Buying a new Progressive

[rancher1913]

Where is it for sale? I haven’t seen street price on them yet. I’m interested but will probably wait for the price drop after the early adopters and press collectors get theirs.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1024875156

looks like they sold out already.

[JimB..]

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1024875156

looks like they sold out already.

From the comments it seems that 50 presses were sent to testers/evaluators but that none have been sold yet. Still, midway wouldn’t be taking orders if they weren’t coming fairly soon.

[Kraschenbirn]

Why over-complicate things? For '300 rounds a month' and hassle-free', I think I'd look around for a clean Dillon RL 450 and get on with it. Btw, when I say 'RL 450', I refer to the original model from way back when, not the 'RL 450 jr.' marketed a few years ago as in 'intro-level' progressive. My 450 is over 40 years old and has reloaded between two and three hundred thousand rounds without a single major issue. (The occasional minor 'small parts' things have, without fail, been managed within a few days thru Dillon Customer Service.) Okay, the 450 has only four stations, doesn't auto-advance, and won't accept a case feeder. These days, I leave mine set up for 9x19 (I also have an SBD that I can 'quick change' between .45 ACP and .38/.357) and, after filling the powder reservoir and a few primer tubes, can crank out 300 rounds between cups of coffee.

Just my nickle's worth...

Bill

[deces]

$75 for a Frankford Arsenal Shellplate

[rancher1913]

From the comments it seems that 50 presses were sent to testers/evaluators but that none have been sold yet. Still, midway wouldn’t be taking orders if they weren’t coming fairly soon.

they had them for sale a week ago, in stock, so however many they released to the regular public went quick.

[rancher1913]

$75 for a Frankford Arsenal Shellplate

still cheeper than a dillon shell plate

[45_Colt]

still cheeper than a dillon shell plate

Which Dillon? Most are less in price.

45_Colt

[Apple Man]

I am getting back into pistol reloading after a long hiatus. Have one of the early 550s.

Dillion has excellent customer services, they sent me some parts back then and in retrospect it was "operator error"

[omgb]

I would buy the 38 super if the price is right.l

[truckjohn]

Yeah, 300+ rounds a month is definitely well into progressive territory.

After running a 3-station Lee Pro 1000 - my next progressive will have a powder check die station. No matter what I did or what powder I used, I would get periodic squibs with no powder in them. Then, I had to look inside each and every single round to make sure, and it ruined my enjoyment.

While nobody knows what the future will bring, Lee and Hornady have both discontinued lines, leaving customers hanging. My brother ended up with an older Hornady progressive and parts have been unobtanium for 10+ years.

[Kai]

Ahhh the can of worms question. I have a hornady lnl and a couple of dillon sdb presses. The lnl you are familiar with. I have had the sdb presses for about 25 years from when the cost was considerably less. Dies were accumulated over time to where I load 8 different cartridges on the sdb. 500rnds an hour is not difficult. It's a great compact press with a consistent accurate powder measure. The other thing with dillon is their no questions asked warranty. They will gladly send not only replacement parts but also extra parts at no cost. As a note on die availability. You mentioned a long wait time. A friend of mine ordered 44wcf dies and although he was told it would be several weeks the dies showed up in only a few days. Maybe he just got lucky.

[warren5421]

I have several SDB's all used the highest I paid was $200. I have sent 3 back for rebuild as they went through a flood and were rusted enough that they didn't work. Mr. Dillon ot the kids was running the company at the time. About to weeks and they came back new. I have a 550B that has worked from 1998 putting out enough ammo for 6 people shooting SASS for 10 years. It keep my .45-70 feed with 300-400 rounds a month with spikes to 1000 rounds. All I have used is Dillion except for my RCBS single stage press. You have to look at you picks and decide which one fits all your needs. I have been lucky as have not had any rounds loaded without powder. Flipped primers some times.

I like the SDB as it has a small foot print. I like the idea of living each set up for one round. .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Mag, 9mm, .45 ACP.

