Sunday, January 1, 2012

dillon is up and running....Yeah

Finally got out the drill, saw and some wood and mounted the dillon 550B up on my reloading bench. I drilled holes in the bench and put threaded steel inserts in from underneath so I can just bolt the piece of plywood I mounted the press on  down to the bench with four bolts. When I am done, I can unbolt it and safely store it out of the way on the lower shelf of the bench. That gives me room to use the top for cleaning the firearms or just miscellaneous use. I ran some .38 off for cowboy town. Tomorrow I will adjust it and do some .357 magnum to try in the rifle to see if it functions better with that.

 I want to order a die plate from e-bay for it. Somebody used their head and made a die plate that is  .125 thinner than it's slot and gives a .125 shim with it. This way you can set up for .38 and just by putting the shim on the other side and adjusting the powder drop, you are off and running on .357 in minutes. Plus you only need one set of dies and you don't need to keep adjusting height to do the two rounds. Pretty slick idea.

Want to head to range and try some of the rounds out in the morning if the weather permits. If all goes well, I have a thousand bullets and plenty of brass and primers. Spend most of the evenings this week making ammo. Last day of vacation tomorrow so have to make the most of it.

3 comments:

  1. Hope you got out before the snow hit.

    Happy New Year Rich!!

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  2. Rich:

    The dimensional difference between the .38S&W and the .357 Magnum is 0.125 inch, not .135".

    And if you have a link to someone who makes the plat/shim combo for .38/.367, I'd like to see how that works....I have a Dillon 550 as well. I looked on E-bay and couldn't find it.

    THanks!

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  3. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adjustable-Toolhead-Kit-Dillon-550B-Reloader-/120835159541?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c225635f5

    Mr B, This is the link to the ebay item. Now that I checked on prices of the shell plates, I may just buy one and mill it down at work and make a shim plate for it. Still a slick design, I just wish his price was a little lower. Thanks for the info on the shim. I was thinking it was .135, but .125 makes it pretty easy as I can just use some 1/8 flat stock for shim.

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