DMF13 and the XL750

[DMF13]

I'm starting over with a Dillon XL750, after my very troubled attempt at using a Hornady Lock-n-Load AP.

My new setup is:
XL750, in 9mm, with UniqueTek Bearing Camming Pin
1. Lee U-die
2. Dillon Powder measure, with PhotoEscape Powder Through Expander, and Entirely Crimson quick disconnect.
3. Lee Inline Bullet Feeder
4. Redding seating die, with micrometer insert
5. Lee Factory Crimp Die (FCD).

I added an Inline Fabrication Ergo Roller handle, and QC mounting plate, because I was very pleased with those for the LnLAP. I also added the Inline Fabrication Skylight. I skipped the LED strip.

I will be adding a Double Alpha Academy Mini-case feeder. I have it, and the collator bowle, but parts need to be sanded to fit, and I haven't done that yet.

I also splurged, and bought a Double Alpha PrimaFill, and five of their small primer tubes. That thing works like a champ with Federal small pistol primers.

Things were MUCH better with the XL750, but I do have some minor issues to work out.

1. About 1 in 5 cases are not going into the sizing die, but can be nudged into place. I'm hoping that's just an issue of fine tuning the Bearing Camming Pin.

2. Dillon lock rings are trash. I had planned on using the Hornady lock rings, but space is very tight on the toolhead, and I was struggling to them on, and tightened down, so tried the Dillon rings, except for the Lee bullet feeding die, where I used the Lee "Ulimate" lock ring, that came with the kit. So far the sizing die, and powder measure die, have held, but the seating, and crimping die, kept coming loose. Despite that, all rounds passed the case gauge, but I had huge variation in COAL. I'm debating whether to pull all the bullets, are just relegate those rounds for use on short range drills based around speed.

3. When I figure out what lock rings to use, I will still need to use the lock ring on the bottom of the tool head for Lee FCD, as the die isn't long enough to touch the shell plate, and still have useable threads at the top.

4. There is a LOT of spilled powder when the machine indexes, and with Winchester 231 at 4.1 grains only filling half the case, that's saying something. For all the faults of the LnLAP, that half index up, and half down, meant very little, if any powder, got tossed with the plate indexed. I'm not sure what, if any, solution there is for that with the 750.

Other than the issue with dies coming loose, everything went very well with the machine. It's a little tedious adjusting flare with the powder drop, but having the powder measure quick disconnect made that a little easier than without. Out of 500 rounds the system failed to feed a primer twice. I'm not sure why, but even if that persists, I can live a 0.4% error rate, versus the previous system that would crap completely out every 25 to 30 rounds.

I also had 2 or 3 high primers every 100 rounds. However, all but two were Hornady nickel plated brass, with a date code. I don't think the primer pockets are crimped with those, as many had primers seat fine, but they seem to be very tight primer pockets. Occasionally those will also not decap, and I think they are sticking to the pin, and getting drawn back in the pocket for some reason.

About 20% of my brass is Hornady nickel plated. I don't know if I ran into an unusual lot, or if Hornady made a change to the brass, because when first started reloading those were the most consistent cases to deal with. Now I'm trying to cull out all the nickel plated brass, to avoid problems with it.

I understand now why everyone says a case feeder is recommended for this press. With the Hornady, case feeding was an the left side, and it benefited from a bullet feeder, so the right hand could stay on the handle. With the case feeder adapter at the back right, it was a bit awkward to feed the case with my left hand, but it could be done. I'm sure the mini case feeder, while not as nice as a motorized one, will make my life much easier.

Once I solve the lock ring issue, and case feeding/sizing die issue, life will be very good. While the powder splash is irritating, I can live with it, even if does mean I'm using this:

a little more than I would like.

[Spartan1980]

Are you sure it's powder splash? I have the bullet tray and my hand is right there grabbing and placing a bullet, so I just ease it into position. In spite of this my powder drop tube rains powder kernels all over the shell plate. It's not enough to hurt anything except my OCD, but it's still irritating. WST powder is terrible about this as it's really fine but they all do it some. A lot of guys clip a half coil off of the detent ball spring or run a ceramic ball under the shell plate but I never have. You can also adjust the shell plate bolt to put a very small amount of tension on the shell plate but it's a bit fiddly doing that and getting it exactly where you want it, the roller bearing mod helps with this. It seems that tightening the jamb screw down will tweak it some. Just make sure that it's not too much and that the shell plate is moving all the way into the detent.

