AbitNutz

What's with that?! My wife came home all excited that she was give a 5 gallon bucket full of brass...all for me! She's so sweet. I've heard about small primer 45 acp cases but really have never seen any. What's up with this? And who's idea was it to play such a cruel joke on me. I'm tempted to try and keep them separate but I load with a Dillon 650. You know, the machine that's famous for blowing the priming system into the ceiling. Once sure way of helping the 650 blow the bits all over my reloading room is to try and stuff a large primer into a small primer pocket. What would you do? Take the gift from my ever so well intentioned wife and risk blowing my face off? Or ditch the offending brass and crush her spirit? Did I mention how sweet and well intentioned she is? Seriously...does anyone mess with small pistol primer 45 acp cases? Is there any advantage? I do shoot a fair amount of 45 Super level loads out of my built for 45 Super. Are these cases stronger than large pocket cases?

no...I should have pumped him when I had him on the phone but I didn't. He did mention one thing, The new design would be able to handle full wadcutter bullets where the current one can not...He was very excited about it so I suspect it's close.

That puck system is just not for some of us....the mount is so clever and simple. It absolutely holds the collator in the perfect orientation and isolates it completely from other vibrations.

That's good to get from the official source. As good as the forums are they can be filled with a fair amount of misinformation.

Any idea when these changes were implemented? I'm particularly interested in what they did to the 650, assuming it was any different from the 550C, and when they did it.

I'm a bit confused about what changes were made on the 550B to turn it into a 550C and when this was done. Also, I understand that the 650 was treated to the same changes but there was no model name change. How do I tell if my 650 has this upgrade? I heard it's not practical to up update because it's some sort of frame change.

That would be awesome! That's one of the key reason's that I'm keeping my GSI tool heads. The second he does for the 1050 I'm going to make a major investment...

Ok, I changed out the indexer ring. It was a semi-pain in the ass. I'm glad I got the alignment tool because it was no accident getting it into perfect alignment. I had to play with it a bit to get it just so... Now that the Delrin indexer ring no longer has chunks out of it, the bearing kit works pretty well. I wouldn't recommend removing the removing the index plate without the alignment tool.

It works stupid good, doesn't it? No shakes and always holds it at a perfect 45-degree angle. As I said, I run the MBF collator into a GSI tool head. After fighting with the GSI collator for over a year I gave up and just ordered the MBF collator only. Double Alpha was good enough to just sell me what I needed. I'm not ready to give up my GSI tool heads, they're real works of art. However, I was stunned by the performance of the MBF collator. It just flat works! I had it dropping my 45-185 SWC BB HP NLG Hi-Tek coated bullets perfectly in about 10 minutes. I hope it's that easy to tune for the rest of them. I just can't believe how quiet and well mannered this collator is after the high powered washing machine action of the GSI. Like I said, I'm not ready to give up my GSI tool heads yet but I might once Rick gets his new design to market. He told me he's working on a new design and if he's doing it, I'm convinced it's going to be top notch.

I saw that spring and I can't believe I won't be chasing it....

I thought about trying it without it but as I'm in Ohio and they're in Arizona....I would be guaranteed to need it and be down a week waiting for it. I'm not a real fan of the Delrin camming surfaces. Clearly, they work but I would really like to see roller bearings in all these contact surfaces...so do a lot of people since it seems like 90 percent of the Dillon aftermarket products are bearings... My Delrin indexer ring is pretty well chewed. It lasted quite a while so I suspect the roller bearing I'm replacing it with should last just about forever...and be a bit smoother to boot.

My indexer ring has seen better days. It's got a few gouges and chunks out of it and it's time to change it. I understand that there is an alignment tool you have to get from Dillon to make sure things are all lined up. After it's all in sync I'm going to replace the solid cam with one of those bearings. I think my poor lubrication habits may have led to this. I'd like to hear from anyone who's changed out the indexer ring ...what do I need to watch out for?

I just finished my tuning station, The U-bolts will take a 1" pipe, no bigger. I got a 2' piece of black iron from Home depot that was threaded on both ends, I then drilled a one-inch hole in a 2x6x6 and force threaded the pipe right into the 2x6. I can now monkey with it right in front of me while I'm sitting down. It kind of looks like a festivus tree, er pole......

