Mark7 Evolution - Tuning & Troubleshooting

[OptimiStick]

I can't really see it (the misalignment) - but glad you made headway.  You're right about the cust service. Tom, Misty, and Anthony have all helped me with some really obscure stuff. I won't lie and say there wasn't some frustration and time spent, but they always made it right. At the end of the day that's all I really ask.

[Thetimb]

3 hours ago, OptimiStick said:

I can't really see it (the misalignment) - but glad you made headway.  You're right about the cust service. Tom, Misty, and Anthony have all helped me with some really obscure stuff. I won't lie and say there wasn't some frustration and time spent, but they always made it right. At the end of the day that's all I really ask.

 

 

Same here. I have had some frustrating experiences with them but in the end they make it right and sprinkle a little extra on top. 

[slavex]

@quiller yeah looks like the swage is sitting over too far to the right in the pic. I don't see the shellplate moving when the toolhead comes down either. Let us know how the new shellplate works for you. If that's not the problem I think I know what it is.

[quiller]

2 hours ago, slavex said:

@quiller yeah looks like the swage is sitting over too far to the right in the pic. I don't see the shellplate moving when the toolhead comes down either. Let us know how the new shellplate works for you. If that's not the problem I think I know what it is.

Thanks. I took it apart last night in about 4 minutes per the video Mark 7 provided. I'm going to give it a good cleaning (not that its done a lot of work, but it did sit around for a while), lube it up and wait for the shell plate to arrive. I will keep you updated. 

[Steyrarms]

On 4/8/2020 at 3:53 AM, jcwallace84 said:

@Steyrarms If you need someone to test print one of those 9mm stands let me know! ; )  I have a 9mm system, and recently bought a spare for 223.  I have a Prusa mk2S printer.  I really wish I had time to build models for stuff like that!

@jcwallace84 this is just the first „will it or will it not work“ model. 

I had to adjust some of the slots and added some support for the guiding rods and the case feeding thing. In the new version, the 1th guidrod and the case feeding thing will sit on a extension, the thin long guiding rod (where the spring is) will be guided into a hole. This ensures a snug fit in the right position.

If you are using cura, i could send you the print ready file. I will use tough pla with a 25% general fill rate and 75% in some areas with heavy load.

 

Send me a pm if you want the files, I will provide them for free,,, sharing is caring.

 

BTW i made a dedicated 223 stand too, because the bulletfeeder plate got a different dimension in thickness

[jcwallace84]

@Steyrarms That's fantastic, I'll send you a PM!  Thank you!  I can let you know how it prints and fits.  

[BiknSwans]

On 8/8/2018 at 10:16 AM, SSGJohnV said:

Have you adjusted the metal plate by where the cases drop down? And the case flipper? I rarely have upside down cases and have had luck adjusting those settings. I've had upside down cases with Dillon case feeders, too. Decapping pins are meant to be expendable, in my eyes. Keep spares on hand.

I'm having trouble with jams in the case flipper.  The cases get stuck between either the flipper spring or the 3D printed wedgie.  I haven't had a single case fed upside down, just too frequent jams in the feeder.  I've loaded almost 1800 rounds so far.

 

I spent a couple of hours trying to adjust the flipper spring, but couldn't get it working well.  About 20 or 30 cases would feed fine, then the unit would jam.  I tried different angles and heights of the spring but couldn't hit the sweet spot.  I originally had the spring vertical per the Mark 7 video, but that didn't work at all.  When I rotated the spring counterclockwise to the 5:00 or 5:30 position, fewer jams occurred, but still too many.

 

The 3D printed wedgie worked a little better, but the tip of mine came a little buggered up and it's difficult to get the bottom of the wedgie down flush with the bowl surface.  I may try smoothing out the tip of the wedgie next.

 

I asked Mark 7 for any new instructions, and they sent me a link to a video demonstrating the wedgie that I had seen before.

 

Any tips on setting up either the flipper spring or the wedgie would be appreciated.

 

By the way, I really like this press.  It's my first progressive press and there have been multiple minor operator errors, but things are getting smoother and faster now.

[PokerNGuns]

24 minutes ago, BiknSwans said:

I'm having trouble with jams in the case flipper.  The cases get stuck between either the flipper spring or the 3D printed wedgie.  I haven't had a single case fed upside down, just too frequent jams in the feeder.  I've loaded almost 1800 rounds so far.

 

I spent a couple of hours trying to adjust the flipper spring, but couldn't get it working well.  About 20 or 30 cases would feed fine, then the unit would jam.  I tried different angles and heights of the spring but couldn't hit the sweet spot.  I originally had the spring vertical per the Mark 7 video, but that didn't work at all.  When I rotated the spring counterclockwise to the 5:00 or 5:30 position, fewer jams occurred, but still too many.

