Thomas918

Man you really went above and beyond providing those part numbers. How much of a pain was it to replace the main bearing? I had a hard time replacing the bearings on the indexing arm.

I’ve been having some issues with my OAL being quite big. I chalked it up to brass issues for the most part but I am wondering if my press has the issues you had. Which bearings did you replace? The main bearing inside the press, I guess? And where does this shim go for the shell plate?

Where are you getting your JHP?

I’ve used the spy mode and time overlay. The app sometimes disconnects from the timer, and you have to open it again well before you get back on deck to shoot because it would need to reconnect to the timer otherwise it will use the phone’s microphone to record shot times. It’s very accurate and starts the time when the RO’s timer beeps.

I’ve used my sizing die above the swaging station since I had the press. The included hold down die is in the priming station. I’ve noticed that the hold down die makes the tool head rock a lot(Variances in brass worsen it since I have it set pretty low/tight). I’m thinking of moving my sizing die into the priming station and removing the hold down die altogether. Since I’ve decided I’m not gonna use the swage station anymore I think that’s my best bet. Any thoughts?

I finally had some luck by just not using crimped brass. The primers that were dragging inside the wheel and housing causing the damage you saw in my pictures, were primers that didn’t want to go into the primer pockets and got a little mangled. They then fell back down into the gear which caused a stoppage. I ran 1000 rounds without a single stoppage.

After using Lee with hardened pins, mighty armory spring decapper, and FW arms with auto centering. The FW arms is truly the only one I would recommend now. It works so well. It works great for rifle cases that wobble on progressive presses.

As a follow up, does anybody have any review on bullet feeder and its reliability? Any upside down bullets? Does it shave coated bullets? Does expanded and belled cases scrape in the bullet seating die? My seater die from Redding has a tight opening and it doesn’t like expanded cases. It even closes up the bell on the case as it’s seating bullets which strips the coating off my coated bullets. I may make the switch to the FA bullet feeder and die if everything has been working out for everyone.

I just ran another 1000 on the machine. This time I sorted out all my crimped brass. I didn’t have one primer related stoppage the whole session. Or any other stoppage for that matter. At this point, I don’t think my swage rod is doing anything anymore. The top of the rod looks a little worn down, and when it does work it just rips the crimp ring and pushes it into the primer pocket. I’m becoming more happy with the press overall as I learn its quirks.

What decap die are you using, I use a FW arms decapper with the auto centering function. Great for 223 or rifle cases. I haven’t broke a pin yet. It punches right through small Norma flash holes too. I use my sizing die as a hold down die above swage or prime ( I have an FA X-10 though)

Here is the assembly where the primers scrape in between the gear and housing

Yeah my rods are centered. The priming rod is maybe a touch off based off the mark it leaves on the primer on hard to prime cases. The rod is perfectly centered through the cutout on the shell plate and priming gear though so it seems perfectly centered based on that. I’m using ginex primers which are on the large size. This batch of brass was pulled off of a police range so the problem brass was crimped Winchester and a few European pieces. I had a few slivers of brass that was the remainder of a ring crimp that was pushed into the primer pocket from the swage rod. It didn’t allow the primer to seat and when the plate indexes it knocks the primer down and back into the gear and then gets caught up. Good news though, I haven’t had the first problem I had ages ago where the primer wheel was randomly catching on the upstroke so that’s a plus. I’ve kept the priming assembly cleaned and gunk free which solved that issue I think.

I can find sport pistol now but it’s now in the mid $40 range for a pound. I’ve switched to AA2 and love it. Its price is rising quick too though.

I’m still having trouble with priming assembly. It’s mostly a brass issue but I’ve gotten to the point where I can feel something is off and I remove a piece of brass from the station next to priming and see it’s unprimed. I then know a primer is going to get stuck in the gear so I poke it out of the gear before it gets caught in between the gear and assembly. It’s because of a crimped primer pocket that my swager will not swage down well enough. Looking at the swaging rod you can tell it’s getting worn down a little already. Other than that I haven’t had a case fail to feed onto the plate. Since turning up the speed on the brass collator/feeder, I haven’t had a case jam happen at the top of the case tube. I’ve replaced one bearing on the indexing arm which if it goes out again I will replace with a nylon bushing since those can take a beating. I don’t have a facebook so I can’t view the owners group so I can’t tell what others are having trouble with.