know about Nirvanna since I haven't tried a Camdex yet, but it is extremely nice for volume loading of one caliber. The primer swage and the fact that primers are seated mechanically on the downstroke (seating depth not dependant on how hard you push) are to me what really sets it apart from 650.

Yes, when properly adjusted the swage eliminates most primer pocket problems. Mixed brass usually isn't a problem; the press runs a little less smooth because of different amounts of force required. Same can be said of sizing.

Thanks Dave

Glad to hear that the swage works as advertised. Primer seating on the downstroke, with adjustable depth, does sound nice as well.

Looked up that Camdex which possibly would be reloaders nirvana assuming one has money and sufficient mechanical skill to maintain the machine.