prickett Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 (edited) I just bought an RCBS bullet feeder (seems to be the same design as the Hornady bullet feeder) for my Pro 2000 press and boy is the feeder slow. While it seems to be reliable in getting bullets in the right orientation, it took around 10 minutes to fill the initial tube. At that speed, it won't be able to keep pace with the press. Are there any tweaks or hints anyone can provide? I'm wonder, for example, if waxing the rotating platter would improve things as it might allow bullets to slide down before the wipe out spring knocks the bullet off. Edited July 18, 2016 by prickett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAP Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 I know I'm not answering your question. I do have a question for you about the RCBS bullet feeder. How quite is it? I am told by a couple people the hornady is pretty load. I am thinking about getting one for my Pro 2000 as well, so I am interested in this thread as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miranda Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 speed.... yours sounds a bit slow. is the motor hot? I'd look for a jam or such. find the jam. at 10 bullets a minute it is 600 bullets an hour so 20 a minute is about my idea of about right. miranda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prickett Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 speed.... yours sounds a bit slow. is the motor hot? I'd look for a jam or such. find the jam. at 10 bullets a minute it is 600 bullets an hour so 20 a minute is about my idea of about right. miranda The platter is spinning just fine. It is that the bullets just aren't aligning correctly. It may have to spin quite a few rotations before a single bullet will drop. Its not dropping 10 bullets a minute. It took 10 minutes to fill 40 or so bullets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prickett Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 (edited) I know I'm not answering your question. I do have a question for you about the RCBS bullet feeder. How quite is it? I am told by a couple people the hornady is pretty load. I am thinking about getting one for my Pro 2000 as well, so I am interested in this thread as well. Not sure how to answer as I have nothing to compare it to. I guess I'd suggest filling a coffee can full of bullets and tumbling it. The noise isn't from the unit, its from the bullets tumbling. If you don't want noise, there is an alternative. Get a Hornady bullet feed die and some clear plastic feed tubes (from an aquarium store). Fill the tubes with about 60 bullets each. This is what I did before getting the feeder machine. I can always fall back to using the machine to just fill the tubes (meaning the machine wouldn't run at all while I reload) - each night turn them on and leave - in the morning have a tube ready to go. Edited July 18, 2016 by prickett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prickett Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 I know I'm not answering your question. I do have a question for you about the RCBS bullet feeder. How quite is it? I am told by a couple people the hornady is pretty load. I am thinking about getting one for my Pro 2000 as well, so I am interested in this thread as well. Not sure how to answer as I have nothing to compare it to. I guess I'd suggest filling a coffee can full of bullets and tumbling it. The noise isn't from the unit, its from the bullets tumbling. If you don't want noise, there is an alternative. Get a Hornady bullet feed die and some clear plastic feed tubes (from an aquarium store). Fill the tubes with about 60 bullets each. This is what I did before getting the feeder machine. I can always fall back to using the machine to just fill the tubes (meaning the machine wouldn't run at all while I reload) - each night turn them on and leave - in the morning have a loaded tube ready to go. Do this several times per week, and load when you have enough full tubes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 (edited) If you don't want noise, there is an alternative.If you wanted it a little more hands free than using tubes you could also get a MBF collator. Every bullet drops, if it's ok it drops into the tube, if it is inverted it flips it then drops it. So they don't just sit there and run all the time.At the beginning of this video you can see how one of my homade versions work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eANEMBS_V_0 Edited July 18, 2016 by jmorris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prickett Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 If you don't want noise, there is an alternative.If you wanted it a little more hands free than using tubes you could also get a MBF collator. Every bullet drops, if it's ok it drops into the tube, if it is inverted it flips it then drops it. So they don't just sit there and run all the time.At the beginning of this video you can see how one of my homade versions work. That was a design I considered before just giving up and buying one. I never was able to figure out how you get the bullet to fall over if it is upside down so the flipper ramp could right it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miranda Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 speed.... yours sounds a bit slow. is the motor hot? I'd look for a jam or such. find the jam. at 10 bullets a minute it is 600 bullets an hour so 20 a minute is about my idea of about right. miranda The platter is spinning just fine. It is that the bullets just aren't aligning correctly. It may have to spin quite a few rotations before a single bullet will drop. Its not dropping 10 bullets a minute. It took 10 minutes to fill 40 or so bullets. well, the design looks to me like it needs to have careful adjustment of the angle of the feeder and perhaps the height of the ridge that catches the base of the bullet. without having looked at yours, I'd guess you need to tilt the feeder back toward more level, just not much. miranda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikerburgess Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 (edited) If it's like the Hornady then I would play with the position of the wiper springs and the center disk. I have a Hornady and it can fill the feed tube (spring) in about 1 minute. I can load 100 9mm in about 5 minutes without getting ahead of the feeder. Also it feeds faster with a pretty large pile of bullets in it, I normally put in just about as many as fill fit without spilling when I start. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk Edited July 19, 2016 by bikerburgess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prickett Posted July 20, 2016 Author Share Posted July 20, 2016 Tried another dry run and it filled pretty quickly. I then tried an actual run. I started with a full tube and it appeared I'd run out about 3/4 of the way through. But, I dumped a bunch more bullets in the hopper and it loaded enough that I didn't run out. I think my big breakthrough might be in realizing I need to have bunches of bullets in the hopper. The more there are, the quicker it fills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 That was a design I considered before just giving up and buying one. I never was able to figure out how you get the bullet to fall over if it is upside down so the flipper ramp could right it. It's just a slot that the if the bullet is base down it rides over it and continues. If the bullet is inverted the smaller diameter of the tip will fall into the slot. Then as it moves around the bullet tip is drawn out until it is laid down and flipped back up by the ramp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 This is a device I had on the first bullet collator I built. It ensured 100% were fed base down, no matter what. The bullets drop in from the near side tube and if nose up the smaller diameter of the nose would not activate the switch and they would go around and fall into another tube that fed the bullet feeder. If they were base up that would trigger the switch and open up the trap door culling the inverted bullet. I don't have a video of it doing its intended job but this is it sorting 380 from 9mm by height. http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/reloading/brass/th_9mm380.mp4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prickett Posted July 21, 2016 Author Share Posted July 21, 2016 Very impressive!!!! Must be great to have skills Sadly, I do not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miranda Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 best way to get the skills (and tools) is to practice. so far, failure is a familiar visitor. :-D the tool kit is getting bigger. miranda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 (edited) Edison when asked about all of his failures trying to invent the light bulb said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Lots of my stuff has not worked in the past but I generally don't post those Edited July 21, 2016 by jmorris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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