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Another happy Dillon customer
Boolit Master
NVcurmudgeon's Avatar
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Pleasant Valley, NV, 400 yd. N of Galena Creek
Posts: 2,782
First off, let me say that Dillon has a fantastic warranty. "No BS" means exactly that. My Square deal, purchased in the early eighties has been factory serviced twice and both times was upgraded at no cost to me. Within normal business hours you can talk to a knowledgeable, polite, and helpful technician with a minimal wait on the phone.
It is very gratifying to me to see that others have trouble with Dillon priming systems. For over twenty years I thought that I was Dillon's stupidest customer. Maybe my using both SP and LP priming systems with my three different caliber conversons exacerbates the problems. I load .45 ACP, .44 Magnum, and 9 mm Luger. My troubles with priming are two. I frequently experience flipping of primers as castoff reports. The other, less common problem is that a primer will occasionally turn sideways and get mashed, or completely turn over and be seated backwards. Either condition is fatal to the reason for buying a progressive in the first place. I load my pistol ammunition 500 to 1000 at a time. The frequent clearing of all partially loaded rounds, and fiddling with the priming system has made me believe I can load faster on a single stage press. Well maybe, not quite, but certainly with a lot less lost and ruined primers, spilled powder, occasional powderless rounds, and Navy language. The last lot of .45 ACP I loaded went flawlessly. That was because I removed the priming system entirely, sized and decapped the cases, and removed them without charging at station 2. Then I primed the cases on the RCBS Ram Priming system of my RS3 press. Then I returned the primed cases to the SD at station two for expanding, charging, seating and crimping. This "semi-progressive" system has the advantage of much of the speed of the SD on a good day, without any of its aggravation, wasted components, shop sweeping, or misfires. So far I have resisted the temptation to order a conversion for .38 Special/.357 Magnum. The warranty is great, the "Blue Press" has cute girls (one of them looks like my wife must have about fifteen years before I met her,) but Dillon would be better off redesigning their lousy priming system.
P.S If I have heard, "Use only Federal or Winchester primers." from Dillon techs once I've heard it a dozen times. I began using WW primers only in the SD after the first phone call to Dillon, early in the Reagan administration. Sad experience and a good Starret mike told me there was little difference.
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Eagles have talons, buzzards don't. The Second Amendment empowers us to be eagles. curmudgeon
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