Thought I did a post about Dillon's response to my issue.
After "only" 40 + yrs. of mostly steady use, The frame on my Dillon 450 broke.
Imagine my surprise when the ram handle separated from the press, with a soft "snap" sound.
This happened while seating a primer.
Contacted Dillon's customer service dept for repair/replacement..I've had good response from them with
the few small issues I've had since I purchased my press new, back in the mid-late 70's..or maybe early 80's.. (didn't save paperwork back then.)
I was curious that Dillon was insistent that I return ALL parts that came with the press..powder dispenser, primer bars & tubes, everything.
So I boxed everything up & sent the package to them .Strange, that I was able to find the original box & packaging that my press came in!
My loading bench looked bare w/o the Dillon in it's spot... before long, a box marked Dillon 550 arrived @ my door.
Did they send me a new 550 to replace my 450 ? NO.. (just used a 550 box) as I unpacked my old press,
I noticed it'd had some parts swapped, as well as a new piece / replacement of the broken part.
They did several upgrades to my old press.. added a auto primer linkage , so the primer bar works off the ram handle movement.
The old system required I had to manually move the primer bar, to feed a new primer. They also replaced the powder system with the newer auto
powder linkage, so the powder bar also moves by action of the ram handle. Previously I had to manually move the powder bar to drop a charge.
Lastly, they included the auto eject case system, so as the shell plaste is turned, a finished round is ejected into a chute and drops intoa completed round bin.
This is another improvement, over having to remove a round by hand each time a round is completed.
I thought this was nice of Dillon, to add these upgrades @ no cost to me.
I had no idea how expensive these upgrades were to purchase, if I'd decided to order them from Dillon & upgrade my 450 on my own.
Prices ? The cost for upgrades are : Auto Powder system = $115.00
Auto Primer system = $110.00
Auto case extract. system = 70.00
That's a total of $ 295.00 worth of upgrades they did for me.. Thanks, Dillon!