The dillon 550 rabit hole

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MartyK2500

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I currently own a Dillon 650 (permanently set to 9mm), a Dillon 550 and a Forster co-ax single stage.
Get most of my shooting done with the 650 and the co-ax.
550 is ready for 556 but rarely use it, I shoot mostly M855s.

For the rest I purchase factory ammunition.

Anyone here owning a 550, went down that rabbit hole and spent thousands in quick caliber change kits, conversions and dies?
It feels so easy to switch over, I'd almost want to have setups for 44mag, 357mag, 40SW, 45ACP, 556mm, 7.62 nato (308 plinker ammo), and the list could go on.

Just this morning I took 44mag as an example, and at 150 rounds per year it would be a few years before recouping the cost of setting it up.
But reloading it with H110 and 240gn bullets gives an awesome load to play with.
 
Me too! I have the 550 for that very reason. I don't have a lot of desk space. One single stage and the 550 is all I need. Actually, I lied, I've recently found great joy in adding a Lee APP when needed for bullet sizing and crimped brass prep but it's not permanently mounted.

I can do every cal on my 550 if I really want to press them in bulk. I have about 9 tool heads 7 of which are permanent cals and three powder feeds I swap between them all depending on what I'm making. Two powder feeds have standard bars in them and one large bar for big pistol and rifle rounds.

The 550 is very versatile and has been well worth the purchase price. The old saying holds true, you wont save money but you'll shoot a whole lot more! It really pays off making 44 mag or any of the big mag pistol rounds.
 
MuthaFunk said:
Me too! I have the 550 for that very reason. I don't have a lot of desk space. One single stage and the 550 is all I need. Actually, I lied, I've recently found great joy in adding a Lee APP when needed for bullet sizing and crimped brass prep but it's not permanently mounted.

I can do every cal on my 550 if I really want to press them in bulk. I have about 9 tool heads 7 of which are permanent cals and three powder feeds I swap between them all depending on what I'm making. Two powder feeds have standard bars in them and one large bar for big pistol and rifle rounds.

The 550 is very versatile and has been well worth the purchase price. The old saying holds true, you wont save money but you'll shoot a whole lot more! It really pays off making 44 mag or any of the big mag pistol rounds.
Click to expand...

Well that's an argument that I was well aware of (reloading get's you shooting more) otherwise I wouldn't be shooting 1500+ 308/6.5 per year in my precision rifles.
But being reminded of it got me thinking, by using my 150 rounds of 44mag per year as a baseline for economy is doing it wrong.
I should start shooting 300 instead, my parts will pay for themselves way quicker that way, I like that math!
 
It's not just the money savings from reloading. Being able to select and tune to get exactly the ammunition you want is a very good reason to be doing it too. We don't have to accept the factory defaults.
 
I agree, hence why I do it for my current reloaded calibers (9mm, 308, 6.5x47 Lapua, 5.56mm)
I'll most probably add the 44 mag setup, but once I got thinking that the 550 could be run with basically any or most calibers, man that's a scary though of getting a quick change kit, conversion, and dies for all of them!
 
MartyK2500 said:
I agree, hence why I do it for my current reloaded calibers (9mm, 308, 6.5x47 Lapua, 5.56mm)
I'll most probably add the 44 mag setup, but once I got thinking that the 550 could be run with basically any or most calibers, man that's a scary though of getting a quick change kit, conversion, and dies for all of them!
Click to expand...

It's baby steps to victory that's all.

I slowly added toolheads and cals as I went. If I felt I wanted to shoot something more I bought the cal conversion kit for it and was a happy cat.

This is a great resource for the cal conversions, I've used it a lot over the years for combining kits to use for other calibers.

http://thegunwiki.com/apps/calconversion/index.asp?machine_3=on&go=Choose+Machines

I prefer the speadsheet view myself
 
I just got a second hand 550 to try reloading 6.5CM

Had doubts about the economics of reloading 9 mm. But the latest batch of 115 gr Remington FMJ is so dirty: my CZ has been an omnivore so far, with this ammo it develops trigger reset issues after a few stages due to gunk in the action.
 
