Beginner loader - Getting ready to drop the charge!

[watchingtrace]

dillion 550 hands down. I loaded 300+ rounds while ago just chatin with the wife while she knocked out her treadmill run. the dillion makes shooting handguns fun. full price ammo sux. cheap progressives suck. and single stage for handgun should be some kind of torture used in 3rd world countries "load all day then watch it get shot up in 5min"

with the appropriate setup ive seen some guys load for precision rifles on dillions. one of them is a well known south GA fella.

 

[watchingtrace]

i come from a precision bolt gun single stage background so the manually indexed 550 can run as slow as your comfortable with. you can take your time and get a good visual on powder drop ,bullet seating etc and still reel in some impressive round counts because every time you pull that handle you are performing 4 processes you just cant even come close to that with a standard press

 

[jjrock]

I wish I could afforded one of those nice Dillons. I ended up getting a single press, tumbler, digital scale, some media, and powder from a member. Picked up bullets and dies from another fine member. Picked up calipers and scoops at Georgia Arms. I think I have most of the basics but getting that stuff set up and learning my head from a hole in the ground took the only 5 or 6 hours of free time over the weekend I had. I hope to spend some time loading on Wednesday. My buddy who is helping out and I have cleaned and primed 300 of our 1000 or so rounds of brass.

Question for yall - so...I've got the basic 4 carbide set from Lee. Should I get one of the powder funnels with the dials on them? I've got scoops and a scale and figured I could just use a tiny funnel. Pardon me as I haven't been reading past the whole priming thing. I was just wondering if I should go ahead and call around to make sure I can either find one or order it today so it can get here by Wednesday if I need it.

Thanks,
paul

 

[Buckeye76]

You can run one of the Lee auto disks on it. The top portion of the powder die unscrews, and the powder dispenser screws onto it.

 

[sparked1]

I would get the pro auto disk to use with the powder-through expander die. it comes with the disks you need.

How do you plan on priming?

 

[jjrock]

You can run one of the Lee auto disks on it. The top portion of the powder die unscrews, and the powder dispenser screws onto it.

I would get the pro auto disk to use with the powder-through expander die. it comes with the disks you need.

I got the basic four die set, it sounds like I may need another die? I'll have to take a look when I get home.

How do you plan on priming?

Have been using a hand primer tool.

 

[sparked1]

It's one of those four dies. It expands the case mouth to let you start a bullet before seating. It's hollow so that you can attach lee's auto disk powder measure on top and the powder drops in the case at the same time the mouth is expanded. This way you can just pull the lever and get the right amount of powder in each case.

I'm assuming you resized the cases before hand priming? You'll need to omit your first die which decaps (removes old primer) and resizes the case. So hopefully, you've already resized.

Or, of course, you can resize and decap with the first die, then hand prime if you haven't yet.

 

[Buckeye76]

Have been using a hand primer tool.

When I was using the Lee Classic Turret press, I did hand prime. You can get the Safety Prime adapter for the press, but I found it a little flimsy.

 

[jjrock]

I used the first die to resize and decap then ran them through the brass cleaner. Next, I used a makeshift brush to clean out the little pocket where the old primer was. Then, I used the hand primer....

Didn't get any further because my wife reminded me about all of the half done projects around the house and got on a plane for work early this morning. Can't wait to get back at it Wednesdady. I'm not trying to rush but its exciting.

Thanks for the help so far!

 

[Buckeye76]

I used the first die to resize and decap then ran them through the brass cleaner. Next, I used a makeshift brush to clean out the little pocket where the old primer was. Then, I used the hand primer....

Didn't get any further because my wife reminded me about all of the half done projects around the house and got on a plane for work early this morning. Can't wait to get back at it Wednesdady. I'm not trying to rush but its exciting.

Thanks for the help so far!

If you are depriming w/ the sizing die, I suggest cleaning the brass a little first( just a short run to remove the major crap). I deprime using the universal decapping die then clean my brass.