Reloading with a progressive press

[Hotshot]

Soliciting advice.
My long time shooting buddy is getting more seriously involved with varmint and target shooting. Thanks mostly to his new found favorite cartridge the 204 Ruger.
He likes the look of my Dillon 550 and is asking for advice. Frankly, I've not paid much attention to the new equipment out there since getting my Dillon, and I'm wondering if anything else out there is worth considering as a comparison.
What have you guys got to say?

[acloco]

Nope....nothing better than the Dillon. Hornady is close, but still second place. The cost of all the extra pieces of the Hornady will set you back more.

Caliber changes on the Dillon are a snap.

Also....I have figured out a way to get 950 QUALITY rounds from a Dillon 550B....have somebody standing on your left feeding the bullets. Have done this three times - twice with pistol and once with 223. ....and I only have 5 large and 5 small primer tubes, so I do have to stop to reload primers half way through.

[Wrangler John]

Only problems I had was an older Hornady Loc-N-Load that had a lot of problems with the priming feed. Never got a thousand rounds out of it without something jamming or breaking. New versions redesigned the primer feeding mechanism. Had to send it back for repairs, but still didn't work reliably. Bought a set of new pawls and readjusted it but to no avail, so it now sits on a shelf.

Bought an RCBS Pro2000 Auto Index progressive, thought the strip primer feed would be better. It works well, except for the indexing mechanism. Seems that after the powder is dispensed into the cases, the force of the indexing detent ball under the shell plate, along with the lack of case retention between stations causes a few kernels powder to be knocked out of the case. Wide mouth cases like the .480 Ruger, .45 colt and .45-70 are most prone, as are cases like the .204 Ruger when using loads that fill the case to near the neck. When the shell plate stops at the powder check and seating station they shed some kernels as the case is wiggled from the sudden stop and impact of the detent ball underneath. It makes quite a mess with loose powder all over everything. The Hornady doesn't do this because the case rims are held by a full circumference spring throughout the cycle that dampens the vibration. My cure was to cut two coils off the detent spring and place heat-shrink tubing on the case retaining springs to cushion the cases. that works as long as I work slowly.

This seems to be a problem common to all these presses in talking to a commercial ammo loader (they use Dillon). They place little paint or acid brushes at each station to stop the cases from being shaken. Now if Hornady would license CCI/RCBS strip primer feed and beef up the indexing mechanism we might have an ideal press.

[JD11]

You'd be wise to check if the Dillion is compatable with the 204 caliber. I have a Lee Classic Turret and the powder dump will not work without spilling some powder half the time outside the small necked 204 cartridges. I found my way around the problem, but that's another story. When I phoned Lee they said they had no plans to make the charging die compatable with the 204 due to concerns of possible powder bridging in the small neck.

[Hotshot]

Dillon has the 20 cals covered.

[broncsandwhiskey]

Hotshot your lucky your family. I can't believe you would even think that there would be anything better than a Dillon. LOL!!! If you were a real friend to your friend you would tell them to buy a Dillon straight away and not look back. Wasn't it you that told me to buy a Dillon and nothing else. Now look my gun room is nothing but Dillon blue. See you next time your up here. Oh thanks for the stuff from Montana. Ride Up!!!

[Wrangler John]

Update: RCBS redesigned the shell plate detent ball spring and sent me one. It works much better and I loaded my last batch of .223 Remington with the Pro 2000 Auto Index Progressive. Squirrels didn't have any negative comments - their jaws were in the next pasture!

[Critter]

Two things about progressive reloaders.

1.) I hate handling those small cases four times on a single stage press.

2.) I don't trust the progressives powder system to weigh ball powder in my rifle cases. I prefer a auto scale and then to Co-Ax for accurate bullet seating.

So, I use my DILLON 650 to decap, size and reprime only. With case feeder arrangements for .308 and .204 it just flies through those operations. Only stopping for reloading primer feed. Takes the drudgery out of reloading and I can cycle through 500 or so cases an hour that way.

Then using auto scale to weigh every load I can make short work of the seating process. Idea I got from viewing virtual tour of AMU (ARMY MARKSMANSHIP UNIT) reloading facility.