Dillon dies v. RCBS, Redding, Lyman, Lee dies?

If you are using the Dillon press then the Dillon dies are pretty much what you need. If your press is not a Dillon then you have some other choices. I use RCBS almost exclusively but I do have a couple that are from Other manufacturers. RCBS didn't have a neck size die for my 257 so I found one someplace else. I have had excellent service from RCBS on the few times I needed it and will recommend their products because of that. My press is a first series Rock Chucker that I bought in 1973(?) but I also have a Lyman 4 position turret press. Both are used as single station presses to fit my style of loading.
I live just outside a very small town and the RCBS equipment is available at two different stores within a few miles. It is nice to be able to get dies for a new cartridge when you need it and not have to wait for shipping or having to travel hours to get something.
 
If you are using the Dillon press then the Dillon dies are pretty much what you need.
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I'm not that familiar with Dillon presses and dies. Why do you need Dillon dies for Dillon presses?
 
My 1050s came with Dillon dies. I have replaced almost all of them with Lee or Hornady.
There is no more reason to use Dillon dies on a Dillon press than to NOT use Dillon dies on a non-Dillon press (except, of course, for the SDB).
All it is, is what works best for you or makes you happy.
 
All we need to do if find a reloader that can compare a case that has been sized in a RCBS die with a case that has been sized in a Dillon die. And then we need to find a reloader that can measure the length of the die from the shoulder to the deck of the shell holder, after that it gets complicated; to determine the difference a reloader would be required to measure the difference in diameter between a die and sized case.

I have Herter dies and I have C&H dies, I also have RCBS and Lyman dies, I have Hornady dies and Pacific etc. I have no reservation about choosing a die. Again, I do not want a lot of air between the case and chamber. Most of my dies have threads, the threads on my dies fit most of my presses, the threads make my dies adjustable, threads allow me to adjust the length of the case from the shoulder to the case head.

F. Guffey
 
higgite said:
I'm not that familiar with Dillon presses and dies. Why do you need Dillon dies for Dillon presses?
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It's required for the Dillon Square Deal press because it uses a non-standard die thread diameter that only Dillon makes dies for.

On the other presses it is not required. However, because the Dillon dies are designed to keep a progressive loading operation running smoothly, you may have fewer stoppages with them. You also may not. It depends how you work and what brass and bullets and primers you are working with. There are a lot of aftermarket Dillon-centric things out there now, too. Inline Fabrication makes mounts and handles and press lights. JDS makes an adapter for using their powder measure on a Dillon. Their measure, the Quick Measure, throws stick powders more consistently than any other measure I have, so if I were loading match rifle ammunition on my 550 I would likely get that adapter for my Quick Measure and also use a Redding Competition Seating Die on it.
 
Nick, I knew the SD used proprietary dies, but Shootist's remark sounded like all Dillon presses "need" Dillon dies. I know a friend of mine uses a Hornady seat/crimp die on his 550, so was wondering what Shootist knew that my friend doesn't. Thanks for clearing that up.
 
Their measure, the Quick Measure, throws stick powders more consistently than any other measure I have, so if I were loading match rifle ammunition on my 550 I would likely get that adapter for my Quick Measure and also use a Redding Competition Seating Die on it.
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Nick,

I'm dropping 4064 with the Dillon Powder measure and powder bar on my RL 550C for .308 and random checking with the hopper full, half full, and empty is yielding no more than +/- 0.2 gr. This is actually more consistent than factory Federal GMM where I found at least +/- 0.3 gr on the 175 gr loads. (I say at least because I only pulled a box of 20).

HOWEVER! I took a Dremel tool and some polish to the powder tube that comes with the conversion kit, and to the sharp edges on the powder. I also have a dial adjustment device on every one of my powder bars. Then, I spray the hopper with my wife's static cling prevention stuff...and ground the machine.

4064 is a good test because of how course it is. When I did similar tests with H335(ball) and Benchmark (Benchmark is very small extruded powder) I got +/- 0.01.... and mostly just +/-0.00 when using an RCBS 5-0-5.

