Dillon 550B press and charge weight variances.

MuthaFunk

MuthaFunk

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I've been checking the consistency of the powder loads and I've found my Dillon can be quite consistent as long as I use uniform movements. The problem is, as a new reloader the odd time I've missed something like putting a bullet in or wish to stop the process to check my charge weight. When this happens, I noticed my charge weights will increase due to the powder being vibrated and packing a little denser into the charge bar.

I tried to mount a vibrator to the powder hopper to get it to always shake the powder down tight which helped reduce the difference but there still is up to .4 gr difference. If I pull the arm up half way and down and back up again then do a full pull, the charge weight will go up almost .4 gr.

Should I even worry about this? How would .4 gr translate to accuracy?

I'd love to get it as tight of a tolerance as possible. Any suggestions?
 
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In reading what is on the Dillon forums, powder type can influence the variation. I would go straight to Dillon and ask them about its experience with your powder.

Dillon reps recommend starting with powder measures more than 2/3 full and cycling 10-15 drops before taking a reading. Consistency is key and I too have read about people using some additional mechanical vibration to settle powders. I have also read about guys polishing the internal metal hopper components. Can't speak to the results.

Before being concerned about .4 impact on accuracy what application is this for? I suspect that for action shooting and for hunting this variation will not be of a concern. In you want this for bench rest target shooting then test it for yourself. Load up 10 rounds of Dillon dropped rounds and 10 rounds of hand/scale manually metered and dropped rounds and go shooting 5 round per target.
If you can have a friend randomly assign you 5 round bundles to avoid any influence.
If you notice a difference, if so, how much?
 
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Each time there is an anomaly in the way you stroke the handle, toss he round that then gets the powder charge. As you have noted, it will be different.

If you want very consistent powder charges with the Dillon, use ball powder. I have often checked 10 consecutive rounds and found they all had the same powder charge.

Good ball powders include, H335, BLC2, H380, 748, 414, 760.
 
I reload for handgun mostly on my 550, what I do is that when I start, I will run 10 charges thru that I dont even keep, I put them right back in the hopper. After the "dry run" charges, I then set my scale and drop 10 charges checking the reading each time, so let's say I load charges of 4 grains, I'm looking for 4,8,12, etc. After these 10 charges, my scale should read 40. Even if some middle charges are high/low, if I get to 40 after 10 charges, this means that I'm averaging 4 grains per charge...you can decide how much error you can live with doing this, for example, if you come up to 42 grains after 10 charges, then you are averaging 4.2 per charge.

If the count is out of your specs, you then dump that powder back in hopper and run 10 more, if you still get 42, then you can make small adjustment and try again until you average the load that you are looking for.
 
Great suggestions fellas! Thanks!

mrspeel said:
In reading what is on the Dillon forums, powder type can influence the variation. I would go straight to Dillon and ask them about its experience with your powder.

Dillon reps recommend starting with powder measures more than 2/3 full and cycling 10-15 drops before taking a reading. Consistency is key and I too have read about people using some additional mechanical vibration to settle powders. I have also read about guys polishing the internal metal hopper components. Can't speak to the results.

Before being concerned about .4 impact on accuracy what application is this for? I suspect that for action shooting and for hunting this variation will not be of a concern. In you want this for bench rest target shooting then test it for yourself. Load up 10 rounds of Dillon dropped rounds and 10 rounds of hand/scale manually metered and dropped rounds and go shooting 5 round per target.
If you can have a friend randomly assign you 5 round bundles to avoid any influence.
If you notice a difference, if so, how much?
Click to expand...

I'm just shooting my 45acp at the 10 yd action range for now so I'm not sure I'd see much of an accuracy difference. Not to mention I'm new to pistols and have been working on a bad flinch. I come from a process control background where calibration and accuracy are paramount. I'm finding this Dillon 550B is made for speed and not necessarily accuracy. Which is fine by me. I need plenty of trigger time so I'll get the numbers out of it.

I plan to weigh and hand fill every rifle round I reload because of this.
 
MuthaFunk said:
Great suggestions fellas! Thanks!



I'm just shooting my 45acp at the 10 yd action range for now so I'm not sure I'd see much of an accuracy difference. Not to mention I'm new to pistols and have been working on a bad flinch. I come from a process control background where calibration and accuracy are paramount. I'm finding this Dillon 550B is made for speed and not necessarily accuracy. Which is fine by me. I need plenty of trigger time so I'll get the numbers out of it.

I plan to weigh and hand fill every rifle round I reload because of this.
Click to expand...

I've got process control and process manufacturing in my background too, so I know where you are coming from lol.

What kind of scale are you using to measure? One thing I found when I started reloading, was that the digital scale I had was not consistent (CED Professional). Even if I calibrated it with a check weight at the start of each reloading session, kept it on a separate, smooth & flat vibration free surface, the readings would vary +/- .2 grains if I just lifted the pan and set it back down again. I switched to a balance beam scale and find it give much more repeatable measurements.

