cardiackid

I'll definitely be running the trimmer while she's gone, lol. No. 3 buttons are still in their places at all stations. I've only loaded .223 on this press so there was never any reason to change them out.

It's been a little over a year or so since I've done any reloading (crazy busy with work and some moves around the country) and I'm just getting back to the bench now. When I left, everything was running smoothly like a well oiled machine. I am now in the midst of doing a ton of brass prep and have noticed that all of a sudden my .223/5.56 casings are not aligning correctly when they move into the RT-1200 station. My toolhead is set up as: 1) RCBS FL resize + decap 2) empty 3) RT-1200 4) Empty. I have no issues with them going up into the resizing die on station 1, however when they move to station 3 and go up into the rapid trim, they're consistently off center and stopping against the bottom face of the trimmer die. I usually have to hand guide each case up into the trimmer and I'm 99% sure I didn't have to do this before. Anyone run into this problem before and have some quick trouble shooting tips? I'm about to relocate all of my equipment to inside the house (wife finally blessed off on it) and I'll most likely clean and re-assemble everything right out of the instruction manual for piece of mind. Hopefully it will solve the issue (maybe there's some gunk under the shell plate or something at that particular station...?) Thanks.

Sorry - forgot to mention it - it's a 550. I figured you could do it that way as well, I was just trying to alleviate having to do it that way and keeping it as close to a "pop the pins and swap heads" as possible. It's not a major hassle by any means but I was just wondering if anyone had found any workarounds.

Just got my RT1200B in from BE/Dillon and set it up. This thing is pretty awesome (and the cut is definitely as clean as others photographed when I asked about it). I did spark it once during setup (didn't quite tension the motor lock nut enough and the start-up torque wobbled it into the trim die) but there's only a very, very minor chip in the carbide blade and it's working without any issues. I have an RCBS FL resize/decap in station 1 and the 1200 in station 3. The only question I have after setup is regarding the vacuum hose manifold thing. It seems that no matter how I set this up, it will block one of the toolhead pins in because it has to sit fairly deep in the toolhead. The fix I have for this right now is to just use one toolhead pin with this toolhead, opposite the trimmer, as the cases going into the resizing/decap and then the trim die will cause it to automatically align. Is this a common thing when trimming .223 where the size die and motor must be screwed down pretty far or am I overlooking something? Anyone else have any quick fixes?

I ordered the one from cdrissel that he makes on the forums here and love it.

Just to follow up on this: I left my old RCBS Rockchucker set up with a Lee Decapping die in it (the universal model) and de-prime all of my cases prior to tumbling. No, it's not anywhere near as fast as just vibratory tumbling and then de-capping, sizing and trimming with a Dillon setup or doing pistol all on one toolhead. However, by de-priming everything first on the RCBS and then doing the SS tumble then (shortly in the future when I get my 1200) doing re-size, trim on a 550 toolhead and then all of the loading on another, the Dillon will be virtually immaculate aside from some spilled powder granules. I cannot believe how clean my press stays without a bunch of carbon flaking, dust, spent primers bouncing around everywhere and the stainless method is really no more time consuming than using dry vibratory media aside from de-capping prior to tumbling. It is a bit expensive for the start up, but you can't argue with the results. The best thing is that as long as you are careful with not losing any of the stainless rods, they'll literally last a lifetime. I have taken some of the nastiest, grungiest range brass I can find and it comes out in brand new condition inside, primer pockets and outside. Right now the big thing limiting high-volume shooters is the rotary tumbler capacities, which he has already found a workaround with.

A lot of guys following the stainless media thread over on Snipers Hide have been begging for bigger tumblers (everything from 25-30 pounds to concrete mixer sized tumblers. You just might have a market there

I tried ultrasonic cleaning for all of 2 weeks and found it wasn't worth my time - a little over a handful of cases at a time, resetting the timer every 8 minutes, and I never quite perfected the cleaner recipes. I switched over to the stainless steel tumbling method and couldn't be happier. It's a lot more expensive up front but the results are insane. Like Ben Diss said - cases look brand new inside and out, primer pockets clean, etc.

Yeah - those PPU cases have a ridiculous amount of crimp. My favorite part about them is that red super glue sealant they use that causes the primers to "pop" out real hard and bounce everywhere.

Just do a bunch of pushups and pullups - the money savings is phenomenal and heavy guns don't seem as heavy.

Haha... "good guys." Any Army story that starts or ends with "I mean, he's a good guy and all" is just a euphemism for saying I'd have a beer with him, but really wouldn't want to go to war with him. Unfortunately these "good guys" are everywhere.

I think you're over analyzing it - I avoid analizing anything . As long as the fire control group holes are drilled to spec and everything lines up (IE, my trigger pin wobbles out or 'for some reason my disconnector is canted sideways when I put the pins in') put your gun together, give it a functions check and shoot it. These aren't precision milled parts - I believe they're stamped or cast (I'm sure Kevin Holman will know if he checks this) so each manufacturer may have slightly different looking ones that accomplish the same task.

That's another possibility - I forgot to mention the kit came with a lightened plunger spring as well. I take it that's the culprit?

