Best bang for the buck progressive press in this day and age.

TurboTapin

TurboTapin

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Location
Saint-Joseph du lac, QC
I've taken a small hiatus from shooting in the last 2 years due to the birth of my first kid. I could only make time for one hobby and my 1000hp R32 skyline build won. As I'm wrapping that up, I want to start getting back to the range more often. I just spent a few hours reloading some pistol calibers on my lee turret. I hated it. By hate, I mean despise. I always enjoyed reloading precision rifle rounds for my match bolt gun on my single stage and I will keep the lee turret for brass prep but I think it's time to retire it for pistol reloading as there's not enough time in a day for that crap.

In this day and age, what is the recommended go to? I'm not looking for anything precise... I only shoot pistol for fun and don't plan on doing any matches. I'm also leaning towards a lee progressive due to cost and presumably my existing lee dies working well on it. Would be great if it worked well with pain in the ass calibers like 32acp.

Suggestions?
 
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I started with the Lee as well. Frustrating to use. Bought Dillon 550b and very happy with it. I use it for pistol and rifle. Very versatile machine.
 
My 550B does everything I need it to do and has for more years than I can count (over a decade, over 100k rounds). That said, I kind of wish I went 650 to have the casefeeder option. Reliability on casefeeders for a 550 doesn't sound great.
 
toxic said:
My 550B does everything I need it to do and has for more years than I can count (over a decade, over 100k rounds). That said, I kind of wish I went 650 to have the casefeeder option. Reliability on casefeeders for a 550 doesn't sound great.
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I have a DAA Mini Case Feeder and it works really well. Very well priced too.
 
toxic said:
My 550B does everything I need it to do and has for more years than I can count (over a decade, over 100k rounds). That said, I kind of wish I went 650 to have the casefeeder option. Reliability on casefeeders for a 550 doesn't sound great.
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My first progressive after my Rock chucker was a 550. I then bought a Hornady LnL; tried that for a while and then bought a 650. Ran the 650 and LnL side by side for about a season of shooting before selling on the LnL.

In all that I kept the 550 and then upgraded it with the case feeder. The only problem I have encountered with the 550 case feeder is with 9mm. I mostly keep it for Large pistol loads and am currently building up my stockpile of 45acp hand loads for the coming summer shooting season.

If I had to pick one progressive it would be the 550.
 
beltfed said:
If I had to pick one progressive it would be the 550.
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Yep, my 550 has been fantastic. I have 4 toolhead for it, a DAA case feeder and have just added Lee inline bullet feeders. It's been a great machine that pumps out ammo at a really reasonable rate.

In comparison, a friend gave me a complete 1050 setup to get working and that has been a PIA. It is a fairly well used machine and it needs some cleaning and tweaking but man there is so much going on and so much to keep track of while working the handle that it is really easy for things to go wrong. I'm sure it will be better once I've got it all sorted out but it is a big machine to sit on a loading bench.
 
I have 2 RCBS rockchuckers, a Lyman turret press, a Dillon 750, a Dillon 1100 (automated) and a Mark 7 revolution (automated)

I have also had a Dillon Square Deal, RCBS ammomaster progressive and a Hornady LNL progressive. I don't own these anymore because the Square Deal wasn't up to the capacity I wanted to load (but it was a good press) and the other two required too much tinkering for the volume I wanted to do. (The volume is excessive compared to most reloaders)

If I only wanted to load one pistol cartridge in limited quantities (Like 10k per year) I might look at the Square deal. A SD will put out 250 rounds per hour or so, with limited fuss. But if I wanted to do more than that or wanted more flexibility I would get the Dillon 750.

Yes, I know Lee and other brands may be less expensive but there is a definitive quality difference between them and the Dillon. You will still have to tinker with the Dillon as well as any other progressive, its just less of it. Last winter my little sister loaded 35K of 45 ACP and 15k 357 on the 750 without too many hiccups.
 
I have a Lee turret which I do like but I wanted something better. Dillion 550 is what I bought. Excellent press which I have set to do anything with large primers. My Lee I keep setup for small primer cases. I don’t like changing the Dillon priming system so that the only problem I have which is a small issue. I do pistol and my higher volume rifle loads on the 550. I have thought of buying another and setting it up to do small primer cases and selling the Lee but haven’t decided.
 
