550/Trail Boss

[44wcf]

Any experience with Trail Boss and a Dillon 550?
with 12 gr. small bar or large bar?
Thanks for any comments.

[Octagonal Barrel]

What size case are you reloading?  45/70?  I've used a friend's Dillon 550B to reload .44 specials with Trail Boss, and it works great.  Charges are plenty consistent for my purposes (CAS, not super accurate match rounds) - if you were wondering about that.  But I'm using 4.5gr charges, so I'm sure we're using the small charging bar.

I've seen some literature that suggests there's an inconsistency in Dillon's reporting which charge bar does up to what size charge - at least for the 650xl.  Supposedly, pg 15 of the 650xl manual says the small bar is for up to 20gr, but pg 21 says the small bar is for up to 10gr.  Also, this web page advertizing the 550B https://www.dillonprecision.com/content/p/9/pid/23594/catid/1/RL_550B says the small bar in the 550Bis for up to 15gr. Is that what you're trying to clarify?

I looked at the 550B manual:  http://dillonhelp.com/Dillon%20Manual%20PDFs/dillon_rl_550b_manual_may_2007.pdf
Page 15 says the small bar is for 3gr up to 20gr, and the large bar is for 20gr up to 45gr. I'd bet the small bar would work for your 12gr charges.  But I don't have actual experience with charges that size, and Trail Boss pellets are kind of big.

Pg 13 does say to use the big bar whenever possible.  I suppose you could set your machine up with the big bar, try to drop 12gr Trail Boss into some cases, and weigh the charges to see if the big bar will work or not?

[wildman1]

The 550 works fine with TB and the small bar. In the small bar the opening is larger for a charge of powder because it is shallower than the large bar. wM1

[Advertising]

[Bunk Stagnerg]

I had problems with TB on my 550B, but I learned to pull the handle down, reach for another case then push the handle up to prime. That gives the fluffy TB time to float into the case.
If you try to speed things up I found that the powder charges varied anywhere from BANG to POOF. That sort of throws your timing off with revolvers. Even more so with the rifle.

respectfully submitted
Bunk

[44wcf]

I had problems with TB on my 550B, but I learned to pull the handle down, reach for another case then push the handle up to prime. That gives the fluffy TB time to float into the case.
If you try to speed things up I found that the powder charges varied anywhere from BANG to POOF. That sort of throws your timing off with revolvers. Even more so with the rifle.

respectfully submitted
Bunk

Yes I discovered that same thing today.
But also by slowing down and using the large powder bar it throws
very consent charges.(12gr.)

[Dances With Coyotes]

Sometimes I would have a problem with the powder bridging. Read somewhere to have something that vibrates attached to the powder hopper. Took a aquarium air pump and zip tied it to the powder hopper. No problems since. Have loaded several thousand rounds since

[Cliff Fendley]

Large bar. The small bar is the one that causes bridging with TB. Large bar leaves a nice narrower channel for the light powder to fall through.

Regarding the original poster, you did right with the large bar, a small bar would not open wide enough for 12 grains of TB. The small bar has to be almost all the way open just for 6 grains and then it doesn't feed right, bridges and spills powder.

Even with the lighter charges for the small bar to work with Trail Boss you have to go sloooooooow because the powder wont fall as fast as the bar crosses the opening. The large bar allows you to load at normal rates. 500 or so an hour provided you have your primer tubes filled.