The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I am thinking of investing in a Dillon for .357Mag/.38Spl and similar cartridges so it would probably only ever be used for gallery rifle rounds. Looking around there are a few options from the Square Deal through the 550B to the 650 and the 550B seems to be the one that ticks the boxes at present however I have an open mind so can anyone make any suggestions or observations on choice?

I would be reloading around 300-400 rounds per sitting mostly with cast bullets.

550B is the best all round Dillon
BUT
IF you are doing 357 ONLY & will hardly ever change the settings, the 650 has a couple of extra benefits

SDB = forget it

1050 = send the Dane out to get a couple of extra jobs for a few months to fund it.
NICE units...back in the pistol days my mate used one to load 9mm; it churned out 100 rds in 4 1/2 minutes

Check out the Brian Enos site for a lot of Dillon ideas/tips/tricks & advice

Looking at the videos the SDB auto advances as does the 650 however the 550 needs to be manually advanced, my preference is to auto advance. why would you advise against the SDB?

ovenpaa wrote:...why would you advise against the SDB?

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/inde ... 59337.html

As suggested on THR the Lee Classic cast turret is cheap and effective, I use one for our .308 indoor ammo. For "bulk" loading I use two Lee Load Master progressives (44mag and 300aac) and could easily churn out 400-500 rounds an hour if I needed to. While the Load Master can be fiddly to set up once set it runs very nicely, the only thing I don't use on it is the primer feed, I prep all my cases and prime them with an RCBS Universal hand primer then feed the primed cases into the case feeder.

I ran off 200 rounds of 44mag using DodgyRog's 200gr RNFP for the Henry in under 25mins and that was taking my time, drinking tea etc. They give single ragged hole groups at 25m without a problem.

David,
I have used a Dillon 450 for many years. I have reloaded thousands of 45acp in my practical pistol days and now it's 38spl. The 450 is 'rated' at 450 rds per hour if everything is at hand and no hangups.
I much prefer the manual advance 'cos you can backtrack when you need to double check something in the cycle.
I'm sure whatever you get from Dillon, you'll be happy with. Excellent customer service!
JohnG

Saddler - Yebbut this makes the choice of SDB even more appealing given that it will probably spend all of its time with a set of .357Mag or 38Spl dies in it, in fact it is the sort of die that is probably best just left set up for one cartridge.

Am I missing something?

Phaedra, I have a virtually new Lee Load Master on the bench which I really cannot get on with it when loading centrefire rifle ammunition, fair to say I have not tried it with pistol ammunition however given that I need a powder thrower and new shell plate to make the change I am probably as well off just going for something blue.

John, the manual advance is the only thing putting me off the 550

I can appreciate what you say about the Load Master, when I got my first one I was ready to sell it due to it not working but after looking at a few YouTube vids I tweaked it here and there and now they both run very nicely. I really like the auto case feeder on the Lee but couldn't get the bullet feeder to work with the heavier 44mag bullets.

As you say for a single calibre the SDB looks very attractive, I had been looking at the Hornady L&L progressive but may consider the Dillon instead, obviously I won't be buying it here at silly money as we're looking at going back over to Florida later in the year it looks like I may have to pay for an extra suitcase or two again!.

I've been running the Hornady LnL AP for few years now (at least seven) and I am very happy with it, zero problems with rifle ammunition.

It is the equivalent of the 650 in specification but when I bought mine it was substantially cheaper.

My 550B I've had for 24 years now. Saddler "stole" my second one. I can load 450 rounds an hour steadily on it. The manual indexing is nothing more than the flick of your thumb....

I believe they are the best selling progressive machines on the market. There's a reason for that. And, their lifetime guarantee is real, I had a piece replaced, free of charge a couple of years ago. A twenty odd year old machine that's not doubt loaded several hundred thousand rounds on and they still stand by it...