 

The 3D printed wedgie worked a little better, but the tip of mine came a little buggered up and it's difficult to get the bottom of the wedgie down flush with the bowl surface.  I may try smoothing out the tip of the wedgie next.

 

I asked Mark 7 for any new instructions, and they sent me a link to a video demonstrating the wedgie that I had seen before.

 

Any tips on setting up either the flipper spring or the wedgie would be appreciated.

 

By the way, I really like this press.  It's my first progressive press and there have been multiple minor operator errors, but things are getting smoother and faster now.

Tried without spring? All I have is wedge and no feed issues. 9mm in my case.

[BiknSwans]

21 minutes ago, PokerNGuns said:

Tried without spring? All I have is wedge and no feed issues. 9mm in my case.

I can either use the spring or the wedge, not both at the same time.  

 

I haven't tried it without both.  Thanks, it's good to know you're not having problems with the wedge. I'm also loading 9mm.

[BiknSwans]

For the last two hours, I've tried to make the "case feeder adjustment ramp" as Misty refers to it, work to no avail.  I can't get rid of a gap between the bowl and outside surface of the ramp near the pointed end.  Sometimes the point of the ramp gets into the mouth of the case (first photo) and other times the case gets jammed between the ramp and the plate (2nd photo).  I've tried everything I can think of - different positions left and right, up and down, and rotated.

 

I also did try running the case feeder without either the flipper spring or the ramp, and that actually worked the best, but still not very well.  

 

I guess I'll try the spring again now.  I had that working pretty well when I first set up the press.  Maybe a light will come on.

 

[PokerNGuns]

2 hours ago, BiknSwans said:

For the last two hours, I've tried to make the "case feeder adjustment ramp" as Misty refers to it, work to no avail.  I can't get rid of a gap between the bowl and outside surface of the ramp near the pointed end.  Sometimes the point of the ramp gets into the mouth of the case (first photo) and other times the case gets jammed between the ramp and the plate (2nd photo).  I've tried everything I can think of - different positions left and right, up and down, and rotated.

 

I also did try running the case feeder without either the flipper spring or the ramp, and that actually worked the best, but still not very well.  

 

I guess I'll try the spring again now.  I had that working pretty well when I first set up the press.  Maybe a light will come on.

 

Here is  picture of mine. 

[BiknSwans]

I got the flipper spring working very well today and wanted to share how I adjusted it.  

 

I lengthened the exposed portion of the spring as much as I could.  Then I positioned the bracket such that the end of the spring was perpendicular to the plate and almost touching the bowl.  See photo.  I was able to feed about 350 cases in a row without a malfunction.  

 

I have yet to see any guidance on how to make this adjustment, so I hope this helps someone in the future.

[BiknSwans]

[quiller]

On 4/15/2020 at 10:01 AM, BiknSwans said:

Works like a charm. Ran about 500 rounds through with the above set up and did not see or get any issues. Thanks for the tip BinkSwans

[quiller]

On 4/10/2020 at 3:12 AM, slavex said:

@quiller yeah looks like the swage is sitting over too far to the right in the pic. I don't see the shellplate moving when the toolhead comes down either. Let us know how the new shellplate works for you. If that's not the problem I think I know what it is.

slavex, its alive!

 

Here's the scoop. I installed the new shell plate the other day and spend some time readjusting the dies so suit. New plate is a tad thicker or sits a tad higher than the old one. I also swapped out the Redding Premium Expander die for a Lee Universal Expander Die with Mr. BulletFeeder powder funnel in it. Right off the bat it fed cases much better and looking down at the swage it appears to be aligned. I ran a bunch of test round, one at a time, no primer or powder, just sized, moved to expander, then skip the powder and then though the remaining stations. After I tweaked the dies I was getting very good results so I decided to give it a go and run a bunch through the entire press without stopping. Here's the breakdown of my results and I'm using the same process as before, mixed head stamp range brass wet tumbled and rolled sized to produce 9mm Open - Precision Delta's with 7.8 grains of HS-6 at 1.145 OAL.

 

141 - Total round 

 

80 Rounds - Passed the gauge checker. Some remained in the checker when inverted, but the remaining rounds fell out easily with a slight touch. I randomly plunked tested several rounds without issue.

Head stamp breakdown:

31 FC

14 Blazer

12 WIN

6 RP

4PMC

2 MKE

2 GFL

9 Additional rounds with all different head stamps

 

52 Rounds - Went in the practice bucket. Either they sat a tad high in the case checker of I was not happy with them for other reasons.

