I just reloaded another 250 rounds and it only took me 4 hours. That means I am whipping these puppies out at about 62 rounds per hour!
Look out Hornady, at this pace I will be manufacturing ammo in no time.
Seriously though...A good 2 hours of that was working on the Dillon 550 to clean it up, one primer that went in sideways, and make adjustments. My friend, who owns the press, asked Dillon and his machinist friend (who set up the press), whether cleaning and adjustments would help. Both basically said "No". His friend said that the primer shuttle had serrations on it and that was likely because Dillon new it would have issues. What?!
Now I am the type of person who has trouble accepting that a piece of machinery is not performing as it was intended...read tinkerer. So while my friend was sleeping (he works nights), I disassembled the primer shuttle, cleaned it, applied dry lube, bent the shuttle actuation arm, and reassembled.
Out of the ~250 rounds, I had one primer that was in upside down (or backwards depending on how you look at it), and one case that didn't get primed at all. The backwards primer may have been because I picked it up wrong with the primer tube. Considering that this was a major source of my distractions when I first tried reloading, I would say that is pretty damn good. I took it VERY slow initially making sure that I had powder in the case, and a primer in the shuttle before I advanced the shell plate, but after finding that the shuttle was reliably picking up primers, I just relied on the feel of seating the primer to know it picked up one.
I'm confident that I didn't make any of my prior mistakes since I managed my distractions better. Not to mention there were less of them. Also, found a few .380 in the mix of cases. Those don't work so good in a press set up for 9mm.
I will go test my rounds tomorrow. So I feel like I am making progress. Baby steps...baby steps.
Fly
