Reloading bench and dies

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ZaackDaBeans

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Hi everyone! First post on CGN
I'm Looking at a dillon 550B as a first reloading bench.i know there's a lurning curve but I'll start slowly
One brass at a time and I'll be already set to reload 223 for my AR-15 as soon i get my RPAL
Now question is: does it worth going with dillon carbide dies or redding competition dies? And no cost is not an issue I'd rather buy the best available of each caliber and buy only one of each andlearn to use them as i get better
Any canadian website i could order them or is it easier to go directly to the dealer site ? Thanks everybody
 
550 accepts standard dies. Redding for precision in my usage. I don't own dillon dies other than on my square deal but if I was to run a 550 or 650 I would probably just spend the money on their dies.
 
if money is no object buy a 1050 with the dillon carbide dies.
If money is somewhat an object I suggest the 650XL with the case feeder and the regular dillon dies.
If you are getting a 550 because of money concerns, I am sure that the regular dillon dies will be more than good enough for a life time of reloading.

Redding is good for precision bolt, but for progressive reloading, dillon dies work fine on their presses.
As a matter of fact, I use lee dies on my 650 to reload 223 just because I had those when I started reloading, and guess what, they work....
I was wondering today if I should buy the dillon carbide dies, but I don't really see why, I mean, the lee dies work fine.

In fact, my lee dies produce ammo for my 308 bolt that shoots 1/3 MOA at 200 meters. I sometimes wonder if the die hype is just hype.

Whatever, it all works. I bought the dillon dies for 9mm for my 650, but the lee dies work also... I just wanted to try those. The onsy positive point that I see is that they are easier to clean if you use greased bullets for pistol.
 
I'm a 550 owner/user so I may be a trifle biased. But the manual indexing does work well for single stage like operations by simply removing the retention buttons to allow access. So it's easier to use as a one and only sort of press than a 650 or other auto indexing machine.

Having said that I suspect you'll find that a second single stage is rather handy for the future for side jobs such as de-capping or bullet pulling with a collet puller.

The big claim with carbide dies is that they work without needing to lube the cases. But really I found that I preferred to lube them anyway just to make the lever pull lighter. It also makes it easier to feel any binding or other difference when the cases are lubed. Also bottle neck cases need to be lubed or you run the risk of collapsing the neck in some cases.

I feel it's still a good investment to get the carbide sizer set for the dies you will use a LOT regardless simply because you don't run the risk of a galling or embedded piece of grit that ends up scratching the cases. It's more money but you never need to buy another set. And an AR style gun can go through a LOT of ammo so it's certainly worth the added cost.

For other use where you may only load 100 at a time and it's enough to last most of a year there's nothing wrong with basic steel dies.

By the way, there's a special section for reloading topics. You might want to ask a moderator to move this to "Reloading".
 
I'd go with Dillon dies as sometimes there are features like cleaning dies in place without changing settings that are worth the purchase.
 
I dont like the 550 press.
Imo for any serious volume you need a 650 with case feeder and dillon dies.
Reload your precision rounds on a coax with redding dies.
 
well if your loading in bulk 223 then money is no object and a 650xl would be your best bet. you can upgrade a case feeder later on but atleast you have the option too.

Do you know anything about small base dies for your AR?

For an AR.. a Die is a Die just like any other Die.
the difference between a Lee die, hornady, rcbs or Any other die will be Non-existent Other then the ability to disassemble and clean or ease of removing the primer punch.

if you were loading for 1000yard accuracy on a competition basis then you could argue all day about which die is better.
 
Yup, volume 223 on a 550 does not make sense. What I dislike the most about the 550 is the lack of auto indexing. Hand indexing a progressive does not make sense to me. Really.

My 650 with case feeder works extremely well for this purpose.
The only missing thing would be a swage-it upgrade if you often do crimped brass. Unless you want to do it 1 by 1, but with the swage it being almost the same price as the dillon super swage, with a 650, I don't see why one would want to do it by hand.

