NEW! - Jeffersonian

Simple and fast...
DILLON'S NEW
RELOADING
PRESS
The RL-450 is a high-volume unit
offered at an affordable price.
By Philip C. Briggs
Deloading is an interesting and satisfyft
ing hobby; but once you experiment
yourself into that one best load for each
pistol, all that's left is cranking out loaded
rounds so you can get in that needed practice.
Or, maybe you only reload so you can
afford to shoot a lot, and the quicker the
loading's done the better.
If you're one of these folks, or for some
other reason need a lot ofammo loaded in
a short time and don't have thousands of
dollars to spend on automatic reloaders,
stick around. Mike Dillon, inventor of the
fantastic RL-lOOO reloader, has deveioped
an equally innovative press-just for you.
The RL-450 is Dillon's second effort at
building a high-volume reloader that the
average shooter/reloader can afford. The
first-the RL-300-had been in production
about a year when Dillon decided he could
do better. The resulting reloader is rated at
a higher cyclic rate-and costs less.
The RL-450 is a large a-frame press
with the a aligned perpendicular to the
front of the bench. It employs a togglelinkage
to develop greater leverages for
more power at the top of the stroke for
sizing cases, and minimal leverage at the
bottom to provide better feel while seating
primers.
The handle has a ball-shaped grip t9
allow operation ofthe handle through fu'il
stroke, without changing your hold. The
ram is quite large in diameter, and it's at
the top where the press is different.
Most turret presses hold multiple dies
and the die holder is rotated to perform
successive operations on a single case.
AMERICAN HANDGUNNER • JANUARYIFEBRUARY 1983
The RL-450, like the RL-300 before it,
uses multiple dies; but they don't rotatethe
cases do. A circular, four-station shdl
holder plate sits on top of the large diameter
ram, and it rotates to bring each case
under a die station. Loading operations
are performed on all four stations, simultaneously.
This is the key to the RL-450s
effortless speed; once the stations are full,
each cycle ofthe handle produces a loaded
round'.
The loading stations are spaced 90 degrees
apart and the first is positioned 45
degrees to the right from the axis of the
O-frame. Empty cases are inserted at the
first station, where they are deprimed and
primed. Bottle neck cases are also expanded
to proper neck diameter at this station.
.
At the second station (to the left),
straight-walled cases are expanded and
flared and all cases are charged with
powder.
Bullets are seated at the third station,
and the cases can be crimped if desired.
The fourth station provides a space for
case crimping, should you prefer to separate"
that operation from bullet seating.
Standard 7/8Xl4 dies are used in
stations one, three and four, and a special,
Dillon-supplied die holds the powder
measure at station two. This die drops
powder into the case through a hollow expander
stem for straight-walled cases, and
through what is essentially a funnel for
bottle-neck dies.
ONLY 20 MINUTES
Changeover to a different cartridge
takes only about 10 minutes for dies, shell
holder, priming punch and feed tube. Add
another 10 minutes or so to adjust the dies
and the measure, and you're ready to load
another box of brass.
A unique primer feeder is mounted on
the front of the press, to the right of the
a-frame, to feed primers into tl;1e priming
punch that is positioned under station one.
Well, that's not quite true, as the priming
punch is on the slide, and it moves; out to
pick up a primer from the feed tube and in,
to its position under station one for primer
seating. This approach eliminates one
transfer of the primer-and one potential
jam.
A powder measure of Dillon's own design
comes with the reloader. It uses an
adjustable slide to meter the charge and
transport it to dump down the drop tube.
Two. charge bars are supplied, large and
small, and the bars ahd measure base are
hard, anodized aluminum alloy for effortless
operation. The measure has to be adjusted
by trial and error as it lacks any
form ofgraduations. This measure is used
on the RL-lOOO and is quite consistent in
charge weights on that machine (as it is on
the RL-450, ifyou develop a machine-like
consistency ofoperation). I finally decided
to give the slide a short rap before cycling
to settle the charge. If I do this, my charge
weights show very small variations. In testing,
the maximum spread was .0 grains for
ten 3.4 grain charges of Bullseye, and .3
grains for ten 24.2 grain charges of HllO.
Oddly enough, I get about the same variation
with short stick powders, such as
H4227 and H4895.
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