Dillon XL 650 Lock-N-Load AP RCBS Pro Chucker 5 My uncle and i are going halfsies on a press, its going to live in my basement and itll see some heavy use, making ammo for 5-6 shooters. On average were shooting 2000 rounds a month, many different calibers. Right now I shoot mostly .45 ACP, .38 Spl, and .223 Rem. My uncle however shoots mostly 9mm Luger, and .380 ACP, he is soon getting an AR so the .223 Rem will be on the list too. After all of that i have 7.62X39 brass that i can reload and .357. Also looking into a Ruger .454 Alaskan and a rossi lever gun in .454 to match. Sooooo, i dont want to break the bank here but im looking for a press that does Rifle &&& Pistol (this limits my Dillon options), and is easy to switch calibers. Im thinking we'll run no less than 500 rnds per caliber when we reload... Give me your wisdom my FHC brethren.
Dillon hands down, I shot IPSC for years and was sponsored for a while. not uncommon to reload 2-3000 rounds per week.
Hope you have good luck in the powder department...............virtually none available up here, how is it in your area?
Of those 3, Dillon but each caliber is gonna cost you lots of extra for a conversion kit. Plus the time to convert it and additional tool heads unless you want to adjust dies all the time. Second, do not buy powder at midway! Shop at their supplier, powdervalley.com. If you order primers and powder from midway, they hit you with 2 haz mat fees. Not to mention, prices are higher. Btw, For that many calibers, I'd look at a few lee pro 1000's. 1 for each caliber. They can be had for $160 each. Including dies. Then no changing chit....plus multiple people can rock out ammo at the same time. It's an awesome hobby. You will save some money, but more than likely, all that savings goes buh bye since you will shoot more
I looked int o the Lee 1000's and i'm not sold, Thats alot of space taken up for that many presses.... And ive never heard rave reviews of Lee equipment. But you did make me think about down time between calibers so i looked into this as i was leaning toward the hornady to start with..... Looks like the first guy can change all the dies and go from pistol to rifle in less than 5 minutes, second guy has some slick spacers that help but he's under 5 min from .45 to .357 . And to be clear i dont mean to poke the bear by being argumentative. Im just doing my research.
Only bear here is Grizzly Adam lol. I know the lee isn't a dillon. No argument at all there. Call me cheap and lazy I guess. I'm not into changing dies alot. I get em set and they stay put. When you measure things in thousands (sp?) of an inch, the less change the better as far as consistency goes. That can be done with dillon or hornaday, and if I had an investment partner, I'd bleed blue. Get dies, tool heads, shellplates, and make it fast as possible to change. Trust me. Buy once, cry once. Just save enough $ for tumblers, scales, lights, mics, bench, components, manuals, and such. Edit to add: I think u said u shoot uspsa...ask those guy's what they use, and bribe them to show you the press and why they decided that. This question is almost a ford v chevy v dodge and there's lots of opinions.
If you aren't going to ever use a case feeder go hornady. The dillon is almost useless without one. The shell plate is set up poorly for loading cases by hand. I've loaded on the dillon square deal B, which I own, I've loaded on the hornady which I own, I've also loaded on a dillon 650 and a dillon 1050 ( 1050 is a beast) I've loaded around 25k pistol rounds for uspsa and speed on steel competitions. No case feeder ever hornady Case feeder dillon As was said above, but once cry once. Oh, the dillons also retain their value. You can sell it 10 years from now for 80% or more of what you paid. I want to love the hornady as much as the dillon I just can't.
I have always been an RCBS fan. I am how ever not going to get a dog in this fight because we all have are own ways of reloading and our favorite loads and so forth. Been caught in to many interweb pizzin matches about reloading as to date. It does how ever sound to me like a bench with several different presses bolted to it would be what you would want iffn you are really going to get serious about it. Gonna cost some dough to get started though.
Hornady but Dillon makes a great machine also. I was just in the same boat after Christmas went with the LNL so far very happy with it, I can change cal in less than 10 minutes Weidners has them for 369 plus shipping. I've loaded about 400 rounds, going slow and being very careful I've loaded about 200 rounds per hour. I would think about case feeder in the future as well as bullet feeder. If I was doing single caliber and needed the most rounds per hour I would consider Dillon for the flexibility I like Hornady
