I’m all agog. <— click it. You know you want to hear it.
What with yesterday’s reloading session, I’m all excited about reloading. I wish I didn’t have to work today so I could just sit in the garage and try things out. Thankfully, a lot of my work today has been “hurry up and wait” so while I let something churn away I can Google and read.
It’s evident that my single-stage press will drive me insane eventually. If I want lots of handgun rounds for practice, I really need a progressive press. So the question becomes, what to get. The big players are the Dillon Precision 650, Hornady Lock-N-Load, the Lee Load-Master. There are others out there, like RCBS’s Pro 2000, Lyman has stuff (website down at the time of this writing), but Dillon, Hornady, and Lee seem to be the “big 3.” At least, if Google results are to be believed.
So it’s cool to find that a guy wrote up a good comparison piece on the big 3. You can read it here.
Foo.c sent that PDF to me some time ago, and I read it, but I knew nothing so I couldn’t really evaluate what was being said. I mean, was the guy just biased? Or just how straight up was the review? It did seem to be straight up given how things panned out, but still I had no knowledge with which to evaluate. But with the bit of experience I had yesterday, including seeing things going wrong, re-reading that PDF makes a lot more sense now.
Furthermore I found a lot of reviews, like this one at arfcom. As I’d read reviews today I’d find myself going “yeah, that happened to me with the Dillon, so I know what he’s talking about.” The issues with primers, the little details with the retention pins, all the powder measuring and adjustment mechanisms. Lots of little details. Not knowing any better I just experienced the 650 and said “well, that’s annoying, but that’s how it goes.” Then I read how the Hornady Lock-N-Load works and how it seems to have been designed to address those little annoying nits. Then I read about Hornady problems but then I read how they fixed it. For instance, the latest little nag seemed to be that 9mm rounds wouldn’t eject well (9mm is important to me) unless you did a bunch of work on the ejector wire. But now the LnL has a new EZject™ system that supposedly takes care of all that. Seeing Hornady listening to customers and striving to improve their product is a good sign.
I still don’t know what I’ll get, and for now I won’t be getting anything because I’m determined to start out learning the gear I have. But I know for the volume of handgun rounds I want that I’ll eventually want a progressive press, so I’ll start looking around and learning what to get. I’ll admit I’m leaning towards the Hornady Lock-N-Load based upon what I’m reading compared to my experience with the Dillon. More research needed.
Stuff From Hsoi 
You couldn’t wait for my reloading class? I’m shocked!
After having owned a Lee Pro 1000 and Hornady Lock-N-Load, I will say unequivocally, Buy the Dillon. I still have my Lee Classic single stage and my Rock Chucker for precision loads but the bulk is done on the XL650. I have not had any issues with it but in talking to those who have had issues with any Dillon press you will not find any that have issues with Dillons response. You are paying for customer service when you buy the Dillon. They are good presses and they stand behind their product as well as standing behind the shooters who use them. Check out sponsors at any major match and you’ll find Dillon among them.
FTC Disclaimer, SUCK IT! I bought my Dillon. Although I have won stuff of theirs at matches.
I’ve been waiting for the class, you haven’t offered it! 😉 This happened as a total unexpected spur-of-the-moment thing from Karl, so opportunity knocked and I jumped.
I know Dillon has a dedicated following and given the fact they cost so much I’m not surprised they have all that money to sponsor matches. 😉 I know their customer service is legendary and that is great. I’ve heard Hornady has a similar “for life” policy, but haven’t heard as many stories either good or bad about service experiences. That means one of two things: 1. people aren’t posting stories, 2. the Hornady is so reliable that no one ever needs to contact customer support… which then has the corollary that if the Dillon was so good and reliable why do people have to contact customer service so often? 🙂
I got to try Karl’s 650. Foo.c has a LnL and I want to try his out before I make any purchase. I have heard that early incarnations of the LnL had problems, but that Hornady has been ironing them out and rev’ing the product. So if I bought a LnL I’d probably buy it new.
In the end I know I’m entering into a religious war here. So I’m going to do as much homework as I can before I buy what I believe will suit my needs best.