Friend had a FREE Dillon 1050 fall into his lap!

Jerzsubbie

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That's right, a FREE 1050!

So a friend had a box truck full of ammo, reloading, and misc gun accessories fall into his lap via a family member, most notably a Dillon 1050 set up for .223!

I only reload 9 & 45 on my Lee turret, he doesn't reload at all, but we're going to try to set it up next weekend. The rate of 1k-1200/hr has me excited to crank out some cheap .223. We have tons of components, scales, brass trimmer, nearly everything you could imagine.

Is there anything I need to know, tips, tricks, pitfalls, etc when it comes to setting up a 1050? I plan to do a bunch of reading and YouTube video watching this week, since that's how I learn to do pretty much everything.
 
Walk before you run when it comes to reloading! Make sure everything is setup correctly and after that check it again. Run it slowly and make sure each step is being done properly ... measure COL, weigh a round every so often, etc for QC. Once he gets proficient then start increasing the through put but not until he is proficient ... breaking down bad loads sucks! And even worse touching off a bad load in a firearm. Time, practice and patience are his friend.
 
so it.. uh... fell off a truck, huh?
 
Walk before you run when it comes to reloading! Make sure everything is setup correctly and after that check it again. Run it slowly and make sure each step is being done properly ... measure COL, weigh a round every so often, etc for QC. Once he gets proficient then start increasing the through put but not until he is proficient ... breaking down bad loads sucks! And even worse touching off a bad load in a firearm. Time, practice and patience are his friend.
Totally agree. That's common sense IMO, and in all likelihood, he won't be doing much reloading, if any, without me. Once I explained the steps involved, the testing of loads, etc he lost interest to learn, so I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting with the benefit of being able to use it and his components.

I just thought I'd post here first to see if there is anything special that I need to do with a 1050 that has every accessory except the motorized drive.
 
Totally agree. That's common sense IMO, and in all likelihood, he won't be doing much reloading, if any, without me. Once I explained the steps involved, the testing of loads, etc he lost interest to learn, so I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting with the benefit of being able to use it and his components.

I just thought I'd post here first to see if there is anything special that I need to do with a 1050 that has every accessory except the motorized drive.
The 1050 is stupid easy to setup and use. If it was sent from Dillon as a .223 press, they set it up before it left. You might have to do a little tweaking but nothing major. As long as the brass is prepped and cleaned, you should be good to go. I’d be happy to meet with you one Sunday if you need it
 
The 1050 is stupid easy to setup and use. If it was sent from Dillon as a .223 press, they set it up before it left. You might have to do a little tweaking but nothing major. As long as the brass is prepped and cleaned, you should be good to go. I’d be happy to meet with you one Sunday if you need it
Awesome to hear that.
If we have any issues I'll certainly take you up on that offer. Thanks!
 
Awesome to hear that.
If we have any issues I'll certainly take you up on that offer. Thanks!

Take him up on it anyway, he is good people and good company.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I had a friend at church give me a Dillon 650 with case feed, dies for .38, 9, and .45, even had the primer feed. Then, about a month later, another guy from church gave me the Hornady progressive set up. I gave the Hornady to another guy at church.
It pays to go to church!
Nice to be part of a 'Better to Give' church!
Too bad you're in SC :(
 
I should've taken some pics but our schedules finally lined up and we tackled this Sunday. We built an 8ft bench, secured it to the wall, and began setting up the 1050. Along with a YouTube video, it was pretty simple though quite a bit more involved than my Lee turret haha!

My big question is what is the best practice for sizing and trimming rifle brass? It seems like it would be best to size on a single stage, of which he has 2 BNIB, then trim. Correct? Should we grab a neck sizer or full length sizer?

He has easily 5k cleaned brass but the case lengths are not consistent, clearly not trimmed/chamfered, not deprimed, and I noticed the necks are different lengths.
 
I don’t know about best practice, but I’m trying:
Decapping
Tumble w/ss pins, wash n wax and lemishine
Swage primer pocket
(Maybe anneal here)
Lube and Full length size
Trim & chamfer
Tumble w/ wash n wax no pins.

Curious, what caliber?
 
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@JimB .223.

Seems like the vast majority of his brass is WCC so shouldn't need swaged but of course I'll sample them to confirm.
 
Just occurred to me, isn’t there a swagger as well as a trimmer available for the 1050? Wonder if they are in the trailer somewhere.
 
Just occurred to me, isn’t there a swagger as well as a trimmer available for the 1050? Wonder if they are in the trailer somewhere.
Not sure. I'll have to google it to see what it even looks like. We went through probably 60 50cal cans yesterday but there are plenty of boxes still.
 
The swager is part of the press. The trimmer is an option, and requires a special sizer die to go with it. Total for the trimmer and one die would be just under $400.
 
@Toprudder @FatboyFlash thanks, I did just learn that while watching a YouTube video on how to do initial adjustments for each station. That, along with the trimmer, sure would be an awesome setup, sadly my friend does not have the trimmer, just a couple stand alone trimmers. At least we're not trimming by hand!
 
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