Your Press and Accessories Peeves, by Company brand: Dillon

Have a very old Square Deal. Bought it new, love it, do .38 and 9mm on it. Good and fast - but it recently $crewed-up and stopped feeding primers; worse, it would spit them out on the floor, and 60+-year-old eyes have trouble finding them - especially when a falling primer doesn't make a lot of noise (thankfully, I guess, considering how much noise it could make!!!) so I didn't always notice when it did this. Dillon service was thorough and very helpful; and the dies go down a long way so they resize 9mm and .357 to the base, which my LnL won't always. Only real complaints on the Square Deal are that it's only available in a few of the most popular calibres, changing calibre is a pain, and it doesn't easily come-apart for cleaning; during its primer-feeding difficulties, nearly half-a-pound of powder must've dribbled down inside it from un-primed flash holes, and most of that's still in there...
 
My biggest complaint from my Dillon's are that they are so smooth and fast that I have to continuously buy more components. Like really... the 1050 with the Mr. Bulletfeeder by hand cranks out north of 1k rounds per hour. It's costing me like $175 an hour in component consumption. When I get up on a Saturday morning and load 5000 rounds I am done by 1-2 in the afternoon. What's a guy supposed to do with the rest of his day?

In all seriousness, my RF-100 has been giving me hassles lately. It was a PITA to setup originally and now it seems the spring in the base is too loose and there is a gap between the machine and the top of the primer tube that primers are getting caught up in. The 650 is still running like a champ and the 1050 I polished the primer feed area a while ago and it runs smooth as silk.
 
Nothing better than a Dillon 550 ... simple ... trouble free ... easy to "back up" if a problem with one round develops ... can load both pistol and rifle rounds although I only load .223 "gopher loads" on the Dillon- "serious" rifle rounds loaded on single stage press ... easy to change calibers .... used to load 50,000 .38 Super rounds per year trouble free. First had a Square Deal but it was "not reliable" given the round count I loaded. When I moved up to the 550 ... Dillon gave me a trade in deal for my Square Deal but when they looked at the return shipping ... Dillion said ... keep the Square Deal. How could life be better!!!!
 
Only complaint I have with my 550 is the primer tube will oxidase if you don’t use it for awhile, scrub with a 17 cal brass brush for the small one and good to go. It had sat for 2 years when this happened and primers would hang up.
 
I think I had a problem once on my 650. Primer disc was caught up and wasn't turning. Might have been an out of spec primer.

Other than items I've replaced because of normal wear and tear (i.e springs), and sometimes having to manually guide some cases up into the powder feed station with the tip of my finger, I haven't had any issues with it.
 
Early days 9mm loading on the 550 with the then newly released case feeder.
The cases would wedge sideways in the tube right at the point where the tube flared to allow for the upper and lower tubes to slide past. I think Dillon solved it with an adapter. I solved it by buying a 650 and moving my 9mm to that machine.
 
650xl only loaded for a month, about 3000 rounds so far
-Case jambs up in slider for station 1
-Sometimes the primer doesn't index perfectly and causes mashed primer (you can see primer plate move slightly)
-powder funnel sticks in 9mm case worse than my old Lee
-powder leakage
-time consuming to load primers
It is still more reliable than my lee loadmaster but not as good as I hoped (my lee actually worked well)
 
john92awd said:
650xl only loaded for a month, about 3000 rounds so far
-Case jambs up in slider for station 1
-Sometimes the primer doesn't index perfectly and causes mashed primer (you can see primer plate move slightly)
-powder funnel sticks in 9mm case worse than my old Lee
-powder leakage
-time consuming to load primers
It is still more reliable than my lee loadmaster but not as good as I hoped (my lee actually worked well)
Click to expand...

Call Dillon because all your problems can be fixed. I had the occasional 223 stick coming down from the feeder but I switched to Lyman Quick Slick aerosol and it fixed that. Primer indexing is fixable. Something has come loose. Powder funnel is because of setup. Powder leakage can be fixed by tweaking or getting a third party kit or changing your load/powder. Primers, well ya but show me another press that is quicker while remaining reliable.
 
Dillon 550 - annoyances but 'fixes/tweaks' that I have found on the the internet:

Spent Primer Catcher Chute gets stuck closed - I used a small safety pin to replace the cotter pin. Now works perfectly
Spent Primer Cup, primers may hit frame and bounce out onto floor - a piece of soft plastic from the top of a sour cream container cut and formed (and taped into the top of the Cup) helps considerably - it extends the top of the Cup upwards.

Primer Follower Rod not quite heavy enough - put a used 45ACP cartridge over the top. Fits perfectly, awesome.

Needing a wrench to adjust powder bar drop - find a dial replacement on internet/eBay - in my case I have been happy with NicTaylor00 Powder Bar Adjustment Screw with Knob (eBay)

I've added a few other changes from UniqueTek - Shellplate Bearing kit, LED light, Precision Powder Baffle kit, and to stiffen up the Toolhead(s) a Toolhead Clamp Kit.
 
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Paul-T: how do you find the shellplate nbearing kit. It's about the only peeve I have with Dillon... the pickup tray staying stuck in the open position.
 
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