550 Pickup Tube Problem

[Gavin Melville]

Hi,

I'm posting this on behalf of a fellow shooter without 'net access.

He has two 550s' (one brand new) and both sets of pickup tubes "jam" when picking up Federal Large pistol primers. Even when feeding one or two primers down the tube by hand they tend to jam. They jam at random places, and the tubes are very clean.

Has anyone found a solution for this ?.

PS: When viewed inside and outside in just the right light the tubes have faint "ripples" in the surface -- a bit like a very coarse thread......

Regards,

Gavin Melville.

[HSMITH]

If he calls Dillon they will send him out some new tubes, I don't think there is much else you can do. He might be able to polish the large tubes with a 17 cal cleaning rod and brush, a little JB Bore Paste would polish the aluminum in short order. Would be a good bit of work for not much in the end.

I have had the same problem with CCI primers, and it was SPP, SRP, LPP, LPMP, all of them. I use Federals and WInchesters for 99% of my reloading, and very seldom have a primer tight in the tube. It still happens once in a while, but not very often and they don't lock up the tube solid like the CCI would do sometimes. I threw out several tubes of CCI primers.

[gspam1]

Having the same problem with Winchester Large pistol primers. The copper colored ones. I don't think it's the magazine tubes as I have two and they will jam up both. I've cleaned the primer tubes several times with alcohol and other no residue cleaners.

Sometimes the anvil will be really cocked in the primer and sometimes they will look normal. I just purchased 5,000 of them and it's a real pain to remove the entire primer feed every 30 rounds.

Haven't had the same problem with the Winchester small pistol primers yet.

George

[epj]

Hi,

I'm posting this on behalf of a fellow shooter without 'net access.

He has two 550s' (one brand new) and both sets of pickup tubes "jam" when picking up Federal Large pistol primers. Even when feeding one or two primers down the tube by hand they tend to jam. They jam at random places, and the tubes are very clean.

Has anyone found a solution for this ?.

PS: When viewed inside and outside in just the right light the tubes have faint "ripples" in the surface -- a bit like a very coarse thread......

Regards,

Gavin Melville.

I had this same sort of problem a while back. I ended up cleaning the tube with a worn .22 brush. That was at least 5000 primers ago and no more problems. Not sure about the ripples, though. Might be worthwhile to simply replace those. As someone suggested, call Dillon and see if the "ripples" are normal or something that slipped through QC.

Edited October 2, 2006 by epj