Tanfastic

I just meant the sensor on the feed ramp, I wonder if they're going to make a sensor upgrade for the Revolution collator that will pick them up like the new one does.

That looks pretty nice, glad they put a primer orientation sensor right in the feeder this time, that was smart. Wonder if that will be offered as an upgrade to the Gen 1 primer collators? I still waste an occasional primer if I get an upside down one that isn't caught until it hits the Primer Orientation Sensor on the press.

I think that's old news, I haven't seen anyone who has the newer small-drum pistol measure report any continued issues at all with powder charge consistency. There were LOTS of issues initially with the large drum measure for any of us who were loading light pistol loads, I was getting 0.2gr variance pretty much all the time. I'm now using the new small drum digital measure set on 3-stage drop, and it's nearly perfect, I set it to 3.10gr and I get 3.06gr-3.15gr, measured many times across multiple reloading sessions for thousands of rounds for the past few months running at 2000-2500 rph. It's been so consistent now that I don't even remember to check it for long periods of time since I'm no longer concerned with it, whereas previously I was constantly checking it.

That's about the same as my setup for 9mm, shell plate is tight, I haven't measured with a gauge but the plate does not flex up and down during cycling, I tighten the nut until I literally can't rotate the shell plate by hand with two fingers, then back it off slightly so I can just barely rotate the plate. The U-die for sizing is screwed down finger tight against the shell plate at the bottom of the stroke. I use One Shot lube and Clutch is set at 4. When I use once-fired cleaned and polished brass, it virtually never stops with a clutch error on sizing. With mixed random range brass it does clutch out at 4 with some bulged cases - normally if I jog up, increase to 5, then run, it gets past the error. I shoot for .008 primer depth, and even with mixed brass it's always in that range +/- maybe .003. I haven't had a light strike due to high primer for a very long time, and that's with a very finicky Tanfo Stock 2 running light springs and Bolo.

I was experimenting with a looser shell plate to see if that made any difference. I had tried virtually everything, and MK7 sent me a whole array of new parts for the entire priming system trying to chase this down. The only positive is now I can completely strip my press down to the crank and rebuild it in 30 minutes!

I think a lot of it has to do with the overall setup of the press, the settings you're using, etc. I only posted it just in case anyone else suffered from the same issue and I could shortcut the troubleshooting process since it was such a PITA for me.

Nah, no more troubleshooting, I'm just going to run the original die and get my ammo loaded for the season now.

Here's a tip that is very specific, but just in case anyone might spend nearly a month trying to diagnose a priming issue with the automated primer collator like I just did, maybe this will help. DO NOT use the new-style Mighty Armory die with the spring-loaded decapping pin with this priming system. Seems nearly impossible, but on my press when a case is decapped with the spring-loaded pin the "snap" of the spring transfers through the press over to the primer punch that is in the process of raising up a primer, and it causes the primer to jump around on the tip of the punch. This causes random sideways and even upside down primers being loaded. Captured on slow-motion video it's CRAZY, here's one where the primer literally flipped completely over on top of the punch: Primer Flipping I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes in slow-mo. I swapped out nearly every part of the priming system chasing this issue down, and in the end it was the die. I put the original style non-spring-loaded MA decap die back on and now zero issues. Crazy. But anyway, just in case someone else has that die and random priming issues, hopefully this shortcuts the process for you!

Would definitely make sense with as much Walther activity there is here.

I haven't tried it yet, waiting for the digital to arrive tomorrow, hopefully loading over the weekend. But at least for my light grain loads I think the smaller drum will be WAY better. The original drum is so big that the adjustment had to be nearly all the way in for me to get the 3.1gr charge weight I was aiming for. That led to a lot of inconsistency, I was lucky to get +/- 0.2gr variance at 2200rph. I'll report back after I get a chance to run it. MK7 did test my press in-house, using the exact powder and charge weight that I use, and they reported 0.1gr variance, so if I can reproduce that I'll be very happy.

Not sure individually, you'd have to check with MK7 on pricing. Mine was part of a larger upgrade package with the primer collator. It was actually supposed to be a digital one, and it has been verified now that the digital is also available with the smaller drum, so I'll be swapping this one for the digital.

Here's a bit of good news, there now IS a smaller-drum powder measure in existence! I just got one back with my press, will be trying it out later today. I load 3.1gr of Titegroup in my Production Minor loads, and the large drum was not well suited for that. You can see how much smaller the powder cavity is in the photo compared to the standard drum. I'm not sure if this is also available with the digital measure at this point or not, this one is a manual model.

Also make sure the slide "slides" perfectly smooth, and has a little oil in the channel to make it so. I ended up polishing mine and using a couple drops of light machine oil on it to get it to not "jump" during primer pickup. Once I did that, I never had another flipped primer that got stuck.

I have a very early machine (single digit serial number), and although I had it all running pretty smoothly this year MK7 offered to do a full refurbish on it to upgrade all of the fasteners to the latest spec, measure all of the tolerances, etc. and do a full function test on it, and while it was there I told them to just install the collator at the same time since I had already ordered it. Per MK7 the digital measure is their most accurate. I'll find out how it compares when I get it back, I was at about .2 gr variance with the old powder measure running at 2100 rph with a 3.1 gr of Titegroup target load. I think the biggest advantage is having the drop be the same regardless of the press speed you're running.

I don't remember seeing anyone else who had upgraded to the collator on an Evo Pro, but may have missed it. My press is at Mark 7 now getting the collator installed, I should have it back next week and will post up about the collator upgrade after I get some rounds through it to try it out. See comment above about the orientation sensor availability, yes I'm excited to get that added finally as well, it's the last piece of the puzzle of common things that can go haywire while loading that cause issues that aren't caught immediately. I already have the decap, swage, powder check and bullet sensors. I'm planning to be pretty well hands-off for 300 round batches now after the collator and that sensor are installed. The bullet and brass hoppers hold 300, and now I'll be able to load 300 primers. P.S. - I upgraded to the digital powder measure while the press was being refurbished as well. In hindsight, I should have just bought a Revolution 2 years ago when I first bought the manual Evo press!