Just a quick follow up after my install: Like I mentioned, I purchased the whole Ghost kit, which included the Rocket connector and the Wolf striker and trigger springs. I have noticed that while the reset is positive, whatever tension that causes the entire trigger to move forward and set the trigger safety is extremely light. For instance, if I shoot from reset and then slightly let up on the trigger as you would immediately after engaging your last target, the tension may or may not be strong enough to actually push the trigger all the way forward so that the trigger safety can re-engage. I'm thinking this is most likely a bi-product of the lightened trigger spring? I want to say it's borderline on rendering it unsafe - I'm entirely comfortable with the way it is, but it's definitely something I'd double check and notify anyone about prior to handing over a hot weapon.

It doesn't really funnel it - it just drops right in. As the case is raised into the powder die it slides up and actuates the powder drop mechanism. Path of least resistance is down through the powder die into the case mouth. A granule may get hung up on the lip here or there (and that's probably what causes a handful of granules to be laying around the shellplate after a session) but it's an insignificant amount.

Another convert for the Ghost Rocket here. I recently purchased the kit from Brownells (includes the connector, striker/firing pin spring and trigger spring along with the orange plate and another glock armorer's tool.) Install was fairly quick and simple once I understood where they were going with it. I cannot believe how much lighter and crisp the trigger pull is - I didn't think it would be possible to make a glock feel like that. Really makes me want to try one of the Vanek, etc. drop in trigger units to see what those feel like. I shoot SSP and production and would love to be able to work the pre-travel as well, but it looks like I'm fairly limited with that right now.

Kevin: I thought about that but I can never find any around here - still need to check Toys R Us I guess. I may also try a scrap piece of that high-density foam I trimmed out of my pelican case as well. Avezorak: I saw that Scharch offers about $2 or so per pound of brass - they said 1000 .223 casings is worth about $32 bucks. I really need to start saving my junk cases rather than throwing them out when primer pockets are too loose, etc. I shoul check the local rates here as it's just another way to feed the habit.

I'm glad I spent time typing my reply up only to have Kevin answer the question in a quicker and more concise fashion again, lol. Kevin, when you say you stake the receiver when it is slightly wider than the barrel lug, where exactly do you do that? First time I've heard of that being done but it makes perfect sense and I'd love to add that method to the tool bag. Thanks.

I don't have any experience with the Clark handguard or the way in which it mounts, but my guys and I have put 2-3, some of them 4, mags through our work M4s in 5/10 minute firefights and I have never personally seen or heard of a barrel nut warping or expanding to the point where it was loose. Was the nut actually torqued to spec or was it just put on with a barrel wrench and hand tightened as much as possible? My only other guess to this would be if the Clark handguards glue on to the barrel nut that somehow over time gripping the handguards caused you to just slightly work the nut loose. If you're a right handed shooter, and depending on your grip, it would be natural to just ever so slightly put enough torque on the handguard coupled with the recoil to cause it to work loose over time. On a good note I'm glad you're ok and I guess nothing permanently bad happened to the rifle? With a standard style nut it would be very possible to cant the gas tube with any movement of the nut, causing all of that bad stuff with a BCG slamming into a misaligned tube, etc. It could have also caused serious headspace issues if the barrel worked its way out of the receiver extension at all too. At least you know whatever glue you used to mount the handguard works well too. cas: I was thinking the same thing, but I have seen some barrels and some receivers with slightly larger/smaller tolerances that could allow the lug on the top of the barrel to move every so slightly within the receiver extension. My first barrel was a sabre defence that I put in a generic upper and it had just a hair of movement. On my current gun, I used a Bravo Company barrel and a VLTOR receiver and actually had to tap the barrel for a bit with a rubber mallet to get it to seat properly into the receiver extension.

After close to thirty days of using it, I haven't quite perfected it when I decap 9mm. It works almost flawlessly for rifle rounds: crimped 5.56 will on occasion "pop" out and the extra force will cause them to bump out of the front side of the ram, but .308 is still 100%. I cannot figure out what the deal is for 9mm, but I seem to only have a 70% success rate. I need to figure out a way to plug the front slot on the ram that doesn't interfere with the stroke and is easily removable. Either way, I'm still only picking up a handful of primers after a session versus the usual 50% of what I've decapped, not to mention the fact that I've decapped hundreds of rounds so far this way and have yet had to empty the junk plastic water bottle I'm using to catch everything. It's also helped keep the Dillon 550 a ton cleaner since it's never dealing with primer residue or carbon flaking buildup.

I've been using the same 18" rifle length gas Bravo Co SS410 barrel mentioned have nothing but good things to say about it.

I'd always been told to stay away from doing anything reloading wise with the steel case stuff because it's hell on resizing dies and that's it. I took that at full value and never actually tried it, but the way you're talking about basically neck-sizing it on a FL die without bumping the shoulder should be a lot less harsh on the die set. I'm sure someone has tried it... ?

Wow - you guys weren't kidding about a clean cut. I'm beyond sold. Thanks again for your help Eric.

I went to Ohio State for the degree, not the football program Jim Tressel is probably going to be right up there with Woody Hayes in the annals of OSU football history. The greater Columbus area tends to view him as a prophet-like individual and it would have taken much, much more for people to be mad or embarrassed about the situation. (Think Maurice Clarett).

No, with 2 out of 3 of those brands you're going to get an absolute piece of junk barrel that isn't capable of holding 5MOA They're all great manufacturers - the barrel is going to out shoot you 99% of the time. Reason for picking one over the others? Price. Seriously man -it's 3 gun, not 600 and 1000yd benchrest.