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Old Vark WSO

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  1. Sig2009 - You are not the first one to experience this with WC846 (search engines can be your friend) - Not sure if peanut4a solved his problem - but at the bottom of the thread there was a suggestion to slightly lower the powder die. As you are using a ball powder, it shouldn't be bridging, but obviously not all the powder has dropped in the case when you raise the handle. Try the magnum bar? I have read threads where guys said they taped an aquarium pump to the side of the powder tube and the vibration helped with the powder drop. Funky, but if it works ... This forum is a great resource for Dillon reloaders and every problem I have experienced on my multiple presses I have solved by scouring the threads here to see what the others did to fix the same problem. Hope this helps. Cheers - OVW
  2. Wingnut - I am a novice on the 1050 compared to a lot of the forum members here. Have seen this problem posted before as a powder measure issue. Is the Bell Crank Cube (Dillon part # 13871 - little white square plastic thing) still in the milled out area of the slide? A missing/broken one can adversely affect the function of the slide (IIRC). OVW P.S - How is using the springs instead of the rod? Less clunky?
  3. ES13Raven - thanks for that. I will try the alignment tool. Your video looks like what my press is doing.
  4. Thanks for the replies. I was able to get back to the bench to check my 550 and the shellplate did need some tightening. I also loosened the lock ring on the sizer and ran a case in as suggested and retightended. This seemed to help, but was not 100% alingned running the cases in the sizer. Then I noticed something that I had not before - the weight of the powder measure over station 2 gave the tool head a little "lean" to that side (left as you face the press) since the slot cut in the top of the press for the tool head leaves a very small amount of room for "wiggle" with the tool head installed. This lean puts a small angle on the dies, and, combined with almost no radius on the mouth of the Lee sizer makes that angle noticeable. I will try to shim the left side of the tool head and see if this helps. Has anyone noticed this before?
  5. Hi all - A few years ago, I acquired a 1050 for my volume loading (.38 Special for CAS) and the 550 was relegated to smaller runs of various calibers and loads. Yesterday, I fired up the 550 to load a hundred or so wadcutters to try shooting with a new-to-me Colt Officer's Model Match. I noticed that the cases were not feeding straight into the sizing die and I had to push them a little with my finger so I would not crush the case mouths. Ditto for the seater die. Needless to say, this took longer than I am used to. I bought the press new about six years ago and have loaded at least 8K rounds on it. I did some searching here and only found references to needing the alignment tool when the primers will not feed due to misalignment of the shellplate. The primers feed fine and I have no problem pushing them into the cases. Has anyone experienced this problem and will an alignment tool fix this? Thoughts and comments appreciated. Cheers - OVW
  6. I'm a wet tumbler proponent - have a couple of RCBS Sidewinders. The biggest advantages I see are keeping all the primer dust off your progressive press since (I'm assuming) most decap on a single stage and the inside of the cases are clean so you can more easily see the powder after the drop. One could consider the extra time used to wet tumble as "paying it forward" as you keep your press cleaner. And the chance of a getting a squib load is smaller - something I see on the line occasionally - after the timer goes off. My $.02. Cheers.
  7. Peterthefish - I agree with you on Trail Boss and have loaded thousands of .38 Specials using that powder with no problems. I also tumble clean my brass with the SS pins and liquid - so the inside of the case is clean too - makes it much easier to see the powder once it is dropped in. What I want to know is where do you live that Trail Boss is coming back to regular supply? I have not seen a 9 ounce, much less a five pound keg in over two years. Have not seen any on any powder supply website either. There is much lamenting on the SASS Wire from fellow cowboy action shooters about the lack of availability of this powder. Not to hijack the thread - but if TB is coming back - this is the first I've heard and would be very happy about it! Soundlzrd - it can be done. One of our CAS club's members modified the 550 tool head in his machine shop to allow a Dillon powder checker to be used. Obviously had to seat and crimp on the last station. The guys who did this told me they went back to the old way and just looked in each case before seating the bullet. I went the route Mr. Steele suggested and got a 1050 (but still have and use my 550 occasionally).
  8. I feel your pain. My experience with Federal primers is about the same as yours - maybe not a 20% fail rate - but enough to be frustrating. Winchester SPP - not one hiccup - just loaded 500 rounds this weekend. The Winchesters seem to be just a little more rounded (if that makes sense) and feed into the primer pocket much more easily. I also found most of my Federal failures were with S&B brass - no rounding at all on the primer pocket. I have decided to use the Federals on my 550 where I have a "feel" when seating the primers.
