Jump to content
Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

tastic

Members
  • Posts

    18
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by tastic

  1. I broke my 9mm sizing die. A small ring came out of the bottom and attached itself to a casing. I don't lube ..... should I lube or is a broken sizing die just a fluke? Dillon is sending me a new die ..... great company!

    you should lub the cases ,it make the whole press action like silk and on top of that it help the dies lifespan.

    personaly i use one shot, altough many options available.

    +10 not only is it easier on your brass it saves a lot of wear n tear on the press.

    Carbide is no repacement for lube.

    go to the health food of vitamin store and but 5oz bottle of liquid lanolin. Mix with a half gallon of isotropic alcohol from the drug store and you have a lifetime supply of case lube for around $10.00.

    Great for rifle, not so great for pistol. Note that you will need to tumble the lube off prior to loading as it will contaminate powder and primers.

    Supposedly OneShot will not contaminate powder or primers.

  2. I have an RT-1500 and migrates between my 1050 (.223) and 650 (.308). I have noticed when I remove the trimmer from the trim die, the top ring that holds the trimmer will move slightly, meaning I'll have to set up the trimmer again when I next process whichever caliber the trimmer is moving from.

    I tried a Hornady lock ring but the top threads appear to be different than the bottom.

    How have the rest of you 'solved' this? Is there a lock ring with something that will keep the lock ring in place? I'm really not looking forward to adjusting the trimmer every time I want to trim brass, nor do I enjoy the idea of buying another one and keeping it set up for .308.

  3. I believe the Mr. Bullet Feeders use normal die sizes so there's no reason it technically wouldn't work in a 550. I think the toolhead would be a little cramped, however.

    You'd want to switch to a crimping and seating die to replace the existing seater and crimper (or not crimp, which may not be such a good idea). For what it's worth I love my RCBS taper crimp seaters for .223, .308, and 9mm.

    I wouldn't think you'd have to use the supplied powder funnel as the whole thing depends on having a certain bell on the case so the bullet doesn't fall over while indexing. The Hornady bullet feeder, for instance, says you'd want at least a .385 bell on 9mm in their PDF docs. I don't think it matters much beyond that, but you may want to verify with DoubleAlpha support.

  4. I just played around with this after reading your topic. I put the rt1200 and an RCBS decap/sizing die on the 550. I only used 1 pin to secure the toolhead, that seemed to work fine, no alignment issues. But I only ran through about a dozen or so pieces. The forces are up and down, so I doubt it would slide out or move with at least 1 pin in.

    I'm not familiar with the M die. From my understanding it is used to flare the neck cause the trim die makes it so small/tight. Since the brass is already processed, why couldn't you use the M die on station 1 of the 650? , M die, powder, seater, crimp. (not famliar with the 650).

    I thought about putting the M die in Station 1 in the 650 but my plan was to tumble the brass after prepping to remove lube and I had planned to use another Lee decapping die in Station 1 of the load toolhead to clear media from the flash hole.

    I got the idea for the M die from rjacobs on this forum who appears to be very experienced with 223 reloading but it may not be necessary. As I understand it the trimmer die makes the neck tight and the M die just barely flares it so the bullet will slip in without shaving and also cleans the neck up so additional chambering doesn't need to be done.

    From what I understand from reading all the topics and what is influencing my die set up plan is not to use a sizing die in prep toolhead because the trimmer die is a full resize and you want the case to be tight in the trimmer die for consistent trimming.

    I think to do what I want to I will need to use two 650 toolhead instead on the 550 for prep.

    You may want to have the Lyman carbide neck expander insert on station 1 of the 550/650. Amazon sells them for $25ish. The piece fits Lyman and RCBS dies and includes a decapping unit. Be warned: I found the decapping unit more than a little flimsy.

  5. Check the rounds as they come off the press. Press is automated. When I have a busy week, I have help for inspection and packaging.

    Pretty sure this process can be automated. I'm interested in hearing about what automation you have for your set-up, or anyone else's set up for that matter.

    I have to imagine you (or people in similar situations as you) could use a cement mixer to tumble.

    How do you handle cutting the cases down? Doing that by hand has to be a time-eater and there has to be a better (read: robotic or automated) way. I know you said "on press" elsewhere in the thread, is that with an RT 1200/1500-style cutter?

  6. In all seriousness I would like to know what the real danger to resizing untumbled brass is.

    I run a carbide resizing die so I don't see how I could possibly damage my dies.

    As far as damaging the brass goes I really think there would have to be something more than the usual carbon build up from fireing.

    I would apriciated the education on the subject.

    Some detail on the dangers or downside to this practice would be greatly apriciated.

    I'm sure I'm not the only one that loads this way with good results.

    Since I do this for a living, I can tell you there's no danger. If you chuck the first case into a Sheridan "windowed" case gauge, use that die for 500k rounds, then chuck another into the same case gauge, the first piece and the 500k piece will fit just the same. Brass, and any minor dirt that's on it, is NOT going to hurt carbide.

    I love those Sheridan slotted case gauges -- I have one for .223 and recently got a .308 one.

    Do you find the dies require more frequent cleaning when going this route? I assume a little Break-Free will fix things right up, yesno?

  7. Hi,

    I am contemplating the purchase of an RT 1200 trimmer for .308 and .223 but would prefer to only have one run through the tumbler and one run through the press. I currently use a Harvey Deprimer to pop spent primers out of cases off-press, then wet tumble. I have a feeling that doing brass processing on the press would be quicker as I could stuff a bunch of cases into the case feeder and go from there, not to mention decap and trim in the same batch. However, I'm hearing that the RT 1200 has its own die that "kinda" sizes the cases, which makes sense as it'd have to hold the case firmly while trimming. This would be a dirty case as it hasn't been through the tumbler yet. Would this pose a problem? I wouldn't want the RT1200 "kinda-sizer" to get scratched or whatever.

    The setup would, ideally, be something like:

    Processing toolhead station 1=decap, 2=empty, 3=RT1200 because it is omghuge, 4=empty, 5=empty

    Wet tumble

    Loading toolhead station 1=size, 2=powder, 3=check, 4=seat, 5=crimp

    Does anyone have this setup or similar? How is it working out?

  8. I'm a few days away from making The Plunge on an XL650. I recently bought a Sam's Club Ultra Heavy Duty workbench which weighs quite a bit and is quite sturdy. It's a bit higher than I had planned on and I'm concerned that the addition of the Strong Mount will make me feel like a midget.

    If anyone has this setup, or a similar setup, did you opt for the strong mount? Perhaps an Inline Fabrication UltraMount Junior (+4" rise)?

    EDIT: Sam's site has this bench at 38" high.

×
×
  • Create New...