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What's your "Duh" moment?


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Mine came today. I changed my 650 XL over from .357 mag to 44 mag, which entails going from small primers to large. Doing a major change like this, I take the time to clean and put a fresh coating of grease/oil on everything that needs it. I get everything ready to go and find the primers won't seat all the way. And by all the way, they are sticking out about .020 or .025 of an inch - not remotely close and hard to get out from the shell plate. A quick look shows the primer punch is not coming up into position nearly as far as it should. Head scratching time. Removed the punch - twice - to make sure it's screwed in all the way. Checked everything for clearance. Removed and reinstalled the piece of metal the punch bottoms out on. I'm stumped. I even Googled it to see if someone else ever had this problem, which appears they haven't.

 

I grabbed a flashlight and started looking again for anything interfering and that's when I noticed the cap for the tube of grease was stuck dead center under the press ram. The clearance between the bottom of the ram and the top of my bench compared with the thickness of the grease cap was just enough to prevent the press from bottoming out and driving the primer punch home.

 

Duh!!!! 

 

Removed the now slightly distorted cap, screwed it back on the grease tube and everything was right as rain.

 

Let's hear your "Duh" story!

 

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Had a similar incident with a different press. Had set a adjusting wrench down on the pad of my PW shotshell press. It bumped its way back under the linkage shortening the stroke and causing priming problems. I caught it fairly quick because it was a solid Stop and not the usual mushy, springy one. 😄

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just finished picking up 100 small pistol primers with one of the loading tubes, turned it over to hang it on the rack and heard primers scatter all over the floor.  I looked down and realized I forgot to put the little clip back on.  I think I only found about 80 of them.  Fun times.

 

Mike

 

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5 hours ago, VortecMAX said:

I just finished picking up 100 small pistol primers with one of the loading tubes, turned it over to hang it on the rack and heard primers scatter all over the floor.  I looked down and realized I forgot to put the little clip back on.  I think I only found about 80 of them.  Fun times.

 

Mike

 

Yup, been there, done that, only once though. 

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“Geez why can’t I get this hex bolt loose to change the shell plate ?!

Guess I’ll just force it up and out turn by turn. Shouldn’t be this hard….”

 

oh yeah, forgot the small locking hex screw on the 550 ram. Duh.

 

what’s really funny is I have done it more than a few times.

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7 hours ago, sfinney said:

“Geez why can’t I get this hex bolt loose to change the shell plate ?!

Guess I’ll just force it up and out turn by turn. Shouldn’t be this hard….”

 

oh yeah, forgot the small locking hex screw on the 550 ram. Duh.

 

what’s really funny is I have done it more than a few times.

Damn, I’ve done that too!

Starting not to like this thread as much as I thought I would. It’s just getting started and already I’ve had 2 reminders of things I buried in the back of my mind and forgotten about. 

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4 hours ago, Cuz said:

I recently (for the 2nd time), got about 50 rounds loaded before I realized I forgot to put primers in the tube. 
Duhh…

I usually figure that one out when I'm asking myself "why is there powder all over my machine and bench?"

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Put 100 primers in the flipper tray and set it on the bench. Grab a primer tube that drags another along by the clip and drops it on the bench and you watch it bounce and land right on the tray flipping it onto the floor. Get down on your hands & knees and pick them all up and put back in the flipping tray. Set the tray on your loading stool because it’s close, stand up, lose your balance, grab the stool and give the seat a Spin flinging the primers all over again. Swear loud enough to scare the neighbors, grab a beer and go mow the lawn. 

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  • 3 months later...
On 5/25/2022 at 5:10 PM, Farmer said:

Put 100 primers in the flipper tray and set it on the bench. Grab a primer tube that drags another along by the clip and drops it on the bench and you watch it bounce and land right on the tray flipping it onto the floor. Get down on your hands & knees and pick them all up and put back in the flipping tray. Set the tray on your loading stool because it’s close, stand up, lose your balance, grab the stool and give the seat a Spin flinging the primers all over again. Swear loud enough to scare the neighbors, grab a beer and go mow the lawn. 

 

Hahaha, I could totally envision that perfectly in my mind.  Wait, was your story a repressed memory of my own experience?!

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I had mounted my 550 on my new bench, made of 2 x 6 boards, 2 x 6 under frame, with about a 2" over hang of the top. Every thing was fine for many hundreds of rounds. I slowly started noticing that my rounds were getting shorter. Clean the seating die, as it had build up before, causing shorter rounds...nope, still shorter...and the more I load, the shorter they get, little by little. 

Had to step back and look. The nut holding the handle to the press was hitting the 2x6 vertical board under the bench. Every time I pulled the handle down, the nut would hit the 2x6, denting it slightly. When I had set the press up on the new bench, what I thought was the handle bottomed out was about an inch from actual bottom. So, every time I cycled the press, the wood would dent, causing the ram to go up further, just that little bit, but over time, it became noticeable. Simple fix. Took a 1.5" forstner bit, drilled a hole in the 2x6, reset the press.

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/24/2022 at 7:00 AM, Cuz said:

I recently (for the 2nd time), got about 50 rounds loaded before I realized I forgot to put primers in the tube. 
Duhh…

 

LOL... I almost did that, but saw no primer, so I started inspecting the primer chute, slowly moving the primer cup back and forth. I was thinking "why the hell won't this thing pick up primers, it was just working". 

 

Then I realized my primers were sitting in my pickup tube and not in the machine haha. 

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