Head stamp breakdown:

13 Blazers

12 RP

10 FC

3 CBC

2 PMC

2 WIN

2 Aquila

2 PPU

6 Additional rounds with different head stamps.

 

9 Rounds - Outright rejected pile. Most sat way high in the case checker or the I did not like the look of the crimp. 

2 Blazer

2 FC

5 Additional rounds with different head stamps.

 

My ratio of Passed to overall was 56%. Not sure I like that number but wanted to get some additional feedback...other than I need to start sorting by head stamp and only load FC and Blazer....which is not something I'm not looking forward too!

 

 

[PokerNGuns]

4 hours ago, quiller said:

slavex, its alive!

 

Here's the scoop. I installed the new shell plate the other day and spend some time readjusting the dies so suit. New plate is a tad thicker or sits a tad higher than the old one. I also swapped out the Redding Premium Expander die for a Lee Universal Expander Die with Mr. BulletFeeder powder funnel in it. Right off the bat it fed cases much better and looking down at the swage it appears to be aligned. I ran a bunch of test round, one at a time, no primer or powder, just sized, moved to expander, then skip the powder and then though the remaining stations. After I tweaked the dies I was getting very good results so I decided to give it a go and run a bunch through the entire press without stopping. Here's the breakdown of my results and I'm using the same process as before, mixed head stamp range brass wet tumbled and rolled sized to produce 9mm Open - Precision Delta's with 7.8 grains of HS-6 at 1.145 OAL.

 

141 - Total round 

 

80 Rounds - Passed the gauge checker. Some remained in the checker when inverted, but the remaining rounds fell out easily with a slight touch. I randomly plunked tested several rounds without issue.

Head stamp breakdown:

31 FC

14 Blazer

12 WIN

6 RP

4PMC

2 MKE

2 GFL

9 Additional rounds with all different head stamps

 

52 Rounds - Went in the practice bucket. Either they sat a tad high in the case checker of I was not happy with them for other reasons.

Head stamp breakdown:

13 Blazers

12 RP

10 FC

3 CBC

2 PMC

2 WIN

2 Aquila

2 PPU

6 Additional rounds with different head stamps.

 

9 Rounds - Outright rejected pile. Most sat way high in the case checker or the I did not like the look of the crimp. 

2 Blazer

2 FC

5 Additional rounds with different head stamps.

 

My ratio of Passed to overall was 56%. Not sure I like that number but wanted to get some additional feedback...other than I need to start sorting by head stamp and only load FC and Blazer....which is not something I'm not looking forward too!

 

 

Crimp measurements?

[quiller]

10 hours ago, PokerNGuns said:

Crimp measurements?

On the ones that passed. Below is the range of sizes where I pulled out 8 rounds from each head stamp.

 

FC .3780 to .3785

Blazer .3780 to .3790

WIN .3775 to .3795

 

On the practice rounds. Keep in mind I placed all the practice rounds in one box as I'm not going to Chrono them. 

 

.3770 to .3795

 

 

 

[quiller]

On 4/19/2020 at 7:57 AM, quiller said:

On the ones that passed. Below is the range of sizes where I pulled out 8 rounds from each head stamp.

 

FC .3780 to .3785

Blazer .3780 to .3790

WIN .3775 to .3795

 

On the practice rounds. Keep in mind I placed all the practice rounds in one box as I'm not going to Chrono them. 

 

.3770 to .3795

 

 

 

Other than all the sizes I listed I discovered that the powder drop is also belling the brass. However, I cannot set the powder die low enough so the drum rotates fully or high enough so it will not extra bell the brass! Instructions say it needs to rotate fully. I really hope I'm missing something here as I'm almost 100% certain is was not doing the extra bell when the old shell plate was installed. I'm guessing the extra bell is causing the issue or at least not helping. So, how do you find a happy medium on....assuming theirs one to find!

[slavex]

if you're using mixed brass then you're going to run into issues with the manual measure doing that, it's unavoidable. Cases aren't going to be consistent in length and therefore some will get belled more from the measure. 

What I'm having trouble figuring out is why you're getting such issues with rounds not passing the gauge, unless it's related to making compressed loads? My mixed brass all passes my Hundo and my Armanov gauges and even the Dillon single gauge I have. If it doesn't pass it's because of a damaged rim, not because of anything to do with crimp, flaring or whatnot. One test I guess you could do is rollsize, process, and then gauge a thousand cases, make sure they all fall into the gauge with no bullets seated. Then run that brass through and load it and see what you get. 

[OptimiStick]

Yeah, that's a way high failure rate on the gauge. I do not roll size and *maybe* get 1 out of 100 that don't gauge. usually it's a split near the mouth that I didn't notice until it got flared. That's with U-Die sizing and either FCD or Redding crimping. I recently switched out FCD to the Redding crimp. Though the sample size is small (~2000) it didn't seem to change the failure rate any. And I overbell a bit too just for better bullet seating at speed and live with working the brass.

