Quote from Reloader on March 12, 2012, 3:13 am

Hi,

I'm new to Dillon and just received my new XL 650 set up for .40 S&W (with all the bells and whistles) last week.  I slowly and carefully assembled the press and followed the directions on setting up the toolhead in the order specified in Dillon's manual. 

Using this method, I only had one case in the shellplate at any given time as I set the resizing die, proper bell on the powder funnel, OAL on the bullet seating die, and the taper.  As specified by Lyman's 49th Edition for a 165gr bullet, I set the OAL to be exactly 1.120.  It was very consistent with no deviation in 10 cases. 

However, when I loaded up the shellplate and went into full production, the OAL changed to 1.126 and is consistent at 1.126.  Why the 0.006 change in OAL?  Is it because the shellplate is flexing due to additional pressure exerted by other stages of the press?  Some other reason? 

When I unloaded the shellplate and inserted the loaded bullets (1.126 OAL) one at a time in the bullet seating die, they were all reduced back to the original 1.120 that I had originally set.

Should I disregard the instructions in the manual and set the OAL with the press shellplate loaded a each station and not be concerned?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks, Jason