If you are doing different loads/calibers, check out the UniqueTek Micrometer Powder Bar Kit. I installed one on my 650 and 550, and find they are very convenient to get back to a set weight for my various loads. You still should check that load (I measure 10 loads at a time as others have mentioned above), but it's been bang on each time. And you can work out a calibration curve for each type of powder, so getting to a new throw weight is very easy.

With a bit of polishing to the interior bowl and the charge bars, and a steady rythm, I'm usually getting under a +/- .1 grain variance per throw. After I got a chrono though, I got more fixated on the ES (total spread) and avg deviation of a test batch of ammo (20 rounds). I found factory 9mm 147 gr ammo was ~ 60 fps ES / 18 fps AD and some very good quality reloads from C.R.S. were ~30 fps ES / 6 fps AD. I reload for IPSC, so making Power Factor minimums was more important to me. I found with N320 I could get to ~40 fps ES / 9 fpsAD . With Titegroup I get ~45 fps ES / 11 fps AD.

If I take the trouble to sort all my cases by head stamp and then sort them by weight, and sort my projectiles by weight, I can cut my ES & AD in half. But that is way too much trouble. It was just an exercise I wanted to do to see what would happen :)

yep, reloading is turned in to it's own addiction lol
 
MuthaFunk said:
Great suggestions fellas! Thanks!



I'm just shooting my 45acp at the 10 yd action range for now so I'm not sure I'd see much of an accuracy difference. Not to mention I'm new to pistols and have been working on a bad flinch. I come from a process control background where calibration and accuracy are paramount. I'm finding this Dillon 550B is made for speed and not necessarily accuracy. Which is fine by me. I need plenty of trigger time so I'll get the numbers out of it.

I plan to weigh and hand fill every rifle round I reload because of this.
Click to expand...

Pistol powders that measure very well in a Dillon include 231, TiteGroup and power Pistol.
 
I'm using tightgroup for now. I've been doing a bunch of reading and found other threads on the same topic.

I rigged this contraption up tonight. I didn't get to test it out because my scale batteries died.

7639FF10-205F-40A0-8DD1-9CDCD0FCE6DD_1.jpg


A4F58706-CA6D-469C-8EF7-9C247B101CDA.jpg


It's just a cheap 5V fan with two screws in two of the blades to throw off the balance. It seems to vibrate the whole charging system pretty good and it's not loud.

My scale is an audiophile phono cartridge stylus weight scale that seems very repeatable and reliable.
 
I've never had any issues metering TG, that powder meters very well in my 550. I reload for IPSC and I average PF 128 all the time.
My last chrono I checked was this:

Shot 1 Shot 2 Shot 3 Shot 4 Shot 5 Shot 6 Shot 7 Shot 8 Shot 9 Shot 10
FPS 874 878 881 878 872 873 870 867 868 873
+/- 1 5 8 5 -1 -0 -3 -6 -5 -0
IPSC PF 128 129 130 129 128 128 128 127 128 128
Group 7m: Group 10m: Group 15m: Avg PF 128
Low Vel: 867 High Vel.: 881 Avg Vel.: 873 SD: 4 ES: 14

I quite happy with an ES of 14 and SD of 4.

for 9mm, I'm metering 3.23 gr of TG.
 
I gather my issue has to do with inconsistent technique on my part coupled with perhaps not throwing enough primer loads before attempting to get consistent results. I read some folks throw up to 25 loads before they start to actually load ammo! I'm hoping this vibrator will help get me there sooner.

Shadow9, what's your practice prior to loading your ammo? Those are great numbers indeed! I have a chrono as well so I'll have to do some checking when I get out to the range.
 
See thread #5, I explained it. Basically, I will throw at least 10 charges just to get the powder in the tube to settle and the powder bar to get full charges.
Then I calibrate my scale (after it has been ON for at least 30 minutes, then I will drop 10 charges and expect to see 32.3 grains, if I don't get 32.3, I just dump the powder back in the tube and drop another 10 and measure, when I get 32.3 2-3 times in a row this means that I am averaging 3.23 grains per charge over 10 rounds and that is good enough for me (for what I do anyways). I'll start rolling rounds and check a charge now and then to see if I'm close to 3.23. My 550 ,meters TG very good, usually once I'm set, I roll few thousands without re-adjusting.

Oh, and 1 thing that I do, not sure if that makes a difference or not, I never let my tube go below a certain level while I'm reloading. To explain it a bit better, I fill the tube up to the top of the Dillon logo on the tube (if you measure from the base of tube where it meets the metal base, it would be ~5 inches) and I never let the powder go below 1.5 inches. This way, I always constant pressure (if I can call it that) in the tube that pushes the powder in the bar (again, not sure if this makes a difference or not, just the way I do it).

When I load with tube powder (Vit N320) I don't get as good metering as with TG.

Forgot to mention, consistency is the trick in getting the charges the same, try to always pull the handle down at same speed and same force, you want to do the same action the same way each pull, make sure the press is bolted down and does not wiggle at all, mine has no play when I pull the handle down.
 
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