Snider shooter said:
I have a Lee turret which I do like but I wanted something better. Dillion 550 is what I bought. Excellent press which I have set to do anything with large primers. My Lee I keep setup for small primer cases. I don’t like changing the Dillon priming system so that the only problem I have which is a small issue. I do pistol and my higher volume rifle loads on the 550. I have thought of buying another and setting it up to do small primer cases and selling the Lee but haven’t decided.
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Exactly what I did and then I bought another 550 for small primers only and keep the Lee 1000 for depriming pistol cases with the lee universal deprimer. I copied a universal mounting system that takes about 2 minutes to switch machines and life is good.
 
For depriming, NOTHING beats the Lee APP with a case feeder. Nothing is even close. Factor in price and the APP is an order of magnitude better than any other option.

The APP is ludicrously fast and completely clean with its bottle containment system. No mess at all.
 
Another vote for the Dillon 550. I got mine 35 years ago.
You can’t beat caliber change speed - ease of use - durability and if ever needed warranty. Since it is not auto-indexing - easy to inspect rounds and correct mistake if any.
Reload pistol and rifle.
Got also a 650 and Super 1050 but still use the 550B for rifle rounds.
 
Janeau said:
Another vote for the Dillon 550. I got mine 35 years ago.
You can’t beat caliber change speed - ease of use - durability and if ever needed warranty.
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Sure you can. My Lee Turret press changes calibers twice as fast as my Dillon 550. The Lee Turret has been stunningly reliable and durable. I have had it for 37 years. The Lee warranty is also extremely good.

NONE of the above is to suggest the Lee Turret is better or even as good as the Dillon 550. It isn't. It's just that your statement is simply not true. There are machines that change caliber faster and are just as easy, if not more so, to use than a Dillon 550.
 
If you are leaning Lee and willing to try something, the new Six Pack Pro might be worth consideration.

I have one myself and it seems to be a pretty good press, huge step up from the Loadmaster and priced aggressively. In all honesty I am hesitant to provide a full recommendation for it as I had a warranty issue (which was resolved easily)... that said, in my internet searching I have not read of anyone else having the same issue as I had so perhaps I was just really unlucky.
 
I Dont Care About You said:
Sure you can. My Lee Turret press changes calibers twice as fast as my Dillon 550. The Lee Turret has been stunningly reliable and durable. I have had it for 37 years. The Lee warranty is also extremely good.

NONE of the above is to suggest the Lee Turret is better or even as good as the Dillon 550. It isn't. It's just that your statement is simply not true. There are machines that change caliber faster and are just as easy, if not more so, to use than a Dillon 550.
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My statement is right.
Name the progressives that are faster and as easy ?
The Lee is not. I had one taken in exchange and I dumped it. They work for some who have a low level of reload.
Dillon keep a good value..Lee are not. I tried at one time or another, most of what is available including the new X10.
I stick with Dillon any days.
 
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I Dont Care About You said:
For depriming, NOTHING beats the Lee APP with a case feeder. Nothing is even close. Factor in price and the APP is an order of magnitude better than any other option.

The APP is ludicrously fast and completely clean with its bottle containment system. No mess at all.
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Laugh2

Ridiculous. Stick a FW Arms spring loaded decapping die in ANY progressive press with a case feeder and you can pop out primers and size or whatever other brass processing aspect you like.

FW Arms spring loaded decapper is a game changer for anyone that processes brass.
 
I Dont Care About You said:
Sure you can. My Lee Turret press changes calibers twice as fast as my Dillon 550. The Lee Turret has been stunningly reliable and durable. I have had it for 37 years. The Lee warranty is also extremely good.

NONE of the above is to suggest the Lee Turret is better or even as good as the Dillon 550. It isn't. It's just that your statement is simply not true. There are machines that change caliber faster and are just as easy, if not more so, to use than a Dillon 550.
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If you have individual tool heads set up the Dillon 750 is literally a two pin and shellplate change. If you don't need to change primer size I doubt it takes more than 10 minutes.
 
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