On the primers, that's a bit irritating and some cases seem to be worse about it than others. I chuck my pin up in a drill and spin it on some fine emory paper to radius the corners a bit. It seems to help to knock the sharp off the corners.

Most of my dies are Hornady, I bought them when they had the free bullets thing going and I use their lock rings. They are tight but with a long handle hex key you can usually get to the lock screw. You are right, the Dillon ones do suck.

ETA: Redding lock rings are top notch.

[EricP]

Spilled powder - you can cut a coil off the detent spring under the shell plate or modulate the speed of the handle at the top of the stroke.

The Dillon lock rings are kinda cheesy, but they are thin, which maximizes the threads on the die and you can get a wrench on them.

I had the same issue with cases catching on the edge of the Lee sizing die. I switched to a Dillon sizing die that advertised a generous lead into it and that problem was solved. If you go this route, buy extra decapping pins.

[DMF13]

Are you sure it's powder splash? . . . my powder drop tube rains powder kernels all over the shell plate.i

I'm pretty sure, as most of.it.ends up thrown to the left of the press, but after I get some new lock rings, and get.everything reset I'll check to see if any is trickling out of the powder drop.

A lot of guys clip a half coil off of the detent ball spring or run a ceramic ball under the shell plate but I never have. You can also adjust the shell plate bolt to put a very small amount of tension on the shell plate but it's a bit fiddly doing that and getting it exactly where you want it, the roller bearing mod helps with this. It seems that tightening the jamb screw down will tweak it some. Just make sure that it's not too much and that the shell plate is moving all the way into the detent.

I may try that if its actually powder splash.

[DMF13]

Spilled powder - you can cut a coil off the detent spring under the shell plate or modulate the speed of the handle at the top of the stroke.

I was going at a fairly leisurely pace, so guys might be right that I need to make some changes.

I had the same issue with cases catching on the edge of the Lee sizing die. I switched to a Dillon sizing die that advertised a generous lead into it and that problem was solved.

If adjusting the bearing damming pin doesn't alleviate, I may try that. Its just I like the "belt and suspenders" approach of the U-die, and FCD die, so before I jump to a Dillon sizing die I want to see if a little tuning will help.

If you go this route, buy extra decapping pins.

Funny you should mention this. I broke so many pins on the LnLAP that I bought 20 extra pins, so I could send them back to Lee 20 at a time for replacement, since they will replace them, but I had to pay shipping to send them back. However, I didn't bend or break a single pin during that first reloading session on the new press.

[DMF13]

I replaced all my lock rings yesterday. I went with the Lee Ultimate Lock rings. Why? I mentioned to my neighbor that the Lee ring I used on the bullet feeding die held fast, while the Dillon rings failed miserably. The next day he gave me several of them, and the little plastic wrench, saying he had extras. Very generous of him.

So after the pain of resetting all the dies, including the hassle of adjusting the flare with the PTX, I loaded another 500 today. I'm still sticking with:
1. Mixed 9mm brass, but I only used plain brass cases, as I have been having problems with the nickel plated brass.
2. Winchester 231, 4.1 grains
3. Blue Bullets Truncated Cone 135 grain
4. Federal primers

The PrimaFill was flawless loading the primer tubes on Friday night. I really wish I had gotten one when I first started reloading.

The Lee bullet feeding die went crazy today, and was dropping lots of extra bullets. As much as I loathe adjusting dies, I will have to make some adjustments there. The weird thing is my witness marks show it hasn't moved.

I didn't adjust the bearing camming pin, in hopes that redoing the sizing die would fix the problem. It didn't, so that will need to get adjusted next time too.

I used the Mini case feeder, and collator bowl. Each time I added primers, and swapped bullet mags, I added cases to the tubes. Out of 500 rounds I had one upside down case, but caught and corrected it, before I started loading. While I'm sure an electric case would be even better, this works very well, and is easier than feeding individual cases into the case feed adapter.

