Dillion Press with 44.40

[Cemetery]

Lookin' to possibly get a basic Dillion for reloadin'.

How is it with rollin' 44.40's? 

Meaning, if you accidentally crush one, do you end up crushing all four?

That would be 4x the pain...........

[Short Knife Johnson]

I've lost count of the number of .44 WCF's that have gone across my 550 shell plate.

The big thing is to go S-L-O-W.  When you feel the slightest bump, stop.  Make sure your cases are lined up.  Biggest danger is the size die.  The powder/expander station and seat stations are pretty safe.  Although one round got squashed while seating on me years ago.  Have maybe munched 4 or 5 in all of these years.  Don't cheap out on belling the case, and make certain the bullets are started straight.

I hope this helps. 

[george rodgers]

I have been loading 44/40's on my Dillon 550 for ten years without any problems. I load 0.429 and 0.430 diameter bullets using a 44 mag expander plug and a lee factory crimp die.

[Bottom Dealin Mike]

I load .44-40s on a Dillon without problems. Here's a video showing how.

[Blackpowder Burn]

I've loaded 44-40's for years on first a Square Deal and now a 650 with no problems - even with black powder.

[Fox Creek Kid]

Although I don't own a Dillon those I know who have AND have used a Nornaday Lock 'n Load say the latter is the machine Mike Dillon dreamed of making. Driftwood Johnson and Mako know a lot about the Hornaday LNL and I would certainly pay heed to their advice before buying. 

[Mako]

As the Kid said I have used both Hornady and Dillon Progressive loaders.  Both are nice machines and have many similar features and each subtle differences.  Either the LNL AP or the Dillon XL650 will load .44WCF as well as and definitely faster than a single stage press or even the semi-progressive presses.  As another poster advised you need to go slow and smooth, but slow is a relative term.  With a progressive press you can slow it all way down and you're still going to load hundreds of rounds an hour.

I used a Hornady LNL AP for about 3 months while a friend was trying to sell all of his loading set up, I would have probably bought it but he was able to sell it and all of his dies, measures, scale, etc. as a package deal.  The feature I like on the Hornady is the shell retention spring. The Hornady LNL bushings are nice, but I prefer the tool head of the Dillon because it keeps everything together and change over is very quick.

I actually use the Hornady Black Powder measure and the case activated drop on my Dillon XL650 for all BP loads.  I have multiple Hornady Powder drop lower assemblies I keep on each Dillon Tool Head for each caliber and I can move the Black Powder Measure from Tool Head to Tool Head in literally a couple of minutes.  I find the measure works VERY well with BP because of the larger non uniform grain shapes and is easy to adjust quickly.  I keep a volume standard (a case cut to the fill length) with each tool head and I set the measure up on the bench before mounting it on the new tooling head.

I currently have a BLUE loader as my primary press for volume reloading.  I actually have 1 1/2 XL650s (I have one loaned out which I use from time to time when we have reloading "parties").  I also have a Rock Chucker, a Lyman Spartan and a Sinclair Arbor Press I use for precision rifle reloading.  I actually have one Lee 1000 in .44 spl still unopened in the box.  I used to loan out Lee 1000s but I found the new reloader had a hard time keeping them running.  At one time I actually had four Lee 1000s mounted on a bench.

There really isn't anymore danger of crushing cases with a progressive or semi-progressive press than a single station press.  As Short Knife Johnson told you the biggest threat to a .44WCF is the resizing operation.  Misalignment of all stations is the other threat, but that would be true with any case type.

I have owned Dillon 450s, RL1050s and XL650s but if I was told I could only have one press for all of my loading I would choose a Dillon 550B because of its' versatility.  You can use it as a single stage press if you wish,   multi station tool you just use one at a time and your dies are already in place or as a semi-progressive (or a manually advanced progressive) machine.  It's easy to use and you won't feel rushed if you just advance one shell at a time.

The Hornady LNL AP and the Dillon XL650 both have 6 stations which allows two stage bullet seating then crimping as well as a powder check or even a station for a filler added to a partial case of BP. 6 stations will spoil you.  The Lee Factory Crimp die is the ONLY way to go to produce a great crimp with no threat of buckling a case.

~Mako

[Deadeye Don]

Make sure to lube the cases, go slow and you should not have any problems.  44-40 is one of my two primary calibers I reload on the Dillon 550B.