[PHyrbird]

Traded for a Dillon 400 decades ago, got the 550 upgrade parts. It all works. Had lee, RCBS, Lyman, CH. Now have settled on: Dillon for high volume, not too many adjustments & tweaking to change cartridge + the dies change fast if you leave them in the head. (store in a square tupperware freezer container) CH for heavy work, swaging, stiff sizing, RCBS turret for rifle sizing, measure headspace w/ the Hornady LnL tool for a caliper. Have a Lyman 310 turret for small work. A Lee hand press to seat & crimp while watching TV. Dillon measure is way more accurate than most others, yeah there are a few flyers, but we don't need hot loads dropped instead of weighed. A Quinetics hand measure is more accurate than 9 of 10 other measures. (it's the slider action) And faster on a case tray. Also consider dropping 2 per case to hit target charge, statistically flyers will cancel. (VERIFIED) For the Mag pistol/rifle rounds my best measure is a digital measure, the Frankfort Arsenal is my choice. BUT it took 3 tries to get one that would level & have no drift of drops. With the FA you can fill a tray of 50 in about 15min, plus use XL or Google sheets to edit the load data in the app. One I might consider to add could be a Lyman or Redding turret, seems they have less "spring" in the head mechanism. The RCBS is OK but I think the others have less play. Note Lee warranty means you gotta pay half price for replacements, Dillon FREE, RCBS sometimes a pain, CH a lot of Discontinued, since Lyman joined the Corp they are not interested. I've little warranty experience w/Hornady, but twice they have replaced stuff no charge, I was out return shipping.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive owned 5 square deals with there short throw there as fast as a 650. lost them in a fire. today i have two lock and loads that i wish were burned in a fire and two 550s which in my opinion is the ideal press for 95 percent of shooters. no brainer if you ask me

[David2011]

At one time I had a Square Deal B and two 550s on the bench. Got my first 550 direct from Dillon in 1991. The 550s were set up for large primers on one and small on the other. It was convenient but not life changing. I had recently purchased an STI Edge in .40 for USPSA and was shooting enough per month that a 550 was taking a lot of time to keep up so I sold one and bought a 650. It will crank out 300 rounds in 20 minutes. The ammunition is very consistent and fully adequate for USPSA action shooting. I mostly use it for .40 and .223 and tend to load large batches to reduce the number of times I have to change caliber setups. Currently I have one each 550 and 650. The SDB was sold because I just didn’t use it. Compared to the 550 it just wasn’t as nice to use.

The 550 loads most of the rest of my pistol cartridges. There’s a way to change primer size very quickly. Several YouTube vids show how. I don’t know why some say that the 550 isn’t a true progressive. It gives a loaded round with every stroke of the lever. Advancing the shell plate manually is a non-event. I’ve loaded as small as .380 and as large as .45-70 on the 550. Powder metering with H4895 and IMR4895 is more consistent than with my RCBS Uniflow.

A friend who owns a Hornady Ammo Plant was using my Dillons after he moved for a while. He said that the Dillons ran much more smoothly than the AP. Incidentally, I load all of my rifle cartridges with which I might hunt on single stage presses as well as the big bore (.44/.45 Colt) pistol cartridges. I do all load development on a single stage. I have some personal limits. For runs of 60 rounds or less I always use a single stage unless a progressive is already set up for that exact load including the powder charge. My minimum for setting up a progressive is 100 rounds. It’s not worth the time for setup to load less than 100.

While I’ve never used a Lee progressive, I don’t want to based on what I’ve seen on this forum. I don’t want a Hornady based on my buddy’s input and he has excellent mechanical skills. The Dillons I have are completely satisfactory. As pricey as they are, Dillon’s pistol dies are worth every penny if you load bare lead wax lubed boolits because the seating die is so easy to clean.

[Lloyd Smale]

tell you another reson to buy dillon. i had a fire and lost all ny sqare deals and my first 55o.dillon claims a no bs lifetime warantee so back then i called them and they blew me a way. thet said they would send me a 550 or a square deal for free!!! i tpold them id gladly take a 550! it showed up 5 days later with a strong mount 6 die holders and 6 of the most common shell plates. now ive had good service from hornady and rcbs but i surley doubt they would go that far

[lesharris]

I have Dillon 650 and love it. Not made today. Buy used with die set and case feeder. Or Dillon 750. You will be happy.

[JimB..]

I would buy the 38 super if the price is right.l

Sorry to leave you hanging. Went into the container appropriately labeled and found only a SDB toolhead.

[GunsandCoffee]

The SDB is reliable, easy to use, and has a no-BS lifetime warranty.

For 300 pistol rounds a month, the SDB would be my choice.