Worst case scenario with Lee bullet feeder, and the DAA Mini-case feeder, is I forgot to rotate the magazine, and one or the other doesn't drop. Either condition is easily spotted when looking for powder in the case, as I'll notice if the round waiting to go into the seating die is missing a bullet, or if a case hasn't dropped down for sizing.

On to the important stuff:

I'm getting some weird variation in OAL. I started with the seating die set to give me an OAL of 1.150". After every 100 rounds, I took a random 5 round sample, and this is what I got:
1st batch:
1.1605
1.1505
1.1565
1.1565
1.1600

2nd batch:
1.1520
1.1550
1.1490
1.1550
1.1515

3rd batch:
1.1535
1.1525
1.1530
1.1520
1.1595

4th batch:
1.1550
1.1615
1.1515
1.1590
1.1570

After the 4th batch, I adjusted the seating die, and this time I started with a OAL setting for 1.1480, because the rounds were trending long, when running the press full up.

On the last 100 rounds I got this, from my 5 round sample:
1.1530
1.1525
1.1535
1.1530
1.1495

Obviously I am happy with the 2nd run of 100, and the last run of 100, but I can't figure out why I had a .01 range on the first and fourth batches, and nearly that much on the 3rd batch.

The powder measure is more reliable than the LnLAP, meaning it always drops powder, but I'm experiencing more variation in the the drop than I did with the LnLAP powder measure.

After setup I had a 5 drop average of 4.08 grains. I did a 5 drop average after the first 100, and got 4.14 grains. I forgot to do a 5 drop average after the second run of 100. After the third 100, the 5 drop average was 4.18 grains, and I re-adjusted to get a 5 drop average of 4.11. After the fourth run of 100, I had a 5 drop average of 4.10, so that was cool. After the last run of 100 I had a 5 drop average of 4.06.

With the LnLAP I could expect to my 5 drop averages to be +/- .03, so the drop creeping up by .1 grains over 200 rounds bothers me.

Also, out of 500 rounds, only one round failed the case gauge. I also had a few rounds of crimped ammo that didn't deprime, one that did, but obviously wouldn't seat a primer. All five of those rounds were PPU marked brass, with brass colored primers. Now when separating the nickel plated brass, I'm also trying to find the brass colored primers in the plain brass cases.

Obviously I had a lot of down time between each 100 round run, checking OAL, and doing 5 drop averages, but I did check how long it took to crank out each batch of 100, not including loading components, and doing the OAL and powder drop checks. The first handle pull to last handle pull times ranged from 11:46 to 14:27, all going at a very leisurely pace. The only minor slow downs were dealing with the extra bullet drops from the bullet feeding die, and dealing with the cases sometimes not going into the sizing die.

I also learned that my press is sitting too low. That was probably true with the last press, but I didn't notice until I had a press where I wasn't stopping constantly to fix something.

The next time Inline Fabrication has a sale, I'll be getting one of these:
https://inlinefabrication.com/collec...ase-4-7-5-tall

[DMF13]

I got the chance to load more today.

I adjusted the bearing camming pin, and now I only have 3-5 cases per 100 that needed to be nudged into the sizing die. Big change from 20-30 per hundred. I can live with that, but may try to fine tune it some more. I found out if the case feeder over inserts the case will bounce back, and that was my problem.

I'm still having variations as much as .01" in OAL. Taking samples only loaded when the plate was full, my shortest OAL was 1.485", and the longest was 1.585.". I'm using a Redding Standard seating die, with the micrometer insert.I can't figure out what's causing this much variation.

Also, I'm definitely having powder tossed from the case, when the case moves from station 2, to 3.. The plate snaps into place, and a little powder flies out. Using 4.1gr of W231, the case is only half full, that's a pretty harsh movement to cause powder to spill. I'm considering getting this:
https://benstoegerproshop.com/dillon...by-jw-systems/

Other than the COAL issue, the other stuff is minor. With components loaded, just pulling the handle, I'm averaging less than 10min/hundred rounds, while going at a very leisurely pace.

[mmc45414]

I found out if the case feeder over inserts the case will bounce back, and that was my problem.

Also try and keep the face that inserts the case clean, if it is oily or greasy the cases wanna stick to it.



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