An additional benefit of this mount I think is going to be the ability to set it up for new bullets. Like anything you have to play with it to get it to work right. I'm going to have a sort of a tuning station. I'm going to have a short pipe of 18 inches or so that will be mounted in a 2x6 that I can sit on my workbench. I can then temporarily mount the MBF on it while I twiddle with the different adjustments to make sure everything feeds correctly into the tube. This will all be right in front of me on my workbench and not mounted up on the case feeder so it should be much easier to see what is happening, make changes....rinse and repeat. Since I'm not yet familiar with how the MBF collator works, I think this should reduce my frustration level.

The round aluminum fitting is part of the GSI pole mount. It will accept the 13/16th-inch aluminum rod I have the MBF mount bolted to. As you can see, the grey mount holds the collator at pretty much exactly the right 45-degree angle.

OK, here's a picture with an aluminum rod used as the pole.

So if anyone has any doubts about MBF support, forget it. It's freakin' awesome! I bought just the MBF collator from Double Alpha. I realized that mounting the collator on the Dillon case feeder wasn't going to work well for me. Several folks here recommended that I contact Rick, the guy who invented the MBF....so I did. Rick informed me that he had made a stand alone mount for the MBF and that he occasionally got requests for them. After I talked to him for a bit he decided to make a run of a bout 10 units. So I got one. It's a simple, nicely made but oddly shaped delrin block that you mount your MBF to using the two bars from the case feeder mount system. You can then mount a separate rod or pole using the supplied U-Bolts. It removes the collator from the case feeder entirely and makes it so it sits exactly at the correct angle. Rick charged me $25.00 including shipping and it arrived yesterday. I already have it set up. It's pure genius in its simplicity. It fulfills my needs completely. I already have the really nice GSI pole from their collator mount. I was able to order a 13/16th solid aluminum rod from Metals Online for about $8.00 and slide it right down through the GSI pole/mount. This allowed me to clamp the MBF mount to it and use my excellent GSI mount. Mission accomplished ...Mr Bullet Feeder collator feeding bullets to GSI tool head. Now all I have to do is start tuning to drop the bullets that I never could get to run through the GSI collator.

I have a 650. I imagine the 1050 is quite different. It still sounds like there is something in the chambers that are preventing the bullets from working smoothly. Did it ever work? Are you using cast, lubricated bullets?

It really sounds like your bullets are not fitting in the chambers. I crushed a couple of cases once when I was setting things up and bits of brass got into one or two of the chambers. It made a tight fit for the bullets and they would not load or drop freely from the index wheel chambers. Do you have 650 or a 1050?

It really sounds like your bullets are not fitting in the chambers. I crushed a couple of cases once when I was setting things up and bits of brass got into one or two of the chambers. It made a tight fit for the bullets and they would not load or drop freely from the index wheel chambers.

It almost sounds like you don't have enough bullets in the tube. If there are only a few they don't overcome the spring pressure and can stick. The other thing I would really look at is how clean and free the actual bullet chambers are in the index wheel. They should have just enough resistance to hold in but no more. The fact they're dropping in random positions points to something stopping them from stacking in the tube.

I haven't had any problem with the tool head. If you're trying to shoot conventional lubricated cast bullets, it won't work. The only way to shoot cast is if they're coated with something like Hi-Tek. It works great then. I'm waiting for a new mold that is a HP version of the 147gr RN . It will be a BB HP wiith no lube groove and coated with Hi-Tek. Also, the rotary plate doesn't like plain base bullets. It prefers bevel base. Plain can smear and drag. Are they seating correctly? Is the die the correct one?

Issues with what part? The MBF collator or the GSI tool head?

I talked to Gordon today. They'll still warranty all that has been bought and if you need parts, they have them...

What's the story on the Crimson Bullet Collator? All I hear are whispers and second-hand stories...how did you come by it and why are they so cool? I have one of those Tripod's sitting in a closet. You may have given it a reason to live.