Dillon 550c auto rotate kit?

J

JTReloader

Inactive
Currently I have a rock chucker, a desire to load thousands of rounds, and not enough time or motivation to load what I want/need to. So I’m looking for a progressive!!! I thought about getting a LEE pro 1000 and selling it later, just for a cheap option to pass me by for now. But after consideration I figured I should hold out a few more months and save up for a good press. I’m stuck between the Hornady LNL and Dillon. I want the auto rotating function which narrows it to the LNL and 650xl. However, the 550c would do just fine for my needs if it wasn’t a manual. The way I see it is I could get the LNL for the same price and it auto rotates. So my main question is, does anyone make a kit that turns the 550c into an auto rotating progressive press?

My other question...
Considering these facts, could you guys help me decide on a press!
When choosing between the LNL and 650xl, I could have the LNL (before any sale prices) set up for roughly $600 and the 650xl for $670. That’s dies and all. But Hornady has the 500 bullet offering with their press. Even if it’s not the exact billets I shoot thats 500 rounds. Even though the billets I would get are more than the ones I normally shoot, let’s say $50. That drops the price of the LNL to $550. Just something to consider. Now other things I was considering was what if I want to get a case feeder, dillons is cheaper. What if I want a bullet feeder, Hornady is cheaper. Now between calibers, the Dillon would be far more expensive to get started in a new caliber, but of course it’s a one time fee. Then the almighty Dillon warranty vs Hornady’s. So please, someone finally put my mind at ease and make this a clear choice!


Thank you ahead of time and sorry for the long rant!!
 
For "fast" go to Ebay and get a Lee Pro1000. Yes, they can be "cranky" (I use 3) but smooth out as you get familiar with it. You can add a bullet feeder if you desire. Never used a bullet feeder myself. I have the Dillon 550B. Smooth and relatively fast but must be advanced by hand. Also have a Lee Loadmaster. The L/M is a bear to get working right. When it works it is rewarding. But, with all the tinker time needed on the L/M the Dillon 550B is actually faster. I just could not see the value for the extra $$s for a Dillon 650. Costly to start, costly to expand.
 
650 with case feeder and never look back. Last press you will ever need and Dillon will keep it working forever. Your grand kids will be using it and thankful grand pap wasn't a cheap old miser.
 
500 bullets doesn't really make me buy. I just picked up 500 130 gr .277 Fusion bullets on American Reloading for $49. Based your buying decision on the press. You'll be stuck with the press long after the bullets gone.

I use the 650 with a case feeder and powder check system. I also went with the auto index feature for the same reason. From what I've read, the 550 is almost as fast but requires more work to manually index it. There are some people on this forum that have owed all three of those presses and could provide insight to help steer you. I've read the LNL can require a lot of tinkering and adjusting to get it to run right. But the 650 requires some as well when you change out the caliber. I own a Hornady single stage Iron Press with the auto primer system. I don't care for the priming system on the Hornady press. It may be similar to the LNL priming system. Prefer Dillon's priming system. Between the two, the Dillon is made with higher quality parts IMO. Both companies have good customer service depts. I like my 650 for how it's setup and runs. Took awhile to get it smoothed out. Wouldn't trade it for another press at this point.
 
Last edited:
I started progressives with a Lee 1000. Seemed like I was always adjusting and working on it. Finally I could afford a Dillon 550, about 30 years ago. Been using it ever since. I use it for about 10 calibers and manually rotating the shell plate is no big deal if you have two hands. If i was buying one now I would go with the Dillon 650 because the prices are so close. I would recommend Dillon for the prices you mentioned. Their service and warranty is unbeatable.
 
Last edited:
LBussy: Thanks for the post. Unbiased and quite enlightening. I don't own, nor have I ever used, a Hornady. But I like the summation: Dillon; QUALITY, and worth the price. Lee; VALUE, and worth the price.
 
Never seen an auto indexing 550 and that fact is why it was the last Dillon model I bought. Really bought it just to have an informed opinion more than anything else as I already had more than one of all the other Dillon’s, a pre and post EZ Ject LNL’s, Lee and RCBS progressives. In use manual index is really no issue, you have a case in your right hand, that you can’t put into the shell plate until your left hand indexes it and sets a bullet on top of the case in #3.

The “free” bullets that come with the LNL are lost value. For years I had an open offer to trade a new in box LNL minus the UPC seal (what you use to get the bullets) for trade of a used 550, never a single taker. I don’t own a Dillon that I couldn’t sell for more than I paid for it new. They just keep going up in value, can’t say the same about other brands.

How you do it really doesn’t matter, you can start with the cheaper presses that are known to be more cantankerous and see if you have what it takes to make and keep them running, buy the best money can buy and don’t look back, go somewhere in between and see if your happy or start at the bottom and buy every model up to the point your happy.
 
@jmorris - Out of curiosity; If your circumstances changed and you needed to downsize to one machine to produce only for your personal use, what one would remain?
 
I bought a Hornady LNL AP press about a year ago. I looked at Dillon products as well. I did use a friend's RL550B a short time before buying the Hornady. The 550B is a very good press, and I probably would have bought a 550C, but I really wanted a 5 station press so I could seat and crimp in separate stations.

After having purchased and used the AP for about a year now, I'm sorta getting use to it, but it has taken what I consider to be too long to learn to deal with it's idiosyncrasies. It just seems more trouble-prone than the Dillon offerings.

The 650 is a good press if you want to use an automatic case feeder. However, manual case feeding with the 650 is a little awkard due to right side case feed location. With the AP, it's easy to load a case and bullet with the left hand without taking the right hand off of the handle.
 
