Reloading bug

[Emichie]

I have been bitten hard by the reloading bug. I reloaded some .35 Remington with Barnes tsx copper bullets on some one else's press, and I got hooked. I'm still getting all the stuff I need together but I have decided to go with a Dillion RL-550 progressive press. Mainly because that is what I used, and I had to buy a caliber conversion kit for one already. I have the Barnes book and have been researching as much as I can. I'm sure I will have plenty of questions as I get started, I'm hoping to get my press in the next week or two.

 

[NBK]

The RL 550 is an excellent press. Perfect for mass production. If you are a precision rifle shooter a single stage press is best

 

[Snake Charmer]

I concur with NBK

 

[Emichie]

Yeah that is what I have read, I want to do both though. I want to reload .40 S&W and down the road .223 in bulk. But I also want to make some high performance rifle rounds. It seems to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that you could use the 550 just like a single stage press if you wanted to. Just load one round at a time, and you could take the powder drop off and measure each charge individually. That is forgetting the fact that you could buy 3 single stage press for the cost of the 550 haha

 

[NBK]

For bulk .40 and .223 the Dillon is the ticket. If you are going single stage go with the RCBS Rock Chucker or the Forester Co-AX.

Forrester below:

 

[mse]

I also agree with the boys above as a reloader for about a year low and slow is how i do it. But my resulst are always the same which is comforting. the dillion is nice have the smaller one 300 or somthin series my grand dad gave me its cool for pistol but frown on haveing to buy conversion for each caliber good luck and study what your trying to achieve.

 

[Emichie]

Why is it so much better to reload rifle rounds on a single stage press? Are they more ridged and repeatable? Or is it just that it forces you to go slowly and take your time? My one and only experience reloading was using a dillon 550, we reloaded 40 .35 Remington rounds. Just because I was curious I measured each round that came off and the were all +/- .003" on the over all length. The other aspect that has me wanting the 550 is that before I knew anything about reloading at all I bought two caliber conversions to use on this guys press. So I'm already $100 in with components that can only be used on the 550

 

[Lungpopper]

The only thing you cant do with the Dillon is weigh each powder charge the same way you would if you were using the single stage press. It's not a big deal if you are not looking for the utmost in accuracy.
When I'm loading for my rifles each powder charge is weighed individually to a tenth of a grain. To give you an idea of what a tenth of a grain is, it's one piece of 4350 powder.
A progressive press is not capable of throwing every powder charge that accurately.

 

[Emichie]

Couldn't you remove the powder drop, and individually measure each powder charge? Could even pour it in through the powder die.

 

[NBK]

You could do all of that.

 

[Snake Charmer]

Turret presses and single stage presses are two different animals. The main difference is that a turret press has a rotating die or shell holder head, by its very nature it is subject to deflection, in the case of precision reloading as you would do for maximum accuracy in a bolt action rifle you would not want the deflection because it could cause issues with case/ neck and bullet /case concentricity which in turn affects bullet /bore alignment and ultimatley accuracy. If you are looking for the ultimate in accuracy you need to use a single stage press. On the other hand if you need to crank out ammo then go the other way..

 

[NBK]

What Snake Charmer said!

 

[Emichie]

That makes sense snake charmer. Anything that is built to rotate is not going to be as ridged and there will be some defection. It looks like I'm just going to have to get both at some point! I just got the dies and bullets that I ordered. I pulled out the seating die insert for my .300 win mag to see how well it fit onto the bullets that I got. Both the Barnes TTSX plastic tipped copper bullets and the nosler match grade lead bullets that I got bottom out before the taper seats. It looks like it will be pretty easy to drill out the insert to give Clarence to the longer tip. Is this a commen problem? And am I right in assuming that you want the seating die to hit on the taper of the body rather then the point of the bullet? When you are going for extreme accuracy do you get custom dies made to match the bullet that your using exactly?

 

[NBK]

The Forrester Co-Ax solves that problem due to the "Floating" die design.

 

[Snake Charmer]

Emichie, You're overthinking this, the insert will do just fine at seating the bullets. Read the instructions sent with the dies carefully and follow their instructions and you'll be fine

 

[sherpa]

The only thing you cant do with the Dillon is weigh each powder charge the same way you would if you were using the single stage press. It's not a big deal if you are not looking for the utmost in accuracy.
When I'm loading for my rifles each powder charge is weighed individually to a tenth of a grain. To give you an idea of what a tenth of a grain is, it's one piece of 4350 powder.
A progressive press is not capable of throwing every powder charge that accurately.

Ditto what lungpopper said ' the dillon was great when I was loading pistols but to punch the same hole measure each powder drop