The only things so far I'm not willing to try on my Dillon are hunting ammo for my .270 & 300 wm, but only because I don't make enough of it to bother setting up and dialing in the machine, and my F-CLASS load because brass prep is so involved and because as bad as 4064 is, H1000 is far worse in terms of drop consistency.
 
I have dies that came in green boxes, blue boxes, red boxes, black boxes, yellow boxes and orange boxes. They have each served their purpose. My favorites for general use have been the Lymans and for use with my more accurate "factory" rifles the Redding competition micrometer dies and for benchrest quality precision rifles, the Wilson straight line dies.
 
I stopped by the Dillon store in Chandler to discuss their RL550 many ears ago. They suggested using Dillon dies because they felt seating and crimping on the same position was a bad habit. I explained to them I do not load on a progressive press without a lock out die so they could forget me purchasing Dillon dies. I explained to them crimping for me is nothing more that than a hint of effort.

I explained to them I was not going to start over by replacing all of my dies. They said there are a lot of reloaders that use other brands of dies in their presses. The dies are not the only expense, change over kits adds to the cost.

F. Guffey
 
The dies are not the only expense, change over kits adds to the cost.

F. GUFFEY
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Yup.
On the RL 550, and other progressive presses have additional costs beyond dies. A new caliber conversion kit is about $45. Add in a powder bar, and powder die to keep in the tool head, and a toolhead and you are looking at $110 or so per kit.

I have 5 such kits for my 550 plus a toolhead "lazy Susan" type holder, and several primer tubes.
 
Yup.
On the RL 550, and other progressive presses have additional costs beyond dies.
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At the time I had two RCBS Piggy Back 11 presses, the longest case I could load on the Piggy Back presses was 223. And then there are shell plates, the shell plates for the Piggy Back press also fit the PRO 2000, the Pro 2000 powder measures stays with the press and is not changed with the tool head, in my opinion the Pro 2000 saved the reolader money.

F. Guffey
 
At the time I had two RCBS Piggy Back 11 presses, the longest case I could load on the Piggy Back presses was 223. And then there are shell plates, the shell plates for the Piggy Back press also fit the PRO 2000, the Pro 2000 powder measures stays with the press and is not changed with the tool head, in my opinion the Pro 2000 saved the reolader money.
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Yes it can...The powder measure on the dillon is easily swapped though, I think that the "quick change kits" are a waste of money because all you have to do is swap powder bars. The dillon "quick change kits" come with another powder measure which are about $80 each. If you just have a powder die and powder bar setup, swapping the hopper changes nothing....saves you $80. This was pointed out by Jmorris btw.

I do however recommend having different toolheads and different powder bars for each toolhead. It takes some time to get everything really running smoothly and setup. Add in a powder bar and you are, like I said, looking at $100-$110 for each conversion and not needing to adjust anything from the last time.

However, the bare minimum you need per coversion is $45 for the conversion kit for the RL 550. You can go ahead and add $25 more for the 650 conversion kit.
 
I don't have Dillon, I think I have at least one of all the rest (not Redding).

Lee were my go to dies for pistol, still are.

RCBS mostly for rifle, but I do have Forster as well.

Forster seater micrometer is spot on, loading a bullet is not as easy as the RCBS

RCBS bullet insert is great, the micrometer is not linear.

Someone gave me a Lee set for 7.5 Swiss. I take the seater down to the range for my COAL so I don't have to take the bench seater (bullet is seate4d well, just fine tuning). Not precise but works nicely for that use.

Forster is not good like RCBS if my make a mistake (broken de-prime pin). Yep my fault, RCBS replaces stuff, Forster I had to buy a new pin.

When I get an RECB set I get both dies, doesn't cost any more (sizer) and it give me a backup.

I tried Redding but their seater is an add on tiny thing for a Micrometer, was not impressed and it went back as I did not have the rest of it (bad detail listing)

Snuffed my curiosity to try them.

As noted, they all have good and minus, I don't know any are bad, I do know I prefer RCBS overall in their Best Dies. Have to call them my go to.

Widen is out there, not sure they return the high cost.
 
