Pictured is a cracked Dillon 650 powder die body.
Press was not belling out the case mouths enough to seat a bullet. I kept adjusting the die depth to try and get it to bell the case mouth more but even with the die set deeper, no changes.
Then one case went into the bullet feeding stage completely empty. No powder. I look up, and the powder stage had completely cracked.
Had to mark 300 rounds as possible squibs. I don’t have a powder check die in stage 3 (I have a bullet feeder in 3 and then a seat and crimp die in stage 4 and 5). I do watch stage 3 on each pull but it’s better to mark the whole lot as questionable and use in practice, than blow up one of my open guns by trying to use the ammo in a match.
I checked the round that was ahead in stage 4 and it had powder, but it’s still better to play it super safe when loading 9major and just mark the whole lot as practice ammo.
I ended up loading 300 more rounds, to replace the 300 “questionable” ones.
What a nightmare
I don’t know if I could recommend it. I started out a decade ago sort of enjoying it but now it’s just a chore.
And that’s with a DAA automatic primer tube filler, a davinci automatic decapping machine, a rollsizer machine, mr bullet feeder and Dillon 650.
I only pull the handle, pretty much all the other prep is me just supervising a machine and I friggin hate it
I’m also still pissed about buying primers when they were $.10 A PIECE
I remember buying 5k primers for $150, it makes me sick to my stomach when I was buying 5k for almost 3x that price. I can’t even type out what the cost was (do the math) and it’s not like I just ordered one.