1. I have three son-in-laws that used to come over and load their own ammo on my Hornady Ammo Plants. The problem was they used my brass, my primers, my power, and my bullets for "their ammo". So for X-Mass of 2015, I bought them each an Ammo Plant one shell plate, one set of dies, 1,000 primers, one pound of power, and 1,000 pieces of brass."I have saved a crap load of money over the years" But I keep all "free" bullets. When I got my free bullets one afternoon I went in and loaded all 1,800 of them. The next day I put them all in the berm of my range. Those free bullets didn't last me 24 hours. Conclusion: Do not get the Hornady if all you are doing it for is the "free bullets"

2. The week before Labor day this last year I went over an picked up my partners XL650 for maintenance. (I think his wife took his pink toolbox away) Now, I took both his and my Ammo plant apart and did a cleaning, lube, and adjustments to both. They both were running perfectly. Now I have done modifications on both (admittedly more on the Hornady) but both run better than new out of the box.

Now on Labor day, I had both set up at my range for the large shoot we have every year. So we had a press runoff. I got two guys that never ran either the Dillon or the Hornady do three separate runs of both presses. each run consisted of two 100 round runs on just the press, the press with a case feeder and the Hornady with the case feeder and bullet feeder.

Now the first run was with just the standalone presses. Both operators felt that the Hornady was the clear winner. Now, the next run was done with both presses with the case feeders. Mixed reviews one liked the Dillon and the other liked the Hornady. Now with the Hornady Ammo Plant, both were very happy.

Conclusion: If you just want a stand-alone press clear winner Hornady. If you want a press with a case feeder and price is not something you are concerned about cover one of your walls with 1" checkerboard squares with every other square painted red with the other painted blue and with a blindfold throw a dart and go with that one. Now, as far as a bullet feeder...yes you can get a Mr.bullet feeder if you don't care about cost (and this is more than a few bucks) and the fact that you are relying on another company in getting your press to run to its true potential.
 
the 550c would do just fine for my needs if it wasn’t a manual.
Click to expand...

How important is auto-indexing to you?

For what it's worth, I have a 550 and it manually indexes so quick and easy, I don't hardly even think about it. It quickly becomes second-nature.
 
My dad had the LNL and Dillon 450 that was ugraded to the 550 - my BIL has them now. When I finally decide to get a progressive I had experience on both. I have a 550B.
 
OP if you plan on doing large runs of only one or two calibers then go with the 650 and case feeder. If you want to do many calibers but small runs of a 100 then go with the LNL with no case feeder.
I’ve loaded on a 650 with and without a case feeder and it SUCKED without the case feeder. With the case feeder it runs very well.
The LNL without the case feeder is very easy to operate and once set will works well. With the case feeder it doesn’t suck but isn’t as trouble free as the 650 with case feeder.
 
@jmorris - Out of curiosity; If your circumstances changed and you needed to downsize to one machine to produce only for your personal use, what one would remain?

I venture a guess, the Dillon 1050.
 
@jmorris - Out of curiosity; If your circumstances changed and you needed to downsize to one machine to produce only for your personal use, what one would remain?
Click to expand...

That may be the toughest reloading question I have been asked.

Wouldn’t be the SD or 1050 because they can’t load everything I load for but I guess if I had to sell equipment, I’d have to sell the firearms too. Likely quit shooting as much so I’d buy factory ammo for when I could shoot a round or two.

A jack of all trades is master of none, that describes the 550 pretty well.
 
If I could only have one press...it would, hands down, be the Dillon 650 with a case feeder !

If I want to buy a 2nd press for a weekend home --- I would buy another Dillon 650 with a case feeder.
 
I started with a 550 and never missed the fact that it didn't automatically advance. Even without auto indexing it runs fine.
 
I currently load on a Hornady Ammo-Plant, but if I was to do it all over again I would probably get a Dill...NOPE, I would get another Ammo-Plant. Wait I did except I got Three more.
 
In a span of about 8 months I have loaded about 15 000 rounds on my RL550 C and about 20,000 rounds on my xl650.

Here's what I know about them.

First, without a case feeder, the auto rotate function of the 650 doesn't save any time. Here's why: With the 550 I have to take my right hand off the press handle to insert a case. By the time I let go of the handle, grab a new case, and insert it, I have already advanced the shell plate and seated a bullet with my left hand. So the time limiting factor on the 550 is putting on a new shell. BUT, even with the need to manually put a shell in, and advance the shell plate, with 5 primer straws loaded, I can comfortably load 400 -450 rounds per hour. Literally between breakfast and lunch I have made 1,500 AR-10 loads...No problem on the 550.

The auto rotate with shell and bullet feeder speeds things up about 200% . If I were to just stay on the machine, o think I could make 3,000 .223 in a morning between breakfast and lunch as long as I had 30 full primer tubes and didn't take many breaks.

The 650, in my opinion, isn't worth getting setup unless I'm doing a 5k batch. Mainly because It takes longer to setup than a 550. I can set my 550 up such that cartridge base to ogive seating length stays within 0.0005", powder stays within +/- 0.1 gr and the crimp is perfectly uniform. It takes longer to get the 650 setup that way, and conversions are more expensive for the 650.

You should look at the Brian Enos Dillon page as he talks about which machine is right for you. But basically, if you are making several different cartridges and less than 15,000 rounds per year total, get a 550.

But, if you are making more than 15k, or 15k of just two or 3 cartridges, get a 650.

And if you are making 15k or more of just 1 cartridge, get a 1050.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top