Dillon 550 question

[Calif. Hunter]

I've been using my Dillion strictly for .45 ACP, but have been tempted to use it for .223 with a ball powder. The question I have relates to sizing the cases. My pistol loads use a carbide die and thus I do not have to lube them. For rifle ammo, I will have to use a lube. What do you guys who use a progressive press use to lube the cases? How does it work? The times I have tried to load cases that have been lubed, without tumbling them, with every lube I have tried, I end up with a bunch of powder stuck to the inside of the neck.

Or do you resize on a separate press and then take the brass to the progressive?

 

[danr55]

CH, I use a Redding Lube Pad and Redding water soluable lube gel. You spread the lube on the pad and then roll the cases. If you are careful about it, you don't have enough lube on the pad to get in the neck of the case. I tumble the cases to clean them before I resize. After the rounds are loaded, I use a terricloth towel to wipe the lube off of the cases. If I am loading a bunch of cases, I tumble them in a small tumbler for about 10 minutes after they are loaded. That cleans them up nicely.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Thanks, Dan. I haven't used a lube pad in years - the spray lubes have spoiled me. I was hoping there was a way to avoid tumbling the brass after sizing it, and the lube pad looks like the way to go.

 

[wilecoyote76]

I've got a good friend that uses the same Dillon 550 and he reloads a ton of .223 shells. I'd have to ask him what his process is but I think it is similar to Dan's way of doing it. My buddy reloads like four to five hundred rounds at a time because he doesn't know how to keep his trigger finger off his AR15. He'll go through a few hundred rounds while I go only through 40-50 during the same time frame when whistle pig hunting. Good times!!

 

[snake river rufus]

I use the dillon spray lube and wipe the cases clean after they hit the bin. haven't noticed any lube in the case necks. How are you spraying on the lube? I put 20 or so cases on a styrofoan tray ( like the ones store bought meat is packed in ) spray lightly over the top and shake the tray around like panning for gold. If the cases don't look completely lubed, then repeat. Haven't stuck a case in years. I'm loading on a 550 also.

 

[Delw]

Cali,
when we used to praire dog shoot, we would load 4000-10,000 case's at a time, we had 5 dillion auto loaders 4 550's and one of there 1000's( this big auto one).
My buddy owned the auto one and he bought 2 sets of .223 full carbide dies sets( at that time you had to have them special ordered).
we only put powder in an seated the bullets on 3 of the press's since the other 2 had carbide dies.
We lubed the case(spray stuff and paper bags) and used rock chuckers to size and deprime the cases then we tumbled the cases again, then we would sit and watch tv and eat pizza and use lee priming tools to prime all out cases.
5 ( one of them was my 5 year old daughter)of us had a pretty cool operation going and we cranked out mega rounds in .223,.220swift,22-250,25/06,.243,.308,.300 winmag

If you can afford them get the carbide dies( I think my buddy paid like 700 per set in the early eighties) the new carbide dies might be a tad better, but we found that it helped to add one or 2 lubed cases per every 100 rounds. even with pistol rounds we did this.

Delw

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Thanks - I followed the directions on the spray can of lube - it says to put them in a reloading tray, neck up, and ensure that some of the spray goes into the case mouth to lube the expander. Now I never worried about that in the old days, before I used the spray lube, so what you guys say makes perfect sense.

 

[JLG]

CH. I have an 650 & I load about 1000 rounds at a time when I load anything. When I do .223 I use the Dillon spray & lube as many cases as I can that will reasonable fit in a large box. I than deprime & resize them. If they need trimming I run them through my Dillion trimmer, but to be honest I still have 3,000 or 4,000 rounds of once fired Federal cases so as long as they holdout I will not be doing any trimming. Anyway, once the cases are resized & deprimed in my single stage RCBS press I clean them again in my case cleaner. After that I go through them & make sure I don't have any walnut pieces in the flashholes. Than they are ready to be loaded. I'll be honest I hate all the prep, but once you get pass that you can chank'em out, JLG.