Non-Dillon dies in 550B?

[Aldeer]

Dillon says to work smoothly with the 550B, dies should have a flared mouth for easy case entry. Looking at the Lee and RCBS dies I've got, they are flared some but I have no idea how much is required. Have any of you experienced problems using Lee or RCBS dies with the 550B?

[felix]

Depends on how fast you want to load, and your patience when loading slowly. Go for WIDE mouth dies on the 550. Dillon dies work with a hiccup only once in a while, like once out of 200 fully loaded rounds. It has to do with how straight the cases stand in the center of the plate hole. ... felix

[Denver]

I have the Dillon 550 and have never used their dies in it. I've used RCBS and Lee with no problem. Just used what I already had.

[Mugs]

I use RCBS dies in my 550 to load 30 carb. No problems.
Mugs

[straightshooter1]

Dillon's are flared a bit more, but I never bothered to measure to see how much. I have used many other mfg'ers dies in my 550s with no problem. The idea of the flare is that the casing will always enter the die, never hit the rim. If you make sure the shell plate is completely in place before you work the handle, you should never have a problem. This can happen when you are trying to load real fast with smaller casings like the 9mm and 38 Super. I suppose it could happen with any caliber, but not if you pay attention.

Happy 550 user since 1987.

Bob

[376Steyr]

I did have trouble with an early version of a non-Dillon carbide die when I first got my 550B in 1989. It wasn't flared enough at the entry of the sizing ring and a case mouth would sometimes hang up on it, stopping everything until I lowered the ram. Of course every time I raised and lowered the ram a charge of powder dropped at Station 2, so eventually...

Do your current dies have enough flare? Just try them and see, going REALLY SLOW until you have confidence in them. If they give you trouble, replace them with Dillons. If you're thinking about saving a few bucks by not buying Dillon dies
for a new caliber, I strongly recommend you reconsider.

One nifty feature of the Dillon pistol dies is the quick-removable seating stem that lets you clean out the build up of lead and lube from the seater without removing the die from the toolhead or losing its adjustment. You'll soon appreciate this if you start loading lots of 38 wadcutters.

[broomhandle]

Hi Sir,

I have Lee, Lyman & Hornaday & RCBS dies. I can load at about 400 cases per hour.
The Dillon dies are nice, but are they worth the extra money?

My pal has all Dillon dies, I see no real improvment in speed or quality of the shells made.

Be well,
broomhandle

[Shepherd2]

Your Lee and RCBS dies should work fine in the 550B. I use them and Hornaday dies in mine with no problems. Like Broomhandle I load about 400 rounds per hour which is a leisurely pace. I don't get much build up of lube or lead in my seating dies.

[ebner glocken]

I use a 550B. The dillion dies are nice but unfortunatly don't make them in very many calibers. The last time I bothered to check I loaded for over 25 headstamps and have probably 5 different brands of dies. No problems here with any of them although I don't worry about setting speed records while loading. Yes, the dillion dies do tend to be a bit more speedy due to the flared die mouth.

[broomhandle]

Hi Fellows,

Please use caution with the die conversion sets that Dillon sells.

They will sell you a kit for 45ACP,30-06, 8 mm and others, in reality, it is the same set with diffrent stock numbers.

This is so with many other cases also.

Please open a book and see if you really need a conversion kit.

I use my 9 mm set for 9 mm, 9 mm Largo, 7.63x25 Mauser, 7.62x25 Tokorov and S&W 40 cal.

My pal has found about 6 others by switching pins out.

Be safe,
broom

[KYCaster]

The huge radius on the Dillon sizing dies was origionally to compensate for sloppy indexing on the older machines, and they're still made that way even though the newer machines work fine with other brands of dies.

I know several people who have had problems with ammo that fails to chamber because the Dillon die does not size the case all the way to the rim. The problem is mainly with .40S&W that has the "Glock bulge" and .38Super that has been loaded to "IPSC major". Changing to a Lee sizing die always solves the problem.

Another thing I've noticed is Dillon's .45ACP dies have some really funky dimensions.
They size the case ten thou. smaller in dia. than most other dies, so when a .452 dia. bullet is seated, it leaves a noticable bulge at the base of the bullet. It seldom causes a problem, but I have seen a couple of guns that had erratic feeding because of this condition. Changed to a Lee sizing die and the problem disappeared. I know one commercial caster who sized his 45's to .450 to compensate for it. The result was a lot of leading and poor accuracy, but they fed without a hitch.

Jerry

[j4570]

I have only one set of Dillon dies (223). They work fine.

However, I won't buy another set, especially pistol. I can buy RCBS which comes with an expander and the Dillon Seat die which has the previously mentioned removable insert seating stem to clean the lube/lead out for the same price as the Dillons. That way, should I choose to load that caliber single stage in the future, I have an expander. The Dillon uses a special powder thru expander funnel on the powder measure, elminating the use of an expander die in the typical 3 die pistol set. Also, by purchasing the Dillon seater, you can remove the seating stem from your crimp die, have seperate seat/crimp stations (station 3 and 4 on a 550).

