Heavyhaul,
I owned a 550 and sold it. I bought a Hornady Lock N Load. My best friend owns a 650. I think I can answer your questions about a comparison between the Dillons and the Hornady.
"]I was watching E-bay and the dillon presses are going for what a Honady lock-n-load costs new. I understand the quality."
1. You can buy a Hornady Lock N Load for less money than you can buy a Dillon RL550B. When you do, you'll get a press that's every bit the equal of the Dillon XL650 in quality, speed, quality and customer service. I know, because I have owned a Dillon 550 and have operated my buddy's 650 on a regular basis. The Hornady (Like the Dillons when they first came out.) had some initial issues in presses with serial numbers below 7000. These have all been resolved with design changes and now the presses coming out are boringly reliable. So bottom line, you get 650 performance (with slightly better versatility and powder measure) for less than the cost of a 550.
2. As far as quality goes, I've found the Hornady method of changing dies to be simpler, faster and allows you to change out a single die without changing the whole set up (I also use the Lock N Load bushings on my Lee classic cast single stage press, sold my Rock Chucker, as the Lee was better.), I've found the Hornady powder measure to be superior in performance with all types of powders, I've found the primer dispense system to be about the same as Dillon's, I've found the shellplates allow for simpler and faster changes of caliber and I've found the press to be generally heavier and stronger. Once adjusted, the Hornady stays adjusted. The only adjustments are the feed pawls (simple hex head screw adjustment, my daughter could adjust it easily), the case activated powder measure (easy to do as well) height for the appropriate caliber (You can buy additional bases to set up for each caliber, but I haven't found the need, takes me all of 2 minutes when I need to do it.) and die settings. If you can set up a die in a press, you can easily set up the Hornady to load. My buddy, who owns a 650, after seeing me set up my Hornady said: "If they can't set up and adjust the Lock N Load, they don't have enough mechanical aptitude to own a progressive press and they shouldn't disassemble their guns to clean them."
3. Of course, owning a progressive press is about producing loaded cartridges. With the Lock N Load AP, if you go SLOW as a turtle and don't have a casefeeder, you can load 400 rounds an hour while piddling around. If you work at it a little bit, 500 is no problem. Add extra primer filler tubes or one of those Frankford Arsenal primer tube fillers and you're over 500/hour. Add the casefeeder, go slow and you're doing 650 an hour. If you want to do a thousand, you can, but you're problem will be the same as the Dillon 650, keeping the beast fed with primers and powder. The thing gulps in reloading components and spits out cartridges with boringly fast reliability.
"I'm just trying to make this economical. If the casing feed was a simple feed on the Hornady like Lee has, I think the decision would be pretty easy."
The case feeder is like the Dillon. But here's a thought: Do you need to produce more than 400 cartridges per hour? If so and you don't want to spring for the case feeder, perhaps you can get the parts for the feeder mechanism and tube (without the motor and hopper), then adapt a Lee hopper to the tube, as I saw one fellow do successfully with his Dillon 650. Necessity is the mother of invention. I see no reason not to adapt good stuff from other brands when you can.
"Is the hornady primer similar to RCBS?"
The Hornady Lock N Load primer feed system is very similar to the Dillon primer system. It is tube based with a reasonably thick steel shield like the Dillon and uses a feed pawl feed that separates the location of the primer insertion into the cartridge by several inches from the stack of waiting primers.
"I really like the Lee primer."
I'm not sure what the Lee primer is you're referring to, but I can assure you the Hornady priming system on the Lock N Load's is boringly reliable and easy to adjust. (With those members of the "Total Mechanical Klutz Society" excluded, of course. I advise those gentlemen to buy factory loaded cartridges. That said, if my daughter can adjust it......what does it say about their not being able to?)
"I wish that we could build our own. Standard dies, Lee primer and case feed, bullet feed and a press that actually works, a person could make a million."
I think most every single reloading company is doing quite well financially that sells a progressive press. That said, if you do a little thinking, you can adapt stuff from other presses to fit the one you own. The fella I sold my 550 to has a Hornady Lock N Load powder measure on it. I have used Lee die sets with a Lee Pro Auto Disk measure on my Hornady to save money on dies. I have an RCBS lock out die to protect me from under/over charges, but wouldn't hesitate to put a Dillon powder detection system on if I had an issue with the RCBS lockout die. I also modified my ejector spring on my Hornady so I could use a Lee Factory Crimp die in station 6. (Took me five minutes to bend 4 90 degree bends to move the location of the ejector spring "bar" enough to clear the Lee FCD. I bought an extra so if I had problems, I could reinstall the original. The modified spring has been working there every since. The spare I bought is in the cigar box I have for spare parts.
Regards,
Dave
