Dillion Precision Reloader Review

I never understood why so many of my fellow police officers weren't gun nuts.

Knowing that my side arm might one day make the difference in whether I went home to my family or ended up in an early grave, I always kept up with honing my shooting skills and made sure my weapon was functional and dependable.

Early in my law enforcement career, the department only paid for factory ammunition at quarterly qualifications. While we had a range to practice at whenever we wanted to (at the city sewer plant), affording ammunition for frequent practice was a struggle for patrol officers who only made $28,000.00 a year.

The first couple of years out of the academy, I bought reloaded ammunition, which was fine for practice. The prices varied, but it was generally about 25% cheaper than factory ammunition.

Being a shooting enthusiast and full fledged "gun nut", even that discount was not enough with my extreme habit of burning 300 rounds every morning at the police firing range after I finished my shift.

Eventually I bought my own reloader, a Dillon Precision Square Deal B, set up for .38 and .357 caliber ammunition. During that time, I was able to produce my own ammunition for about a quarter of the cost of factory ammo.

Casings were free, since all I had to do was pick up brass at the police range, and nearly everyone was shooting .38 or .357 caliber revolvers during those days per a rediculous department policy that limited street cops to .38, .357, and .44 wheel guns (AKA revolvers).

With the reloader, all I had to buy was primers, powder, and bullets.

Today the savings aren't quite so great, but if you do a lot of shooting a quality progressive reloader will still pay for itself in short order and save you hundreds of dollars providing feed for your favorite handgun.

That old Dillion Square Deal B reloaded thousands upon thousands of rounds and finally went to the pawn shop during hard times, but a couple of months ago I ordered a new one to produce fodder for my Kimber Ultra Eclipse II .45. True to it's name, the machine remains a "Square Deal".

Dillon provides everything you need in the Square Deal B kit with the exception of a powder scale. To get started reloading, you just assemble the machine per the comprehensive manual and instructions. It took me a little less than thirty minutes to put mine together. Another 30 spent calibrating the automatic powder despenser (which involves a bit of trial and error, especially if you use a cheap thirty dollar beam scale like me) and I was cranking out finished rounds at a very casual rate of 150 per hour.

It felt a little like printing money. After a tally of all the expenses for primers, powder, bullets, and brass, I was churning out every 50 rounds of 230 grain fmj +p .45 ammo for just under $18.00. The equivalent factory ammo at WalMart sells for about $34.00 not including tax today. My reloads are getting me pretty darn close to a fifty per cent savings.

I paid $350.00 for my direct from the factory Square Deal B. With my burn rate at the range, it will have paid for itself within 3 months.

This machine is available in your choice of one from a variety of calibers, and is factory calibrated to produce the typical length round (bullet seating) for your chosen ammo right out of the box. Additional die sets for other calibers are available as separate items. It also arrives with a low primer warning device, an item I had to pay extra for on my first machine nearly 25 years ago.

The only draw-back to the Dillon Precision Square Deal B is that the dies are proprietary, so you have to buy sets from Dillon if you choose to change the type of ammo you want to produce. Not a drawback for me. The Square Deal B is cheap enough that if I ever want to reload some other caliber I'll probably just buy an additional machine already set up for it.

If you plan to reload a variety of ammunition types, you'll want a different model from the Dillon line, but if you're just starting out and want to pump out as many rounds as quickly as possible for a single caliber so you can hit the range and do more shooting a less cost, the Dillon Square Deal B is by far the most reliable and easy to use progressive reloader available.

The must have item you'll need that doesn't come with the Square Deal B: A powder scale.

The powder scale is necessary to measue and use for calibrating the amount of gunpowder the machine dispenses into each round. You can't start reloading without this device. Period.

Too much powder and you end up with a ruined gun at the least, a fatal accident at the worst.

Too little powder, same thing. A bullet could be pushed just far enough into the barrel to block it, and the next round...kabluey!

Reloading is not for idiots or the careless. Read the operators manual carefully and pay attention to what you are doing.

Apart from that, a nice to have item is a primer flip tray. It's a pain in the you-know-what to try to fip primers right side up with your fingers, and a flip tray is just a couple of bucks extra.

The other nice to have item that isn't included is a low powder warning device, but I have a habit of glancing at the case in stage three with each stroke to see there's powder in it, so I personally don't feel a low powder warning device is much of a necessity.

I haven't found anyone who beats the Dillon Prceision factory direct price on a similar complete machine kit.