[Mako]

Make sure to lube the cases, go slow and you should not have any problems.  44-40 is one of my two primary calibers I reload on the Dillon 550B.

Yep, you need lube.  I put clean brass in gallon zip lock bag and spray some Hornady One Shot or Frankford Arsenal lube on them and massage the bag a minute.  Then I dump them in a bucket and let them dry before I put them in the shell feeder bowl.

I let them dry because I was getting lube in the feeder bowl and it attracted and held dust and dirt. The lube won't hurt anything, it just holds dirt if it is still wet.  I still  wipe the bowl out and clean the shell disk off every so often and run a cleaning rod through the shell feeder tube  to remove lube and dirt build up.

One trick is to lube them after cleaning then let them them dry and then bag them in 1 gallon zip lock bags and when you are ready to load you have dry pre-lubed cases ready to go.

~Mako

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I can't add too much to what has already been said. The place a 44-40 usually gets crushed, if anyplace at all is in the bullet seating and crimping operation. So that's the place where the crushing might occur. I will further say that if your dies are set up properly, and your bullets are the correct diameter, the chance of crumpling a neck is eliminated. I ain't crumpled a 44-40 neck in years.

The other key is to go slowly, which has also already been said. I don't use a Dillon, but on my Hornady press that nice shell retention spring that Mako mentioned does not hold the cases super securely. On my L&L it is fairly common for the mouth of the case to strike the bottom of the sizing die. This is because the round can sit a tiny bit tilted in the shell plate and the retaining spring may not force it into perfect alignment. So if you are running your press at light speed, when the mouth of a case bumps into the bottom of the die, the super thin case mouth of a 44-40 can be easily damaged. The much thicker case mouth of a 45 Colt will just shrug off such a blow, but the thinner 44-40 will probably be ruined. So I always run slower when loading 44-40 than I do when loading 45 Colt or 45 Schofield. If I feel the slightest bit of resistance when pulling down the handle I stop. Running slower means I will not have crushed anything, because I can instantly stop the stroke. Nine times out of ten, the reason for the resistance is the case going into the sizing die has bumped into the base of the die. I simply reach in and straighten it out, then continue the stroke. I don't lower the ram, I keep it in position and reach in and free the case in question. Then I finish the stroke.

I keep meaning to grind the opening of the sizing die a little bit wider, so the case will be funneled into the die, but I don't seem to have gotten around to it yet.

The nature of the expanding plug is that it will guide itself into the case mouth, so no misalignment is ever experienced there.

[Fairshake]

I agree with Mako 100% as far as the 550B Dillon being a excellant press for reloading the 44-40 as well as other calibers. I started with a 450 and used it for many years and I wish I had not sold it.
The 550B as Mako pointed out allows you to go forward or even back up if you have a problem at any station. I shoot nothing but 100% BP and use a Dillon 450 powder die along with the adapter for it so that any 7/8 powder measure may be used in place of the Dillon measure. I use both RCBS and Lyman BP measures but for the most part I keep the RCBS mounted and use the Lyman for my shotshells. I know the myth about static electricity has been exposed but I purchased these when I was also a believer. With the 44-40 case and others also, I load with 4 steps and seat and crimp in seperate stages.

[Mako]

I keep meaning to grind the opening of the sizing die a little bit wider, so the case will be funneled into the die, but I don't seem to have gotten around to it yet.

Opening the mouth of the die is the best thing I ever did to make progressive reloading go smoother.  You don't need to size below the shoulder with a BP .44WCF load, and most smokeless loads as well.  

I shortened the dies I for .44 Russian as well and opened them way up.  True .44 Russian length dies are hard to come by.  I also opened the mouth with a big flared lead-in on two sets of .38 spl dies and we never crush cases.  I started doing this with Dillon .45 ACP dies years ago because they were always tighter than they needed to be for low pressure cartridges.  When you got cranking it was easy to have one sit a bit cati-wampus as you described,with the flared lead-in it is self-correcting and the shells reseat themselves.

~Mako

[Buzzard II]

Dillon 550!  Lube cases.  I measure each charge in a Belding & Mull (old one) measure and drop tube into each case.  Takes more time, but I'm happy doing it that way.  I use RCBS cowboy dies.  Good shooting!  Bob