JW

[straightshooter1]

Broomhandle-Dillon is very good about telling you what shell plates and pins will work with other cartridges. The info is also available all over the Web.

What can happen, however, is that two months ago you ordered a caliber conversion for 30'06 and today you decided to load 308. If you call Dillon and just order the 308, you will find you ordered a caliber conversion exactly like the one you already have. BUT, if you tell them what you are already loading, they will try (in my experience of 19 years as a happy Dillon customer) to save you the $. The 550 manual used to have all the info, too, though I don't know about newer manuals as mine is many years old.

Bob

[45nut]

Broomhandle-Dillon is very good about telling you what shell plates and pins will work with other cartridges. The info is also available all over the Web.

What can happen, however, is that two months ago you ordered a caliber conversion for 30'06 and today you decided to load 308. If you call Dillon and just order the 308, you will find you ordered a caliber conversion exactly like the one you already have. BUT, if you tell them what you are already loading, they will try (in my experience of 19 years as a happy Dillon customer) to save you the $. The 550 manual used to have all the info, too, though I don't know about newer manuals as mine is many years old.

Bob

Thats been my experience too,its amazing what a donzen conversions and a extra powder tube or two can take care of. And dropping 400 45-70's in an hour is sure to bring a smile to your face.

[j4570]

Also,

Call the tech help line. That's what I do and they will take your order also. They will help you figure out what you need. They can also help you for a caliber that's not listed, sometimes if it's really odd they won't know.

Another thing I did was to copy the back page of my owners manual that lists all the caliber conversions by shellplate. Each time I bought a conversion kit, I highlighted all the pieces that came in it. I highlighted the plate number, then I highlighted all kits that used those pins, and I highlighted all kits that used the same powder funnel. That way, I could quickly glance at the chart for a given caliber, and see what I was missing. Over time, I picked up a piece here or there for different calibers and I bet I could load hundreds now (though I do have about a dozen shellplates). I also took a pen and put an asterisk beside the specific conversion kit that I bought, so I'd know that' the box that contained those part numbers.

JW

[PatMarlin]

How old of a year are you talkin' about the 550B that has sloppy indexing? And, can that be upgraded?

I bought a set of Dillon .357 Sig carbide dies that looked to be unused in a pawn shop for $19.95. Guess how much that set is new?... break out a "C-note"..

Most all my LEE dies work fine in my 550B...

[mike in co]

Hi Fellows,

Please use caution with the die conversion sets that Dillon sells.

They will sell you a kit for 45ACP,30-06, 8 mm and others, in reality, it is the same set with diffrent stock numbers.

This is so with many other cases also.

Please open a book and see if you really need a conversion kit.

I use my 9 mm set for 9 mm, 9 mm Largo, 7.63x25 Mauser, 7.62x25 Tokorov and S&W 40 cal.

My pal has found about 6 others by switching pins out.

Be safe,
broom

dillon furnishes a list with the instructions. it shows which plate, which buttons and which funnel is required for a given cartridge.
yes it is often esy to use the same shell plate, just adding a proper set of buttons....but you also need the correct funnel/flare/powder activator.

so if you read the instructions(duh!) you may not need to buy an entire conversion set for every cartridge you load......all the peices can be bought individually.

[rebliss]

so if you read the instructions(duh!) you may not need to buy an entire conversion set for every cartridge you load......all the peices can be bought individually.

That's great to know. I wish that the catalog would make that clear--it would be nice if you could just refer to a specific caliber's powder funnel and order that instead of the entire caliber conversion.

So, I guess I'll just be calling Dillon for my next powder measure. They're always nice to deal with anyway.

[toecutter]

I use RCBS dies on my lee pro 1000. One of the problems I ran into was after belling the case mouth (to seat cast boolits) they would sometimes hang up on the RCBS seater/crimper, it was an older die set (the ones with the round knurled aluminum lock rings) that didn't have much flare. I just chucked them up in the lathe and put some more on the die mouth. You can also control this situation somewhat if you work the belling die so you have just enough bell to set the bullet into (without stripping jacket/lead) but still small enough that it easily fits into the seating/crimping die.

The big thing is to keep a feel for your press, if it feels like it's hung up, don't force it, because it will simply crush the case.

[broomhandle]

QUOTE!
Dillon is very good about telling you what shell plates and pins will work with other cartridges. The info is also available all over the Web.

Hi Straight shooter1 & others,

Can anyone direct me to some of the sites?

Thank you for your help,
broom - still learning!

PS
I have discovered that a .223 shell plate & pins works even better on 9 mm Largo the extractor rim groove is deeper!