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medalguy wrote:Given some of the brass I've seen lately probably an off-center priming hole. Seems the manufacturers are getting sloppy.

BTW I have several Dillons that get a LOT of use and yes sometimes parts do wear out/break. After all, they're mechanical. HOWEVER, after a fast call to Dillpon they have always made good their warranty, no questions asked. Just this past week I had the spring under the locator ball bearing break and the shell plate was turning loosely. I called Dillon and got a replacement in 2 days. Of course no charge.

"Off center priming hole" sounds really reasonable to me. And while we are on the subject of priming holes and shell plates I want to tell you about a problem that jumped up and bit me at my last reloading session. I was moving right along on a freshly cleaned lot of 45 ACP range brass when on the priming stroke my 550B would not fully seat the primer.

Had to take the shell plate out to remove the offending case having a fresh primer lodged about half in, half out. Put the press back together and a few rounds later same thing again. After two more iterations of this evolution (sometimes I can be a real slow learner) I stopped reloading and sorted through my pile of brass to remove a double handfull of potential problem cases.

What was happening was that some cases, the problem ones, had a red laquer sealant applied to the primers and during the depriming stroke the force from the depriming pin separated the primer face from its body ring leaving the ring in the primer pocket to jamb up the fresh primer as it was being seated.

When I finished my reloading session I manually deprimed each of the problem cases and about half of them deprimed normally and the other half had a "primer separation". All the cases in question had a head stamp of "S & B" and a little symbol looking like a Micky Mouse profile along with the usual "45 Auto".

Don't know if these are ex-military or someone's idea of waterproofing their ammo but I sure gave me a headache. I guess from now on I'm going to have to specially cull these out of my cleaned brass box before I start reloading.

Gerry

mikejarhead wrote:No i think the problem is the press operator. I just broke the depriming pin and had to order some spares.
By the way you all crack me up.

Mike,
How did you break the depriming pin? Get a Berdan primed mil-spec case mixed in with your regular brass?? I'm having trouble visualizing how a depriming pin can be broken on a 550. Tell us what happened so I don't have to worry that I'll be the next one to do that.

Gerry

Griz44 wrote:Apparently, you did not read the Dillon manual very well.
Dillon owners are forbidden to admit that the blue magic presses have problems - EVER.
What were you thinking?

Geesh, Griz, you know we are not supposed to tallk about that! Remember article 491-3B sub paragraph Q-35 of the Dillon contract forbids disclosure

Gerry

austinrealtor wrote:A Dillon had a problem? Next you'll tell me your Glock failed to feed. Or that .45 ACP out of a 1911 didn't make someone's heart and brain explode the second it hit their body



Sorry, someone had to say it. Dillon is supposed to be like Maytag of yesteryear. But I've witnessed their custome support first hand when my buddy called with a problem and they were top notch. When I buy my reloading set up soon, I'm 99% sure I'll be buying a Dillon 550.

You won't be sorry you bought a Dillon, ever!!! Greatest thing since sliced bread (IMHO).

Mike,

Sounds like you and Dillon have it under control. Glad to hear they really getting behind you to solve the problem. Some vendors don't claim to know you after you buy the product but not Dillon!

Thinking back on 550 problems reminded me of a couple that appear in the following thread about case cleaning toward the bottom:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=39763" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just thought the info might be useful to a fellow 550 user.

Gerry

Mike,

After you are sure the bolt tension on the shell plate is correct (bolt just barely loose enough to allow the shell plate to turn) the next problem area to look at would be the ejector wire. If you're feeling creative and want to experiment you could get a piece of brass wire the size of the Dillon wire from your local hardware store and with a pair of needle nose pliers make your own ejector wire.

It seems to me that the ejector wire shape on the 550b could be improved but I have not had problems with it often enough to make me want to change it, yet. I've often thought that the wire ought to be longer so that it starts to contact the cartridge case just as it begins to exit position four and gets firmly behind the cartridge back instead of striking it in the side at the point of ejection as does the present design.

Let us know how this works out for you and what Dillon says.

Gerry