Loading 380 auto on the Dillon 650 ?

R

Road_Clam

New member
Hey gents,
Picked up a Sig 238 for the wife and getting ready to load 380. I'm reading that this caliber can be challenging on a progressive and many prefer to load single stage old skool'. I'm going to use Tight Group and need some feedback if anyone has success with loading on the Dillon 650. Looks like I also need to purchase the xtra small charge bar for the powder drop.
 
Powder metering inconsistencies with such a small charge.
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This.

I know of two pistols locally that went Ka-Boom using Tite-Group reloads..... with the difference between "Start Grains" and "Do Not Exceed" of .380 Tite-Group loads often being less than 1/2 a grain (Unique is actually WORSE) ....... on a flake powder (which can vary that much in a volumetric meter, depending on technique) ........ it's entirely possible to make squibs or 20% overcharges unless one is extremely careful when metering.
 
I load 380 on a single stage even though I have two 550's. The powder I use is W231 as it flows very well, but I still weight each charge using a Gempro 250. The small difference between min and max is the reason I weight each charge.
 
My experience is with a 550, not a 650. But...

I had issues metering Titegroup safely (due to the aforementioned narrow charge weight windows), and Unique (simply due to the bulky flakes and low charge weight).

Surprisingly, Blue Dot worked very well, even though Unique did not.
But, in the end, I went with W231/HP-38. It metered the best and I had plenty of it.

Once the press was set, it ran just like 9mm.
 
With powders like H335, Hodgon longshot, win 244, win 231, cfe pistol/223, I get a weight difference of less than 0.1 gr. Doesn't matter if the hopper is full, nearly empty, if it's the 1st round of the day or the last.

First, I take the droptube/flairing funnel and polish the inside to a mirror shine. Pay attention mostly to the upper funnel ensuring there are no swirls, tool Mark's, edges etc.
Then I take all the edges off the powder bar and polish the inside of it too. Then I spray static guard inside the funnel and the hopper. I also ground the powder die to the steel bench. On the 650 I static guard the powder check brass portion of the rod and polish it also and ground it with a jumper to the powder drop die.

I load full throttle 10mm loads on the 650, as well as full throttle 44mag and 45-70 govt on the 550. I also load match grade .223 on the 550 as hand weighed charges for the powder I use are barely noticeably more consistent.....on the chronograph I noticed no difference.

Large stick powders like H1000 are all hand weighed.....as is H4831 for my 6mm AI and are loaded on a ponsness warren metallic ii. But benchmark is fine enough it seems to meter close to within 1/10th so I use it for the .223.

I have loaded 7.62x51 on my 550 using 4064 and found no appreciable difference between hand wieghed groups and velocity within 300 yards. But I wouldn't totally hang my hat on those tests yet as they were measured in an auto loading rifle.

Anyway, if sitting and weighing is something you enjoy, that's fine.....but the drop system on dillon's systems can be as accurate as most people's scales.

Think about this, do you believe that the factory hand weighs each charge? Nope, they are dropped. And with the right powder and a little polish, you can too.
 
Stats Shooter, only one of your listed powders is pertinent to the OP: he's loading for a .380ACP .... and a quick look at a load book shows that WIN231/HP-38 .... the Start Load is the Do Not Exceed load. .1gr +/- won't cut it. YMMV.

The right powder pretty much can't be a flake type if you are going to mass produce it on a progressive machine.....
 
Jimbob

I'm not sure which projectile the OP is using but titegroup has approx an 1/2 gr spread on most .380 bullet weights.

I have not worked with it so wont comment on how well it meters, but that isnt such a tight window. Many 45 ACP powders have spreads that tight.

But if I didn't specifically say it before, metering has to be considered when using a progressive press.It is why I dont use 800x in 10mm tough it supposedly gets the absolute best velocities......because it meters so poorly
 
I'm loading the Berry's 100 gr plated rn bullet. My Hornady 9th lists Titegroup as start of 2.3g at 700 fps, up to 3.0g at 900 fps. I bought the LEE 4 dies set which comes with the powder measure scoop.
 
2.8 titegroup gets me 850 with 95 gr coated lead. I load 500 at a time. I use Unique for 95 gr HP. All work well on the 550.

I did polish the powder measure with 1,000 grit paper so the Unique flows better. ANY type of disruption in the process gets that round removed. I put an empty case under the charge drop when I size the first case. I dump that first one.

David
 
I load literal thousands of rounds of 9mm on my 650 with zero issue with tye smal charge bar. I cant see any reason you would have an issue with 380. I’d say get after it.
 
I just loaded up 380 with power pistol and 100gr rnfp xtremes for the wifes P238 on my 650 with no problems. And she really liked them with the power pistol
 
I did a lot of searching and trying. WW 231 did not give velocity I was looking for. Unique had the best for JHP. That is what I use . For practice rounds, I just use the titegroup. It achieves a good practice velocity without being at max. I get the same velocity as factory Remington or WW .
Never tried Power Pistol. That will be my next adventure when the last batch is gone. She shoots about 500 a year practice plus a couple boxes of JHP. She carries factory HP. I carry my own reloads. I can get 100 fps on the factory stuff.

David

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So i've done some thinking about my options. Option 1 is the Dillon xtra small charge bar. Not sure i'm 100% confident in this option, I would have to buy the charge bar only to find out it might not throw Titegroup consistent. I really want to stay with titegroup as I have about 6# of it and it does seem to be an excellent powder provided you stay vigiliant on the charges. Option 2 is use my Dillon 650 minus the powder charge and charge by hand using my RCBS Uniflow. I did some extensive testing with my RCBS Uniflow and the min charge it can drop with Titegroup is 1.6 gr. I dropped about 25 charges of 2.7 gr and I was getting pretty good consistiency ranging from 2.6 to 2.8 so i'm at +/- .1 . This is just going to be practice ammo for my wife so i'm not interested in hot loads. She's been shooting the factory Fiocchi 95 gr ammo which I chrono'd at about 876 fps. So i'll try and target this velocity just for consistency. Option 3 would be charges with my RCBS Chargemaster 1500 combo. This would be dead balls consistent charges but each drop takes about 20 seconds. Buy the time I manually charge a casing, seat a bullet and run to the next station on my 650 some of that 20 seconds will be absorbed. I'll just have to try both the Uniflow and the CM 1500 and see how things work out.
 
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