Load Master is better than Dillon

[MBTcustom]

I don't like Lee bashing, but I can't defend that scale. Lee equipment is cheap materials that try to be overcome by genius design. Quite a few times they do just that, but the scale is neither ingenious nor quality. Can't speak to the powder measure.
I got to use my buddies loadmaster and his single stage Lee challenger single stage press. I thought the priming system on the Challenger was pretty smart. I helped him tweak the loadmaster to get the priming system working (pretty simple if you have a few tools) and he's cranking out ammo like there's no tomorrow. He loads 9mm, 40S&W and 45acp. He doesn't have a lot of money, and that that he has, he prefers to spend on quality firearms. He saved some money with Lee equipment, and the targets cannot tell the difference.
So obviously, some folks get more mileage out of Lee equipment than others.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Longwood: I hear what you are saying about paying hard earned money for a tool and not having it work right.

The pioint however is there are different levels of machines and some cost more than others. It follows that you should get more for more money than less money.

There is no comparison between a VW Jetta and a E320 Mercedes. Sure they both have 4 wheels and 4 doors, and they both do the same job, but one is a much better car and does what it does with a higher degree of satisfaction, and reliability. And with the right care will outlast the other car 2:1 which is what you should expect as it also costs twice as much.

All machines have limitations, if you've found the limitations of your's, then it is tiime to upgrade. You can always sell your used tools on Ebay, and just because you are done with them doesn't mean they are worthless, a zillion others are doing it as we speak. (resale value)

my Dad also said "Spend a little more ,,,get alot more in return"

That one is true most of the time too.

Randy

[Lloyd Smale]

i guess im a bit more seriously into this hobby then some. I didnt have to try it. It was obviously a piece of equiptment that had no place on my bench and sure couldnt see a beginning loader struggling with it when i had a nice rcbs unit i didnt use. Sorry but i may be old school but plastic will never replace steal. I have no doubt if push came to shove a guy can load good ammo with cheap lee stuff. Luckily i dont have to.

Gee you have a good eye, being able to just look at a scale & know that it won't come up with the correct weight.

[LUBEDUDE]

i guess im a bit more seriously into this hobby then some. I didnt have to try it. It was obviously a piece of equiptment that had no place on my bench and sure couldnt see a beginning loader struggling with it when i had a nice rcbs unit i didnt use. Sorry but i may be old school but plastic will never replace steal. I have no doubt if push came to shove a guy can load good ammo with cheap lee stuff. Luckily i dont have to.

Very well put my man.

[garym1a2]

Plastic properly selected, designed and used does just fine. My glocks has lots of plastic and work great. The problem with the loadmaster is just a cheesy design and the lastest updated to the sliders they sent are just badaids.

All the plastic in the loadmaster primer feed systems does not have 50 cent in material in it. All the money is in the frame and ram.

In automotive applications we use tons plastic (PPS, PBT, Glass filled ...) and they work great in under the hood applications that see a lot of heat and stress.

Looking at the loadmaster makes me think that Lee does not spend much money on engineering nor listening to customer complaints.

i guess im a bit more seriously into this hobby then some. I didnt have to try it. It was obviously a piece of equiptment that had no place on my bench and sure couldnt see a beginning loader struggling with it when i had a nice rcbs unit i didnt use. Sorry but i may be old school but plastic will never replace steal. I have no doubt if push came to shove a guy can load good ammo with cheap lee stuff. Luckily i dont have to.

[UNIQUEDOT]

i guess im a bit more seriously into this hobby then some. I didnt have to try it. It was obviously a piece of equiptment that had no place on my bench and sure couldnt see a beginning loader struggling with it when i had a nice rcbs unit i didnt use. Sorry but i may be old school but plastic will never replace steal. I have no doubt if push came to shove a guy can load good ammo with cheap lee stuff. Luckily i dont have to.

I have one of the lee scales on my bench that's been there for years and it does work, but it's the most aggravating scale you could ever dream of using so it doesn't get used anymore. I do like the perfect powder measure although every single time i use it the thing feels like it's going to break, but luckily it doesn't. I bought one of the universal charge dies so i could use the perfect powder measure on my loadmaster for rifle rounds and that little venture caused all types of vocabulary to come outta my mouth.

