Dillon 550c

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JamieC

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Thinking about buying a Dillon 550 press, from experience, who would be the best to buy it from? Looking to load mainly 45acp and 9mm, I have a couple of Lee presses, getting old and lazy, no longer want to keep fussing 'em.
 
I'm lucky, my LGS is a Dillon dealer.He stocks alot of their products and can order what I need and usually only takes a week. Like it was stated previously there are no sales. He charges me straight from the catalog.
 
The people at Dillon have always treated me well, so I would simply buy it from them.
JW
By the way I have 2 of them great machines!
 
I ordered mine straight from Dillon. I made sure I had all the part numbers handy, talked to the person on the phone, game them all the numbers, made the order. It was easy.
 
Bobcat armament sometime has sales or a free t-shirt or something like that.
I have had good luck dealing with them
 
Purchased mine at scheels retail store in reno. Rock solid press. It has loaded many thousands of rounds in various calibers. Love it. Scheels is a good company
 
tart=1
$440, free shipping, best I've seen, anyone familiar with them?

The small print says no conversion kit included so once you add the conversion kit same price as normal , I have never seen much of a discount on Dillon stuff except maybe for shipping cost
 
I did a drop ship via Brian enos when he was selling. No real deal other than I gave him the business due to the large amount of information I gleaned from his videos.

Then as i needed more items I spoke with Dillon direct and had great results. Only money difference was usually shipping differences
 
Buy from Dillon and pay the shipping. Buy locally and pay the local sales tax. It all works out to be the same.

What your local guy doesn't have is all the strange bits you're going to want with the machine.
 
I got mine from Scheels. Saved some money on the shipping.

That's a solid press choice. Fairly simple to run and not much to break or have to adjust. I really enjoy mine for what I load and the amounts I load.
 
The small print says no conversion kit included so once you add the conversion kit same price as normal , I have never seen much of a discount on Dillon stuff except maybe for shipping cost
$457 from Dillon, no conversion kit, $509.99 with one conversion kit, don't know about shipping
 
be careful !! you are not getting what is pictured, read the 'read more' button.yu will get the ball handle, no strong mount etc
 
I've done all my Dillon press shopping from Dillon. I have an SDB, BL550 and SL900. I've gotten good service from them.

I won't say that secondary vendors won't provide as good a service, but with shopping with Dillon directly, you can get any optional part you may want or need.
 
As everyone above has said, Dillon’s rarely go on sale. Some vendors will do small sales around certain holidays (Black Friday) or big events (Shot Show), you just have to catch them at the right time.

I’d also suggest the secondhand market. Generally you’ll get the press for cheaper and it’ll come with other items needed. I’ve seen quite a few for sale as of late.

Use “riverofguns.com” and search Dillon. I think you’ll be surprised at how vast the secondary market is!
 
be careful !! you are not getting what is pictured, read the 'read more' button.yu will get the ball handle, no strong mount etc
It is the same as the Dillon site, I just double checked. Seriously though, we're talking a $20 saving, not sure it's worth it. Most responding to this thread seem to think going directly to Dillon is the way to go.
If I can find second hand, I'll go that way.
What are opinions on the standard ball handle versus the roller?
Is the Strong Mount necessary? Why not bolt directly to the bench? I'd probably get it anyway, $10
 
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The strong mounts set your machine higher so you have better leverage when pulling the handle and the roller handle is the way to go for comfort. The machine on the left is for large primer and the machine on the right is for small primer. Rock Chucker on far right is for rifle.

Bill
IMG_1259.JPG
 
The “strong mount” are called that because calling them “two sheet metal brackets so you can mount the press on top of the bench” didn’t sound as good.

If your bench top is ridged the press will be more solid mounted directly to it. If it’s flimsy it might be beneficial to distribute the load with the larger foot print of the extra brackets.

I had two of the same presses setup side by side for awhile one with and without, to see which ai preferred, wound up getting rid of the brackets and roller handle but we are all different.
 
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