My Dillon RL550B-a work in progress

Some of you may have already read that I purchased a new Dillon. Well this is going to be my on going reloading thread since reloading is a all new experience for me. I will make new posts regarding any additions or changes I make to the Dillon and just my progress with reloading in general.

I got a smokin deal on the new, never used Dillon from a coworker. Thing is, he's been sitting on it since freakin' 1993!! Yeah you read that right. It's new but it's 19yrs old. The guy got it as a gift and never took it out of the box.

Needless to say that 19yrs of not being used or taken care of took it's toll on a few things while sitting in his garage.

The following are cell pics I took while I was at his house haggling over the price. I was sending the pics to a reloading friend of mine asking him should I even by it. This is the condition it was in the day I looked at it.......






He did have all the original small parts still in their factory packaging never opened......



I expressed to my coworker how I would probably have to buy several new parts to make it operational. So we come up with a price and I take it home to determine just how bad of shape the main operating body of the loader really is. I was completely shocked when the main shaft cleaned right up with nothing less than 1500 grit sandpaper. I went in three stages of 1500, 2000 and 2500 grit to bring it back to a factory shine......



And the main body cleaned up easily and nicely.....



So after a couple of afternoons of tinkering with it I decided to throw it all together to make sure all the parts are there....




Now also in the deal for the Dillon the guy gave me all this shot shell reloading stuff that I was able to sell surprisingly easy on Craigslist.




A good friend of mine supplied me with a set of Lee 9mm dies and powder scales. The only thing I've had to buy extra to get started were a Dillon caliber conversion kit in 9mm to get the right shell plate and powder funnel, which I ordered today. Also today I ordered from Dillon, four more primer pick up tubes, their "strong mount" which raises the press off the table and allows for many other accessories to be mounted to the Dillon like cartridge and bullet bins.

I only have about a 1/3 or less money into this as to what an exact, unchanged, current, basic 550b cost so I'm super excited about cranking out some serious round numbers to bounce off steel targets.

More to come!

 

Shiiiiiiiiiii.........I'm sure you have an automatic indexing one. To bad my deal wasn't for a 650.

 

That's the original 19yr old powder coat.

 

It was actually a fair amount of work that I did not log with pics. I just got to focused and didn't have the making of this thread in mind when I did it.

I broke it completely down. Checking every pivot point for rust and re-lubing. Disassembled the entire thing, wiping down and adding a treatment of Ballistol to all surfaces.

It's ready to roll out the rounds as soon as my conversion kit gets here.

 

Just for historical purposes. Look at what a Dillon 550 cost in 1993. Yes the original receipt was in the box.....



Today, the same thing is listed on their site for $439 before tax/ship.

 

Never, ever was used or removed from the box completely. Box was opened, loader looked at, styrofoam removed, tossed receipt in and taped it back shut.......19yrs ago.

 

This is the .308/30-06 caliber conversion kit that came with it which you can see listed on the pic of the receipt. In the condition I got it except I did wipe down the shell plate just to have something to install on the Dillon for mock up.....

 

Look what showed up yesterday. Final component I was needing to get set up and crankin'.........




I must say I'm just a tad disappointed in how long Dillon took to get this to me. Took 9 days. Maybe it was because it was my first time ordering from them because they didn't automatically accept my debit card as payment. They waited until my bank cleared payment before they shipped. I've never once had that issue before when ordering on line from new vendors. Eh, no biggie. I have a full day planned at the range tomorrow so I probably won't do any die set ups until Monday. Hopefully start crankin out some 9mm before mid week.

 

Yep, my buddy hooked me up with a tumbler.

 

Some time this week. I couldn't even begin to set the dies up until I got the 9mm conversion kit. Being the first time I've set up dies I'm sure it will take a little time but I don't expect it to be to bad.

 

Sorry but your idea has been......