Yes, I finally took the plunge and bought myself a brand-spankin' new Dillon XL650 to load ammo for my extremely picky (but sweet) SV .40 limited gun. Brad was nice enough to drop it off for me last week (4 large boxes worth of goodies), since there's no way all that would have fit in my car. Having only reloaded on PD's press 3-4 times under strict supervision, I was more than a little intimidated by all the stuff. I finally got the courage to open all the boxes, drag everything out and start reading the manuals.
First thing I was lacking (besides a penis) was an overhead light in the garage. After a few conversations with the boys, I was off to Lowe's to buy a light to hang. One of the suggestions was to be sure to hang it from a stud (hehe), so after gathering the light, bulbs and hook-thingies I headed for the tools and picked out a combo stud-finder and laser level (sweet, I can use that to hang pictures too!). Now comes the hard part - figuring out how the gadget works (another manual, just super), putting my stepstool up on the desk in the garage, oops - running back to the store to get a *&%$ battery, measuring where the hooks should be and trying not to fall and break my neck. Painstakingly I drive the hooks through the sheetrock into the stud (later I realized that the hooks were waaay too short to go through the sheetrock and into the stud - good thing the light doesn't weigh very much - whatever). And I had light!
Next thing was to figure out what other tools I needed to put the press together (besides a penis). Off I go to Sears (my daddy always said buy Craftsman tools) to buy a 9-piece wrench set (~$25, not bad), then it was back home to the manuals and figuring out where and how to mount this baby. About an hour of measuring and marking later, I was ready to drill holes. Needed the stepstool again because I'm too short to make sure I'm drilling straight down - at least I'm closer to the ground this time. Voila! I have 4 holes ready to go - I center up the strong mount bracket holes over the 4 holes and - crap - one is off, and needs to be drilled out some more. Eh, 3 out of 4 isn't bad for a girl. A little while later, I had my XL650 firmly mounted to the bench - yay! Somewhere in there Catfish happens to call - that's good, since I need to ask where the washer goes in the nut/bolt/washer configuration. Shut up, I'm a girl and the picture in the %$#*ing manual didn't help. After a few days and many, many phone calls to my shooting husbands later, I finally have everything together - just need to mount the dies in the toolhead (yeah, I know what I'm talking about now!), adjust everything and I'll be cranking out the advertised 1000 rounds per hour. Crap, my nice little wrench set doesn't include a 1" - back to Sears, and yep it's the same clerk that called me "sir" when I bought the wrench set - little cretin. This one wrench is $18, but I rationalize that it's big enough to double as a weapon and that makes me feel better. Whatever, I have a press to finish putting together!
A few more hours later, my reloading bench looks spectacular! I still need to adjust everything (powder, seating die, crimp, etc.) but I am well on my way to cranking out some powder-puff .40! Ooo, what's that sensation in my pants...look, it's my virtual penis getting a chubby!
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