Quote from Reloader on December 1, 2008, 5:56 am

Hi,

     I have a XL650 with case feed,and powder checker. I bought this new in 1991-92 when I lived in Ga.  and loaded many tens of thousands of rounds on it for .223, 10mm, 8mm mouser, 270 win., .38/.357 mag., 22-250 with no trouble what so ever. I had this in storage for about 5-6 years after moving to Ky, and when I finally got this back out last year, it had surface rust on it (mostly the ram) but after soaking in penetrating oil I was again in reloading heaven (the small pits seem to hold oil better) I have been loading mostly pistol ammunition 9mm, .38 /.357 mag & .45cal..  Over the holidays my #1 son (age23) came to visit and purchased his 1st AR15 (armalite) and we proceeded to to shooting the poop out of it, as we always shoot the guns when either of my sons come home. This leads up to the machine problems. We shot up about 350 rounds by the end of the day and proceeded to reload them on my press, when we changed the tool heads out that were already set to run from days past (I havent loaded .223 since Ga. 11 yrs) I ran a couple of dummy rounds through and checked at each station for proper specs.. everything looked good so far. 

    We loaded about 350 rds. but, before we loaded 5 rounds I found that the powder checker makes a barely noticeable sound even with a new battery and the rod was bent just a little so I had to run without it after trying to streighten it. Then as we got started good the cases would tip over at the #1 station so at this point I checked the case feed mechanisam for proper alignment, case placement onto the charging ramp at Loc #1 and noticed that the ramp had a gouge in it and a nick in the rail for the extractor grove on the same side and this is the same direction at which the cases were tipping over. I took this out and tried to clean it up with a medium stone but it was still acting up after I put back in (not as bad) and also the small spring under the ramp was not exactly round, I tried to correct this with needle nose pliers. That is not all, when we were about done I noticed the low primer buzzer was moveing around as my son was working the handle and the darned screw/blind nut was broken out at the plastic case of the buzzer. Both of my sons own firearms and love to shoot and I hope they will carry on this love of firearms as I have and move onto reloading their own ammo when the time comes.

    This reminded me of the days of single stage press reloading on my old lee D frame press and it was not very enjoyable, what should have took a couple of hours at most wound up being 5-6 hours. I realize I need some new parts but do not remember ever haveing to get parts for the press, only dies, powder funnels and tool heads and such for new calibers. Are these things covered under the warrenty? If so how do I go about getting these replaced? This machine is a very durable peice of equipment for what it does and is worth every penny I paid for it even though they are a little higher now. I would buy another one if I were in the market for a new progressive press and would recommend it to anyone in the market  to buy a dillon press, a XL650 if they are doing a lot of shooting like myself. I bought my press from a dealer in Warner Robins Ga. (Staylor's), but No one around this area handles dillon equipment.

Thank You,

Tim Moss