  9. Hi Ripp - I'm not a pro on this machine, but have had mine longer than you say you've had yours. Surprised no one asked what caliber is giving you problems - rimmed revolver brass or semi-auto? You say that "most of the time it doesn't get fed into the shell plate correctly." When this happens on my machine, I regrease the plunger roller and the case feed cam - seems to help. DougC mentioned something is not centered up - which makes sense - it would seem that something has come loose after 70K rounds. Another thought is that maybe something like a spent primer got under the shellplate and it is sitting at a slight cant creating an angle between the brass and the dies. Might just want to take it apart, clean everything, and put it back all back together again. FWIW - I deprime all my brass on a Rock Chucker before I clean it and have very few problems once I start pulling the handle on the 1050. Keep us posted if you find the culprit. Good luck. Cheers - OVW
  10. Someone mention washers? I bought my 1050 used but pretty sure all the parts were there. I had to shim the vertical brace with these to get it plumb. Didn't bother me - works great.
  11. Hi all - I've had my 1050 for a couple of years now and love it. I currently only load .38 Special on it as that is what I shoot from my CAS rifle and pistols (two or so matches a month). My other reloading needs are currently met by my 550 and Rockchucker. I now find myself wanting to shoot a lot more .45 ACP in other endeavors. Running the numbers, I found that with a primer size and caliber change on a 1050 - I am 35% of the way into a whole new machine - so I have a question for the 1050 guys out there - how many have a machine for each primer size vs how many switch out primer and caliber on one machine? I bought my 1050 used from a nice guy who used to shoot competitively and said at one time he had twelve 1050s in his shop - so my logic says having two isn't that excessive . Thoughts from others who have found themselves in this situation? Cheers - OVW
  12. Hi all - Today was a good day to camp out in the garage and spend some quality time with the blue machine (I guess only the case feeder is blue on this one). I have a couple of CAS monthly matches coming up as well as an out-of-town big annual shoot in October, so needed to load up a few hundred. I shoot .38 Special in my pistols and rifle (gamer ) and like the Federal primers in the rifle as they "appear to be" softer and go bang all the time. I use brass exclusively for the rifle and save the nickel plated for the six shooters. So I started slow, and as has been happening occasionally - I was now dropping a primer on the bench every third pull, Okay - have read every thread on this forum and swapped out the blue feeder tip. Bingo - no more dropped primers. The sad part was realizing that I had 85 primers left in the tube before I could swap out the tip - that took a while. The next few hundred rounds I checked and found about 3 - 4 per hundred crushed, off-tilt primers. Hmm ... Federals. Winchesters don't do this. But then the light bulb came on - I throw those rounds in a small yogurt bucket to deal with later. I dug out all the rounds, over 20 from this and my last reloading session. All but one round was a Sellier & Bellot piece of brass. Has anyone else noticed primers not feeding into S&B brass? Since I scavenge at the range, I have many, many different headstamps of .38 - but the S&Bs were nearly the only ones with crushed primers. I'm even running the swager - so I imagine if the S&B primer pocket is tighter, that would take care of it. Just thought I would throw this out there to see what everyone else has seen on their machines. Cheers - OVW
  13. +1 on what sauza says. I use a single stage press and also wear ear protection. Can't bring myself to toss a good primer.
  14. There are a few threads on the RF100 flipping primers. I had quite a few upside primers - so after reading several posts, I put my RF100 on a rubber computer mouse pad. Then I cut some narrow strips of scotch tape and put them on the top (inside) of the clear plastic chute that leads up to the hole where the primers drop in. The extra "thickness" seemed to keep the primers from being able to rotate over to the wrong side before dropping into the tube. FWIW - I got more upside down Federals than Winchesters. This greatly reduced the number of upside down primers.
  15. Wow - sitting here eating lunch and clicking around the forums and saw my post from last summer! All good advice on this thread - I had never reloaded shotgun rounds when I had written this. FWIW - I ended up buying a PW 375 single stage off of Craigslist for under $100, The press needed a good clean and polish - and with the right components - I was cranking out some good looking 12 gauge shells in no time. My goal was low recoil rounds for the Cowboy Action monthly shoots. I called Ponsness in Idaho (nice people BTW) and ordered the 20 gauge die set and mounted it to the tool head - so I have both gauges on the same press. Glad I did it - the shells are loaded the way I want, and the pickin's are slim on the ammo shelves around here now. If I ever start shooting clay sports and up my round count, I will start looking at the progressives again. Cheers - OVW
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