5.45 said:
I just got a second hand 550 to try reloading 6.5CM

Had doubts about the economics of reloading 9 mm. But the latest batch of 115 gr Remington FMJ is so dirty: my CZ has been an omnivore so far, with this ammo it develops trigger reset issues after a few stages due to gunk in the action.
Click to expand...

6.5CM will pay for itself very quickly!

Got my 650 for 9mm 12 years ago, should have close to 100K 147gn rounds made, it sure paid for itself but was a slow refund.
Started reloading precision 308 rounds 3 years ago, at 1300/1400 rounds per year I already repaid the AMP annealer, FX120 etc...
 
Lots of things to consider with the Dillon rabbit hole...more correctly...money holes.

There are lots of ways to lessen the financial hit of using your Dillons for multiple calibers...the biggest one I can think of is to use your 650 for all your re-loading, even single stage rifle stuff...a couple of very easy ways to temporarily halt the auto-advancement feature of the 650. You can easily use one ,two or three die positions & advance the brass manually same as you do with your 550. The 650 will load every cartridge your 550 will do.
The second savings opportunity you have is to just use one powder measure and purchase as many adjustable slide bars as you need for a fraction of the price of multiple complete measures for every caliber...again very easy to do on a 650, takes about 2 or 3 minutes to change a slide.

Another savings opportunity is the conversion kits you talk about. Most of the parts of a conversion kit will interchange with a lot of other calibers... Shell plates & locating pins from one kit will work with any caliber with the same case base dia. as well some of the plastic feed tubes interchange, usually you have to purchase a powder drop/expander as Caliber specific but that is still miniscule compared to spending on a complete conversion kit every time. Consult your "parts list" in your manual, you will be surprised how many conversion kit individual pieces have the same parts #.

The tool holders are about the only thing that needs to be bought for every caliber you want to re-load.
 
Yup I am always looking for more “550” stuff. It really is an easy press to
Change up. I’m thinking about getting a single stage conversion for mine.
 
I've been semi seriously considering a 550C for my PR guns. One tool head for brass prep, one tool head for loading. Currently using a RCBS Partner Press and its slow as hell.
 
TRDJer said:
I've been semi seriously considering a 550C for my PR guns. One tool head for brass prep, one tool head for loading. Currently using a RCBS Partner Press and its slow as hell.
Click to expand...

I'm forster Co-Ax for my PR guns, now THAT is SLOW! With the annealing and all that good stuff...

leonk05, I rapidly checked the EE for 550 stuff, there's a substantial saving to be made.
Will closely look at new ads in these coming weeks, I guess that's the economic way of starting my 550 quick caliber change collection...
 
If you insist on totally set up die heads with separate powder measures it can quickly spiral up the cost.

I run my 550 with two powder measures, 8 die plates and 7 shell plate conversions (one shared between .38Spl and .357Mag). This keeps the cost within reasonable limits and given how long I spend loading every batch of one size I don't mind the roughly 10 to 15 minutes front time to switch over and set the powder measure. And even with totally set up heads with separate powder measures it's only an additional 5 minutes tops to mount and set a measure. So really, keeping it cheap(er) by only using one or two powder measures isn't a big time cost.
 
Have had my 550 for 15+ years now.

Have each caliber setup with a tool head full of dies and a powder measure. Yeah, it cost a fair bit to get the full quick change setups, but it's as easy as can be. No fiddling with powder measure anymore for pistol calibers which was the most time consuming part of a swap.

That being said.. i'm into precision long range shooting now as well, so haven't used any of it in 10 years lol. But if I ever do get back into pistol shooting, its reassuring to know it's all ready to go.
 
I've had my 550 for maybe 7 years now, only use it for 45 acp and 357 so far. Both are set up with their own powder measures and everything. I don't shoot enough 9mm to make it worthwhile reloading, just buy it by the case. I use a rock chucker for rifle reloading. I don't shoot nearly as much as I should, so it's fast enough for me.
Kristian
 
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