[W.R.Buchanan]

I am, as most of you have heard many times, a machinist. I've owned my own shop for nearly 30 years. I also design automated machinery. Some of the 'machinists' out there may have heard of the Omniturn CNC lathe,,,, That was my design, and a very successful one it was for Ominiturn.

As a result I tend to view the construction and usability of machines a little more critically than others might.

As far as machine design goes I consider Dillon to be the best. BUY FAR! They do the job with less problems than just about any other brand out there. I have looked at most of them and owned alot of them.

Dillon also has the best, or at least very good, factory support. But the real advantage of the Dillon machine is it's rebuildability. My SDB's can be rebuilt to virtually new for less than $20 or more properly free if I send it in. This can be done as many times as needed (depending on your ability to wear one out) because all the wearing parts are easily replaced. All of the pivot points and sliders are delrin which doesn't require lubrication, and is cheap to make. Plus all that, they are easy machines to understand. Understanding how and why a machine works the way it does is a key factor in keeping it running.

All that said; Dillon is NOT the only outfit that makes good machinery. RCBS, Hornaday, C&H,
Redding, Forester, and yes Lee also make good machinery.

I don't particularly care for Lee automatics. However they make a line of single stage presses from not very expensive, to just as good or better than anyone elses and all of them are good tools. With enough different price points to get anyone involved in the hobby

I consider Lee dies to be among the best value in the reloading business, and the machining on those dies is on parr with ANY OTHER BRAND! IN fact I have sent Redding dies(supposedly the best) back to the factory with snotty letters chastizing them for shipping such poor quality product and having the gaul to charge top dollar for it.

Lee equipment is made to a price point, and their intention is to make an inexpensive product so more people will buy it. Obviously this works as there is plenty of it sold.

I personally don't care for their automated machines, they have what I consider to be design issues that can't be readily fixed, However their other stuff is just fine. I think their toolmakers and designers are pretty good overall. I would like to see them upgrade some of their parts, similar to what they just did with their priming tool, to better materials, and finishes, as I think it would help the company's image overall. But that is their call.

In short, I think it is best to examine what ones involvement with the reloading hobby is, and will be. If you really like it then maybe you should consider either saving your money and buying higher quality machines, or buying some of the used machinery out there.

You will get plenty of opinions here, there is also people at your local club or group that have experience that can help you make decisions. If you make a wrong decision and buy something that is not very friendly to you, you'll find that the beauty of reloading equipment is that you can always sell it and buy different stuff.

If you can do a little restoration work then you'll also find out that you can buy machines for very few $ and clean them up so they are as good as new or better. Seagiant is good at that, and has more different machines than anyone else I know of.

The thing about the reloading hobby is that you can spend as little or as much as you want to, and still shoot the gun.

I started in 1971 with a LEE Loader and a plastic mallet (both of which I still have) and I recommend every one starts there. Once you understand the process then moving up to a good quality single stage press is the next step. Then if you need to load a large vcolumn you can buy more machines.

No one tool will do it all, but some tools can do most of it, and that's why you need a single stage press as a basic tool.

The rest is just trial and error until you get it right. Just do your homework. "Speed costs money,,, How fast do you want to go?"

Randy

[rbuck351]

W R
Excellent post. I completely agree.

[jimkim]

"Speed costs money,,, How fast do you want to go?" Randy

I never thought of Lee presses as hotrods. Maybe that's why I like 'em so much. The gang(not street gang) I used to run with all drag raced. I really miss the smell of nitrous, tire smoke, and VHT! Thanks for the memory!

[MBTcustom]

W.R.Buchanan, excellent post. Very informative. You put it susinctly.

[four70nitro]

I started off reloading with my dad more than 50 years ago. In those days we were loading .22 Hornet, .218 Bee, .38 Special and a few other small calibers with an old Lyman nut-cracker tool. My dad would give me a batch of cases and an assignment and I'd go to town running that tool to do whatever the current assignment was. We made a lot of perfectly suitable ammo using that tool and my dad shot of lot of rock chucks and other varmints with it.

Later he upgraded to a single-stage press. I believe it was from Herter's (remember how much fun it was to read the old Herter's catalogs? You could buy anything from feather's for fly tying to diamonds...) We loaded a lot more ammo on that old Herter's press. All sorts of calibers. Some of it with individually hand-weighed charges, some of it with powder charges dipped using custom made (out old pistol cases) scoops or from a set of Lee powder dippers. Later he bought a powder measure but I couldn't tell you now what brand it was.

