Hornady auto primer filler review

[SV650Squid]

Initial impression: It sucks!!!

So I started taking it apart.

Here's all the bits

This is the safety shield. It's dang annoying, and had to go. Unfortunately, it activates an internal microswitch, but I fixed that.

So I took it apart. I've already added a ziptie to the microswitch to keep it closed.

Closeup

This is the spring that keeps the filler tube in place. It had some flash, so I chamfered both ends with a deburring tool.

I also chamfered and deburred the primer tubes.

The trays themselves don't have a bunch of flash, so I haven't cleaned them up. In the below video, you can see that a few of the primers try to tip. If that gets annoying, I'll clean it up with an xacto knife.

Here's a video of the second tray I filled up after the modifications:

100 primers in a little over 20 seconds. It works decent now.

Additionally, not in the pics, it comes with 2 small primer tubes and 2 large primer tubes.

It's not perfect, but it seems to need less fiddling than the frankford arsenal primer filler from other threads I've seen.

[Hozzie]

Interesting. I use the RCBS universal priming tool, but I like the idea of this.

[GregJ]

I am so disappointed in Hornady's gimmicky approach to this. I refuse to get one. I have used my VP for a few years, but it started to be very finicky and a PITA to work. I went back to my Lee primer tray setup, using an engraver as the vibration source, and fill tubes in half the time as the VP.

I really wished Hornady would come up with a real solution to feeding primer tubes.

[firewood]

Thanks SV650Squid for all the detailed information. I have been considering this tool.

[RiggerJJ]

Dillon RF-100 baby! Dump the primers in the tray, push the button, and turn your back on it. Primers are loaded and waiting for you when you need them...

jj

[moonman16]

If you read enough, you'll find many people who have issues

with the Dillon RF-100 flipping primers, some of them are

Dillon Dealers too.

[Pat Miles]

It takes me a couple of minutes to manually fill my Dillon primer tube.

[Guest]

From an unloaded table start with the primers in the OEM 100 pack I can fill a primer tube in less than 60 seconds.

That should be good for at least an "A" class in the Old Skool primer division.

(thanks for the review!)

[RiggerJJ]

And reading will also tell you that those who have flipped primer problems with the RF100 are because of improper setup.

[RiggerJJ]

Now the next thing to be said will be, "the RF100 is expensive"

How much is your time worth moding the plastic pos just to get it to maybe work? And you still are manually loading the tube...

Don't knock it till ya try it...

[Pat Miles]

The RF100 is expensive, and I load mag tubes by hand.

[slavex]

Prior to getting my RF100 I used to use a Lee Autoprime I'd converted to be a tube filler. Some shimming of the area that the ram went up into so that a Dillon tube lined up with the hole (thin pieces of cardboard worked perfect), a small plastic shield over the gap between the cover and the body and away I went. Put a tray of primers in, shake to put them all right side up, put the cover on, insert a tube (or do that at the start) (oh, and the tubes all have their pick up ends removed) and then place against a vibrating tumbler lid. 12 seconds to fill the tube. A small amount of rotating the Autoprime during the process helps too. This was an old AutoPrime, the round tray style, not the new square style. The only reason I got an RF100 is because my buddy that used to load the tubes while I ran the press, stopped shooting as much and just buys factory now. I hate filling tubes, so the RF was the way to go.

[Adam B]

If you read enough, you'll find many people who have issues

with the Dillon RF-100 flipping primers, some of them are

Dillon Dealers too.

I agree, I had one and it gave me a ton of problems.

[titandriver]

Dunno - mine works great with CCI's & Fed's, but it hates Win's. Gotta say I love my RF-100!

[Adam B]

That could of been my issue, at the time I had about 50k winchester small rifle primers and it would never load a full tube without giving me an issue

[jmorris]

I prefer the Dillon but the VP is a good value. A lot of the problems can be cured with technique. A little jerking in the right direction at the right time is all it takes.

[Shadyscott999]

Dunno - mine works great with CCI's & Fed's, but it hates Win's. Gotta say I love my RF-100!

Same here. I think the majority of the RF100 issues are with the egg shaped Winchester primers. I would get 5/100 flipped with Winchester. With CCI I ger 5/10,000 flipped.

[noylj]

Dump the primers in the tray. Load all "shiny up" primers in filler tube, cover tray and flip, load all the remaining primers in filler tube. How long to you waste shaking the tray to get all the primers shiny side up?

Some day someone will make a decent tool for load the filler tubes. I hope I live that long.

[jmorris]

How long to you waste shaking the tray to get all the primers shiny side up?

You want the primers anvil up (if your pecking them by hand you flip the tube over to load the press, not done with vibrating fillers) for the vibrating fillers and I waisted about 7 seconds doing that in the above video.

The non smooth side of a flip tray is to get all the primers onto the surface the firing pin will impact, then you put the lid on and flip them all over, thus the name.

The anvil side of a primer has a rather square profile that will catch in the grooves and cause it to flip over, while the impact side has a radius that will slide over the grooves and not flip.

Edited August 31, 2015 by jmorris

[noylj]

The only correction I accept is that I should have typed anvil-side up.

I am talking about simply using the tray, not setting them up for the Hornady Libra-Prime imitation--I thought that was clear from what I wrote.

My point was what I wrote: IF instead of flipping primers, and I have seen folks spend about 30 seconds or so to get all the primers flipped anvil-up, when they could have spent all that time loading the shiny-side up primers in the filler tube (as in, NOT worrying about flipping and just loading the shiny-side up primers), then covering the tray, flipping it over, and loading all the rest of the primers.

Folks want something faster? Stop wasting time trying to get all the primers anvil-side up.

[peterthefish]

The only correction I accept is that I should have typed anvil-side up.

I am talking about simply using the tray, not setting them up for the Hornady Libra-Prime imitation--I thought that was clear from what I wrote.

My point was what I wrote: IF instead of flipping primers, and I have seen folks spend about 30 seconds or so to get all the primers flipped anvil-up, when they could have spent all that time loading the shiny-side up primers in the filler tube (as in, NOT worrying about flipping and just loading the shiny-side up primers), then covering the tray, flipping it over, and loading all the rest of the primers.

Folks want something faster? Stop wasting time trying to get all the primers anvil-side up.

5 or 8 seconds... There's a technique - 30 seconds to flip is crazy.