I actually love to hear these stories! Not that I enjoy hearing of your frustration but the history behind these machines is fascinating to me! Thanks for sharing!!At least you're going in to the project with your eyes wide open. The actual workmanship on the GM was good. The design was the problem. They focused everything on not using a vertical tubular primer magazine. The advertising literature pronounced the vertical magazine a hazard & their unique system did away with that awful hazard (their later primer strips accomplished this). My memory is not clear as to whether they ever used a vertical magazine in subsequent designs.........I was no longer interested in any progressive machine they produced.
The 2nd. problem was the jerky horizontal movement of the cartridges........powder spills were common.
For me the 3rd. problem was the fact that once you had a problem the problem was compounded by the fact that there was no provision for removing an individual cartridge @ a particular stage. This fact was forever etched onto my little Teflon brain & is the reason I have a Dillon 550 & not a 650 (I like manual advance).
To give credit where credit is due, their customer service was great. I had many phone conversations with Jay Postman (a real gentleman) & he tried to help. I even sent it back to them to "calibrate". It was no better when it returned. About 2 years after I sold mine @ a gun show for $100.00 (I hope I don't ever meet that fellow again) RCBS sent out a post card to original owners of GM giving them a special price on a 2nd machine (I think it was $125.00.......may have been $225.00). They did this because they had advertised it as being easily changed over to another caliber & realized that any change over was not as easy as expected. I wrote back that I wasn't interested in one @ $25.00 & went further to say they were only useful as a boat anchor.
Jay Postman calls me a few days later & says "Henry, I take it you're not happy with the GM". To make a long story shorter he paid me the difference between the purchase price & the $100.00 I sold it for & the payment was based entirely on my word. You can't ask for anything better.
I didn't mean to ramble.
Henry
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