I load the vast majority of the 30-40K (all but maybe 500) rounds a year on a Dillon 650XL. I have RCBS,, Lee, Dillon, Forster and Redding Dies, in some cases mixed, on the 10 toolheads. I have different requirements for the various cartridges.

For pistol, I prefer the Dillon Dies, for the AR cartridges, I have a mix of Dillon, Forster and Lee, for the Short and Long action bolt guns, RCBS and Lee with Forster seating dies for the cartridges I shoot in matches. Just depends on the features I want and what works best for each.
 
RC20 said:
I tried Redding but their seater is an add on tiny thing for a Micrometer, was not impressed and it went back as I did not have the rest of it (bad detail listing)
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For clarification, it should be noted you can buy a micrometer adapter from Redding to convert their standard seating die depth setting from conventional trial-and-error screw depth adjustment to the micrometer adjustment. I'm guessing that adapter is what you bought, but didn't have the standard Redding seating die to convert with it. For those who do have the standard die and are considering converting it, please keep in mind this adapter just adds the micrometer depth adjustment scale. When you are done, you still have a standard seating die configuration on the inside. It is not equivalent to their much more expensive Competition Seating Die which has a sliding alignment sleeve and floating bullet seating ram. In my own experiments with .30-06, the Redding Competition Seating Die as compared to the Redding standard seating die reduced runout by a factor of 4. Not at all the same animals.
 
For clarification,
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All of my seating dies are micro adjust, I have dial calipers and I have depth micrometers, if it protrudes above the seating die I can measure it in thousandths. And I made a gage back in the mid '70s that has served me well.

F. Guffey
 
For clarification, it should be noted you can buy a micrometer adapter from Redding to convert their standard seating die depth setting from conventional trial-and-error screw depth adjustment to the micrometer adjustment. I'm guessing that adapter is what you bought, but didn't have the standard Redding seating die to convert with it. For those who do have the standard die and are considering converting it, please keep in mind this adapter just adds the micrometer depth adjustment scale. When you are done, you still have a standard seating die configuration on the inside. It is not equivalent to their much more expensive Competition Seating Die which has a sliding alignment sleeve and floating bullet seating ram. In my own experiments with .30-06, the Redding Competition Seating Die as compared to the Redding standard seating die reduced runout by a factor of 4. Not at all the same animals.
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So just FYI on these add on style Micrometers for the Redding dies: I bought a few sets of Redding Premium Dies which include these Micrometer adjusters in the standard die and a standard full length resizing die with the carbide expander.

They are close to worthless for me.

Because they use the standard seating die, they are only able to use a very limited amount of their range due to the fact that the standard die includes a crimp. So if you open up the micrometer beyond about 1 turn, and then try seating a bullet, you will crush your case neck before seating is completed. They cannot be bottomed out either.

I have this same issue on all of the four sets of these I purchased. 308, 300WSM, 7mm08, 7mmRM. (Now I use Forster Comp Seater and have no issues at all with that one.)

Can't recommend these at all.
 
For clarification,
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A disciplined reloader that know the length of the case can use a height gage to set and or avoid the crimp section of the die, And then there is the maximum overall length of the round. It is not necessary to start over ever day by adjusting if the recorded the information from the last secession, and then there are transfers, I am the fan of transferring the dimension of the chamber to the seating die. I do not find it necessary to adjust, remove and then measure over and over until ?

F. Guffey
 
A disciplined reloader that know the length of the case can use a height gage to set and or avoid the crimp section of the die, And then there is the maximum overall length of the round. It is not necessary to start over ever day by adjusting if the recorded the information from the last secession, and then there are transfers, I am the fan of transferring the dimension of the chamber to the seating die. I do not find it necessary to adjust, remove and then measure over and over until ?
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Sure Guffey, that will get you close, but if you are swapping seating stems because you are using the same micrometer adjusting die with very different bullet shapes for different guns, it's going to be difficult to put them back to exactly where they were before.

And yes I write it all down. Of course I know my chamber and throat dimensions, and the bullet dimensions, and the case capacity, and the case dimensions etc. But still there is adjustment required.
 
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