Dillon 550b

After many years of reliable service the primer arm on my 550b is starting to stick a bunch! Will the bearing kits sold on ebay help or anyone have a way to get it working smooth again? Cleaned the press so that is not the problem


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I have an older 550. Dirty and rusty and sticky with all moving parts. For my primer arm I dry tumbled to get rust off and greased the shit out it and got it all working again but I am looking at the bearing kit to make it smoother but I’m waiting till I decide if I’m gonna upgrade it to the 550c or leave it and get a 650 to go with it

Buddy of mine upgraded already to bearing kit and his is smooth as hell


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I would just call and talk with a Dillon tech. They are good.

I have the bearing kit and it's excellent, very smooth! Well worth the upgrade IMO.

My primer slide started to stick and act the fool. Doing the usual stuff did not fix the problem. In the end it turned out the assembly was worn out after twenty or so years. The unit was replaced. This replacement included the slide and the rest of primer feed system. Working through this situation was easy with the phone support. One of the things that will goof up my 550's is to tighten the mounting screws for the primer system too tight. :yikes:

Call dillon. They will refurb it for you and probably upgrade it for free

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I don't know about his bearing kit business. The Dillon primer feed works very well when clean. There slide starts to stick it's time to do some cleaning. Spilled ball powder is a big offender.

I was loading some 9mm rounds that were sized and primer outside the 550. I promise you it was not possible to see or feel a real deference between press with and without the primer slide engaged.

Deleted: People with advancing years become redundant. Let us know how you worked that problem out.

I put the bearing slide kit upgrade on my 550C, and it works great. I also had starline work my powder funnel nose as well at the same time. So not sure which smoothed up my 9mm loading more. I just know it works well now. Totally happy.

First priority: Having a 550 that is dirty and rust, to me, means a good cleaning is in order. These bearing kits gizmo's are a solution looking for a problem. I got two 550's and neither needs any "smoothing up" Those machines are in less use now due to contrived famine of reloading components.