Maybe the 1050 would be even better, if you want to do massive amounts of crimped cases, and want a powder check + a bullet feeder. But that's more like a commercial setup, it depends how many thousands you shoot a year...
At 1000$ more, plus like 400$ more per calibre change, it didn't make sense to me for mostly 9mm, and considering the swage it option on the 650.

Also, the 650 has a lifetime warranty vs 1 year for the 1050.

I also prefer to feel the primer seating.

The 650 is truly a nice press. Very reliable.
 
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I use 550b for 223 and pistol. Very easy to do 400 per hour. Comfortable pace. Without case feeders or bullet feeders.

Prepping the 223 brass takes the longest to do. I Use single stage to size but could use the Dillon as well.
 
coreyd said:
That was going to be my question. I have loaded 14k pistol rounds so far this year and run a 1050 for 9mm and a 650 for everything else.
Click to expand...

Yup that's the thing. For some, massive amounts mean 500 a year, and for some, it's 12K......

I reload just a few K per year and wouldnt do it on anything less than a 650.

I reload around 1000 rounds of 308 per year also but that's for bolt action and that's on my single stage coax.
 
Kryogen said:
Yup that's the thing. For some, massive amounts mean 500 a year, and for some, it's 12K......

I reload just a few K per year and wouldnt do it on anything less than a 650.

I reload around 1000 rounds of 308 per year also but that's for bolt action and that's on my single stage coax.
Click to expand...


This makes so much sense:rockOn:
 
Oh and if you want my point of view, unless you are going to hand feed all your 223 brass into a super swager (and don't even tell me about the countersink trick....), it's going to cause hiccups when priming.
I just reloaded 300 or so 223, and you just cant get a good beat going on the 650 because you keep having to remove each piece of brass that wont prime to swage it. It ends up taking twice the time.

I am ordering a swage-it and will re-process all my brass with it, so when it's time to prime, it will prime reliably all the time and I won't have to stop at all.
Brings the 650 even closer to the 1050. In fact, if you swage it when on the prep toolhead (deprime, size), it doesn't take any additional time.
Of course a dillon trimmer on the prep head would be even better, but that's another 600$ and for 1-2K a year, a WFT trimmer on a press drill does it in an hour or so per K.... depends how many K you do and how much money you want to spend.

Because if you have infinite money, that would be a 1050 with a dillon trimmer and a bullet feeder....

Oh I am getting there, I am pretty sure that in a few years, reloading will have paid for itself... (lol). Won't happen. I keep buying reloading tools because I enjoy the hobby. I'm never going to save money with that ;)
 
Here is my 2cents.

I load .223 on a 650 with a case feeder. I used to do it on my 550 that I keep now for large rifle and 45acp.
I usually load about 4000 rounds a year in .223. For rifle reloading I use Redding competition dies almost exclusively. Dies matter for quality ammo - they are likely the single biggest factor. For pistol I use the Dillon dies and Lee factory crimp dies.
The majority of .223 I make needs to perform out to 500m, so I put the time and effort into case prep, and then when loading it, I use a separate Harrell's powder dispenser off the press with the remaining processes on press. Still progressive loading, but modified.
The 550 is an excellent press. Very versatile and worth having - one of the reasons I kept it after I upgraded to the 650.
Don't believe anyone telling you it is inferior to a 650. It has different attributes, and some of those are a good thing.
Sure it will be slower to crank out piles of ammo when comparing the two, but you need to understand that creating excellent rifle ammo on a progressive means you slow the rhythm anyhow. Still faster than a single stage, but you will not be going as fast as you can pull the handle like you can with pistol rounds.

I also use the 650 for case sizing, but have a separate tool head for that operation.
Case trimming and chamfering is done off press with a Giraud trimmer.
 
The 550 is a good press for sure. If i had one i would use it for lower volume reloading.
Because I already have a loadmaster, I keep it for low volume reloading operations. Priming is not done on the loadmaster though because its not reliable in my hands.
 
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