I Have Gone to The Blue Side

[Squaregrouper]

I want one.....

I got the Blue Bug when I had a long term loan of my friend's XL750. It was crazy how fast I could load 9mm rounds.
My Lee Auto Breech Lock Pro (ABLP) is pretty fast too, but I hate the priming system, so I would hand prime all my rounds. The other downside to the Lee is changing calibers- fine tuning the dies would take around 45 minutes. That being said, for "regular volume reloading" the Lee is quite acceptable. I'm keeping it as a caliber designated press.

 

[trickg]

I got the Blue Bug when I had a long term loan of my friend's XL750. It was crazy how fast I could load 9mm rounds.
My Lee Auto Breech Lock Pro (ABLP) is pretty fast too, but I hate the priming system, so I would hand prime all my rounds. The other downside to the Lee is changing calibers- fine tuning the dies would take around 45 minutes. That being said, for "regular volume reloading" the Lee is quite acceptable. I'm keeping it as a caliber designated press.

Did you get that new or used, and is it a 650 or 750?

I've heard a lot of talk about the difference between priming mechanisms between the 650 and 750, and there seems to be a preference for how the 650 handled it, and there are so many of them out there that Dillon is going to continue to support it for a long time to come.

I see you have the case feeder with it. Do you have a bullet feeder too?

I remember when I got my 550 just being blown away by 2 things - one, how reliable it is, and two, just how danged quickly I could produce ammo once I got in a groove - roughly 100 rounds in 12-13 minutes, and the 650/750 with a case feeder is a good bit faster than that. Of course the 3rd plus is just how danged consistent the ammo is.

 

[Squaregrouper]

Did you get that new or used, and is it a 650 or 750?

I've heard a lot of talk about the difference between priming mechanisms between the 650 and 750, and there seems to be a preference for how the 650 handled it, and there are so many of them out there that Dillon is going to continue to support it for a long time to come.

I see you have the case feeder with it. Do you have a bullet feeder too?

I remember when I got my 550 just being blown away by 2 things - one, how reliable it is, and two, just how danged quickly I could produce ammo once I got in a groove - roughly 100 rounds in 12-13 minutes, and the 650/750 with a case feeder is a good bit faster than that. Of course the 3rd plus is just how danged consistent the ammo is.

I bought a used XL650 out of the classifieds here. It was posted over night and by dog woke me up in the middle of the night. I couldn't get back to sleep so I hopped on MDS and saw the ad. It was out of my "fun money" range, but was too good of a deal to pass up.
No bullet feeder.

 

[trickg]

I bought a used XL650 out of the classifieds here. It was posted overnight and by dog woke me up in the middle of the night. I couldn't get back to sleep so I hopped on MDS and saw the ad. It was out of my "fun money" range, but was too good of a deal to pass up.
No bullet feeder.

A bullet feeder can always be added later. Honestly, just having a case feeder would be really helpful IMO. I love my 550, and truthfully for now it's all I need, but there are times when I think it would be just that much nicer to have the added production capability of the 650.

I will say this, for all of the money I've dumped into my Dillon reloading setup with tool heads, extra powder measures, power dies, the roller handle, bullet tray, the Dillon tool kit that mounts at the back of the press, etc - I don't regret a single dime I've spent on it.

Post pics when you get it all set up!

 

[BFMIN]

A suggestion regarding bench mounting.
Make the mount & bench in that area MASSIVELY over engineered.
I actually should have made a cut back "U" in my bench-top because even with glued & screwed 2X4s & layers of marine 7-ply.& a pair of 2X4 "ribs" extending from the frame on either side, also glued & screwed to both the bench top and the frame 2X4s it still "Flexes" the bench-top when using it. That's a massive amount of camming & mechanical advantage coming into play!

 

[trickg]

^^ I've found that to be the case as well - I want to reinforce the side of my bench that the Dillon is on - I think even if I bracket a 2x4 onto the bottom of the table on that corner vertically down to the floor, it would add some rigidity to the setup. As it is, the table will flex a bit with a bigger cases that take a bit more pressure to size.