 

What sizing die are you using?

Edited April 21, 2020 by OptimiStick

[quiller]

9 hours ago, slavex said:

if you're using mixed brass then you're going to run into issues with the manual measure doing that, it's unavoidable. Cases aren't going to be consistent in length and therefore some will get belled more from the measure. 

What I'm having trouble figuring out is why you're getting such issues with rounds not passing the gauge, unless it's related to making compressed loads? My mixed brass all passes my Hundo and my Armanov gauges and even the Dillon single gauge I have. If it doesn't pass it's because of a damaged rim, not because of anything to do with crimp, flaring or whatnot. One test I guess you could do is rollsize, process, and then gauge a thousand cases, make sure they all fall into the gauge with no bullets seated. Then run that brass through and load it and see what you get. 

 

7 hours ago, OptimiStick said:

Yeah, that's a way high failure rate on the gauge. I do not roll size and *maybe* get 1 out of 100 that don't gauge. usually it's a split near the mouth that I didn't notice until it got flared. That's with U-Die sizing and either FCD or Redding crimping. I recently switched out FCD to the Redding crimp. Though the sample size is small (~2000) it didn't seem to change the failure rate any. And I overbell a bit too just for better bullet seating at speed and live with working the brass.

 

What sizing die are you using?

Did a little more testing late evening because I suspected I was getting an extra bell at the powder station. Removed the complete powder hopper station, emptied the powder, removed hopper and reinstalled it without hopper. I can pull the arm up to the top by hand, only tension is from the springs, once its released it will drop by itself to the bottom position. Having nothing to compare it to I can only assume the arm is working as designed. I removed the powder drop but left the die and the powder insert tube in the toolhead. I cycled the press with and without brass and the insert tube goes up and down as expected. I put the powder drop back on and with a new piece of brass adjusted it so I got a full cycle on the powder drop arm. I placed a new piece of brass that was rolled sized and primed, but not expanded and cycled the press. The powder station is definitely belling the brass. I'm also working with Mr7 and have a call today. Will keep you all updated. Thanks for all your help to date.

[OptimiStick]

I can’t remember if I was getting flare at the powder drop when I was mechanical or not. It’s been a while.  But it  should not matter, crimp takes it out and you should still be able to case gauge.   

Edited April 21, 2020 by OptimiStick

[quiller]

1 hour ago, OptimiStick said:

I can’t remember if I was getting flare at the powder drop when I was mechanical or not. It’s been a while.  But it  should not matter, crimp takes it out and you should still be able to case gauge.   

Crimp will take it out....but many fail the case gauge and the crimp does not look good. The bass is rougher and the intersection of the case and brass, and in some cases its has marks, gouges and flakes of brass.....not good. However, if I miss the powder station they will pass the case gauge. Seems to me that the bit in the middle...the powder station is the issue. Now, having said that since I'm cramming 10 lbs of powder in a 5 lb case (sarcasm) that may not be helping.....but the powder station should not be belling the brass just delivering powder.....and its rally hard to lob lead without powder! Hopefully Mk7 will point me in a good direction when they call today. I will keep you all updated.

Edited April 21, 2020 by quiller

[OptimiStick]

Yeah maybe. I was definitely getting brass shavings when I was over-belling. They were getting accumulated in the Factory Crimp Die, and would change the brass dimension and fail the gauge if I didn't clean it out regularly. But as long as I swabbed it out every 1K rounds or so I was fine. I cut back on the bell a little and switched to Redding die, and so far still gauging fine.

 

Sounds like you have it isolated. Hopefully you can get your issue fixed.  Here's a few pics of all the brass shavings I cleaned out of that FCD. The first is the swab, the second is the brass birds-nest that accumulated up in the cap of the FCD. Pushed up from the swab over time.

 

 

[quiller]

15 minutes ago, OptimiStick said:

Yeah maybe. I was definitely getting brass shavings when I was over-belling. They were getting accumulated in the Factory Crimp Die, and would change the brass dimension and fail the gauge if I didn't clean it out regularly. But as long as I swabbed it out every 1K rounds or so I was fine. I cut back on the bell a little and switched to Redding die, and so far still gauging fine.

 

Sounds like you have it isolated. Hopefully you can get your issue fixed.  Here's a few pics of all the brass shavings I cleaned out of that FCD. The first is the swab, the second is the brass birds-nest that accumulated up in the cap of the FCD. Pushed up from the swab over time.

 

 

Wow...birds nest! Mine is not that bad...but I'm not getting anywhere with the suggestion from Mk7 so far.