Later still he upgraded to a RCBS Jr. press because everyone (except I think Herter's) had standardized on the same thread size for reloading dies. I can't begin to tell you how many thousands of rounds we loaded over the years on those single stage presses. A great many of them using bullets we cast from lead he scrounged here, there, and yon.

After I moved out of the house I started buying my own reloading equipment and in the early days that was an RCBS Jr. press and a Lyman powder measure along with an old RCBS 10-10 scale. I loaded a lot of ammo with those tools as well.

Sometime not too long after that after spending a few days hanging off the side of a ladder with snow blowing through my welding helmet - welding the backside of a pipe in a mirror - I remember thinking there had to be a better way to make a living. Then I got really sick and missed about a week of work. I'd seen them lay people off for missing a day so I figured I was without a job. The first day I was ambulatory I went to the post office to mail something and decided to stop by the local gun store. The guy behind the counter asked me why I wasn't at work, and thinking I was probably unemployed I told him I was looking for a job. He asked me if I'd ever done any reloading and I said "Sure, ever since I was 4 or 5 with my dad" they hired me on the spot. I spent the next five years working at a great job.

We sold tons of reloading stuff. We stocked EVERYTHING that Lee, RCBS, Bonanza, Ponsness-Warren and Lyman made (Hornady made bullets but not reloading equipment in those days.) I sold a lot of reloading equipment to people of all walks of life - we sold a lot of Lee, a ton of RCBS, and a lot less of the more expensive stuff. They all made things that had their strong points and their weak points.

We had two or three customers that we using "progressive" reloaders but in those days (1980-ish) there weren't really any being marketed to the general public. One customer in particular was using a Dillon (in those days I think it was called a 300 or 350) and claimed to really like it. I used to chat with him about it and occasionally we would order parts for him because there was no factory direct option. We didn't stock Dillon (Lee wasn't making one yet) or any other progressive presses because in those simply zero demand for them.

I remember the day that the latest issue of Handloader magazine arrived and I opened it and found the entire inside cover was a full-page add for Dillon selling 450 machines direct to the public - I think the price was $160 with one caliber conversion included. I called a pathologist friend of mine that I did a bit of reloading for and told him about it and he said "Order one, I'll pay for it, you keep it and you can load ammo for me." I ordered one that afternoon. It arrived about a week later with conversions for .44 Mag, .45 ACP, and .38/357. I set it up immediately and started making .44 Mag ammo.....so much that I got tendinitis in my elbows. I was in HEAVEN! Who'd ever have thought you could manufacture ammo in such quantities so quickly?!? It was great. My friend moved away a year or so later, I still have (and use) that press.

I remember calling the Dillon to order a couple more conversion plates about 10 days after receiving my press. I asked the fellow I talked to how the direct sales thing was going. He told me they had about 2000 presses on hand when the advertisement broke and that they had a 100 press/day capacity and they were currently running 2-3 weeks behind.

A number of years later I bought a Dillon 550 with three caliber conversions I didn't already own, plus the dies, brass, bullets, and one of Dillon's fabulous primer pocket swaging tools out of the local Nickel want ads paper for $175. It became my go-to machine for everything but .220 Swift which I still loaded on the original 450 I bought (since it was a unique shell-plate.) Just last fall I bought another Dillon 550 from the widow of a reloader. It came with three sets of Dillon carbide dies plus two powder measures, several conversion kits, etc., etc.......paid a whopping $250 for that one. I tried to give her more - she wouldn't take it.

I currently have both 550's set up on my bench - one for small primers and one for large - because changing the primer feed back and forth was my least favorite part of the conversion process. I have no idea of how much ammo I've loaded on either one, or how much was loaded on them before I bought them - but I can tell you I've loaded thousands and thousands of rounds of pistol ammo on both.

They are great machines -- they just flat work. Period. I've never owned or used a Lee, already owned a Dillon by the time Lee started selling their machine and didn't need to try one. I have friends that are experienced reloaders that have used the Lee machines. All but one have converted to Dillon or Hornady machines since. The one is really happy with his Lee machine. He doesn't load huge quantities of ammo, but probably 2500/year or so. He's happy with it and we don't argue about it.

Lee has always been really good at making tools at a price point, but they also make some very effective tools. I'm still using a Lee auto priming tool (occasionally) that my dad bought from me when I worked at the gun store 35 years ago. Does it work - absolutely. Is it a thing of beauty like the Sinclair hand-priming tool......do I need to answer that?

Beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder. If someone wants to put up with the quirks and foibles (real or perceived) of a specific brand of equipment and they have invested their funds to do so what possible difference would that make to me? Am I going to go out and buy a Lee progressive loader - Are you kidding, I already own 4 Dillons, 2 RCBS's, a Lyman, and 2 Ponsness-Warrens. Do I recommend Dillon equipment - you bet! I've had nothing but a great experience with it right from the start, designed well, made of high quality materials, obviously designed by someone that has done a lot of reloading and fast, friendly customer service. Do I belittle my friend who likes his Lee press - never, it's his money and his experience and he likes it so what the heck do I care.

Why do people buy Snap-On tools when there is Proto, S-K, Blackhawk, Craftsmen, and Harbour Freight. Because they can.....

My parting comment is that there is more to consider in a purchase than simply the price, and my experience with reloading equipment, hand-tools, machine tools, guns, knives, cars and ice cream is that he who shops by price alone usually deserves exactly what he gets.

Dave

[Longwood]

I remember the day that the latest issue of Handloader magazine arrived and I opened it and found the entire inside cover was a full-page add for Dillon selling 450 machines direct to the public - I think the price was $160 with one caliber conversion included. .
Dave

I remember that day VERY well.
I had just wasted the previousl Saturday driving the full length of Orange County, most of LA county and way too many LA city streets to go and pay $336 for one from a dealer.
DOH!

The best business move Dillon ever did, was cut out the dealers.

[44Vaquero]

I remembered having tucked the PDF away for just such an occasion. For those of you looking for an head to head to head review here it is:

http://fatwhiteman.com/files/28524-2...Comparison.pdf

It well worth the read!

[UNIQUEDOT]

I've read that comparison before and it seems the guy thinks the Hornady LNL is the best thing going. I've read other posts that claim the hornady is better than the 650, but in this thread Lloyd claims the opposite. Peoples opinions confuse me when it comes to presses, but i do like the features of the hornady such as cases and bullets being fed on the same side of the machine as well as ejection. Also like the fact that you can quickly remove either die you desire while leaving others put.

[Lloyd Smale]

I own 3 lnl progressives so i have a pretty good grasp on them and ive loades thousands of rounds on 650s and ill tell you with no hesitation the only advantaget a lnl has over a 650 is cost. Only possible reason i could see buying one other then price is if i wanted to run the press without a case feeder. the 650 is awkward wtihout it. It was designed to have one and its the main reason why its so supperior to the add on case feeder set up hornady uses. If you want my opinion what is the most reliable? Id have to vote 550 hands down. You give up auto advance but there so reliable that there almost boring to run and they will crank out enough ammo for 99 percent of shooters. to be honest if push came to shove i could get by with just my 550 to do all my loading.

[UNIQUEDOT]

If you want my opinion what is the most reliable? Id have to vote 550 hands down. You give up auto advance but there so reliable that there almost boring to run and they will crank out enough ammo for 99 percent of shooters. to be honest if push came to shove i could get by with just my 550 to do all my loading.

I wanted a 550, but couldn't find anywhere to put an m die in it. Maybe Dillon's powder funnels work well enough for boolits? I've never heard anyone talk about them, good or bad. When i bought my loadmaster it was $190 delivered NIB and came with the dies. It paid for itself in a few hours and it's still going. If it does eventually invent too many problems to deal with i guess the LNL will be the best (as far as price) alternative in a five station press.

[Walt]

HA HA HA.....

[rbuck351]

Some of the Dillon powder dies work like an M die and some don't. An M/powder die for a dillon would be easy to make to your specs if needed.

[Lloyd Smale]

with a little thought alot of dillons pistol powder dies can be used as expanders. Like say using a 32mag powder die to load 30 cal rifle rounds.

[MBTcustom]

I'm really glad I subscribed to this thread, I feel I'm getting a "working mans" knowledge of all of these options without haveing to buy them to find out what the quality is.
I have a couple of questions since there are dillon fans here a-plenty.
Is it true that the Dillon frame is made of magnesium? I heard that somewhere and I never was able to substantiate it.
Is the 550 able to reload magnum rifle cartridges?
Is it possible to make good quality target rifle ammo with a progresive press, or will that function be reserved for a single stage press?
Interesting discussion fellers.