OK I am starting the list. I will add comments that I find for the next 2 weeks to this list. You can find your own list by typing 650 crushed primers into Google. The list follows: The first comment is one of the least damning.
1. Originally posted by 50ae:
I threw my red machine away when I had a bunch of primers detonate when I crushed one while priming. Dillon's system prevents this from ever happening.
not really...I've done that at least 3 times on the Dildon...not a typo! Not the whole tube...but a crushed primer will scare the shiite out of you!
But 3 times out of millions of rounds ain't too bad.
I've been in ammo factories with primer tubes stuck in the ceiling...if it goes wrong in a camdex the whole tube will fire straight up in the air!
2.DamnedDirtyApe
January 8th, 2003, 09:00 AM
I see I'm not the only one who's had problems. Thanks for the replies, all.
Symptoms are:
Won't prime S & B or WCC .45 brass that's been primed & reprimed 10 or more times .... I know about the differences in the primer pockets with these, but the Lee hand primer never had any problems with them at all. They have all been reamed and cleaned out. I have maybe 500 S & B's in my range rotation, maybe 3-400 WCC's. If I use the primer system again, I'll have to cull all these out and do them by hand...a PITA.
For no reason I can fathom (yet) the press wants to flatten out some of the primers, thus ruining many of them. It doesn't feel like they are *forced* into place, it just seems to happen.
Both large and small primers hang up in the tubes. I thought about running some Flitz through there, but haven't yet. Ran a couple of dry patches through there, didn't help.
Misfeeds galore ... hard to categorize, but maybe a lot to do with me not making a full stroke with the handle, and, again, hanging up in the tube. When it screws up, whatever the reason, it's five or ten minutes of disassembling the shell plate et al and cleaning up powder, again and again and again.
I got tired after four evenings of cleaning up powder and took the whole primer system off and put it away for now. I Lee- hand primed about 200 9mm's then loaded them in ABOUT 25 MINUTES!!! The 550 is fast!
I suppose it may take some more time for me to get used to the machine - more experience, and maybe a lesson or two from Dillon might help.
3.
Primer Problems
http://www.twoalphabullets.com/Bullet_failures/3badprimers.jpg
These three casings show the most common malady encountered when loading on a progressive press. Primers seated up side down, crushed or mauled. These were all three loaded on a Dillon 650 in the late 1980's by yours truly. Me and the press soon parted company due to its appetite for primers. I never experienced a detonation but got real tired of having to check each case for proper primer seating. Dillon took the press back no questions asked with a full refund.
4.These listings of Dillon Prmer problems goes on and on and on. I will continue to add to this list until the naysayers say Uncle.