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View Full Version : AFTER they fall through...what then?



FN in MT
12-09-2008, 11:51 PM
Other than gravity and a simple tray to catch the slugs as they fall out of the bottom of the STAR sizer.....any trick methods to send them from the sizer to some sort of container??

I've thought of a CURVED piece of PVC pipe to dispense them to the shelf under my bench.

Before I try to reinvent the wheel...

FN in MT

HeavyMetal
12-10-2008, 12:03 AM
I take it your using a Star?

I have built a "lip" on the metal stand mine sets on. This comes out at a 90 degree angle from the sizer and puts a small box, with a female lip that slides over my metal "lip" just under the "Hole" the sized and lubed boolits fall out of.

I then put a soft rag folded a few times in the bottom and then stretch a shop rag with a hole in it over the top and tape it tightly in place. Boolits hit the stretched rag roll to the hole and then fall in to the box on the soft rag!

Depending on the size of the box used I can do severl hundred before I need to empty it and don't worry about dents and dings in the boolits!

Big secret here: don't put the hole in the shop rag directly under the spot the boolits drop out of! A little offset here keeps things rolling nicely!

GSM
12-10-2008, 12:54 AM
A piece of styrofoam plate - keep it clean and the lube won't stick to it too much.

garandsrus
12-10-2008, 01:03 AM
FN in MT,

For gas checked boolits, which are commonly rifle boolits for me, I catch each one with my hand and put it in the plastic container that store bought pistol ammo comes in. For non-gas checked boolits, which are normally pistol boolits, I put a plastic bin under the hole and have the boolits bounce off a rag and then into the bin.

John

Russel Nash
12-10-2008, 01:36 AM
I saw a pic here where a guy used an akrobin like what Dillon uses for brass and loaded rounds and attached that to the front of his bench. He also used the stamped sheet metal ramp.

454PB
12-10-2008, 01:41 AM
I treat every boolit as if it were an egg.....no banging together. Each one drops from the Star into my hand, is inspected, and placed base down in a storage container.

runfiverun
12-10-2008, 02:38 AM
i put mine on a bench with a drawer under it and fill the drawer with my hand.
or not depending on what i am doing.
i drilled a hole in the top of the bench but you could mount yours on the edge and just open the drawer.
i keep a small compressor under the bench and the lube and sizers on the top behind the starrs.
i piped the compressor up and along the wall with outlets for each machine and a power strip on the underside with the machines plugged into it and the flip switch sits on the table next to the sizers.

Forester
12-13-2008, 04:11 PM
I saw a pic here where a guy used an akrobin like what Dillon uses for brass and loaded rounds and attached that to the front of his bench. He also used the stamped sheet metal ramp.

Like this?

http://i383.photobucket.com/albums/oo273/VTForester/Star2.jpg

http://i383.photobucket.com/albums/oo273/VTForester/star1.jpg

I have since added a Star heated base instead of the Lyman and a boolit feeder and the shovel handle. My casting is primarily pistol bullets so I don't feel the need to baby each one. The Akro Bin holds about 400 +/- 200gr .452 LSWCs every third bin full or so I add another tube of bullet lube and get back to sizing.

A tip if you do it this way. with the spacing shown in the pics above you have to remove the chute when you want to change dies. When I did the other upgrades I added another piece of 2x6 so I can change dies without taking the whole mess apart.

FN in MT
12-13-2008, 04:56 PM
Forester,

Thanks for taking the time to do a digital and post it. I did basically the same thing yesterday. Took the dillon piece off my 550 and mounted it to the bench. Works pretty well. I have a thicker bench so was able to mount it low enough to allow die removal.

Still haven't got the STAR up and running to any degree...neeed to cast way more boolits...but I think it should work fine.

It's currently a bit below zero so the thought of going out into the COLD garage, starting up the furnace and having at it....isn't very appealing. LOL.

FN in MT

Forester
12-13-2008, 05:24 PM
Forester,

Thanks for taking the time to do a digital and post it. I did basically the same thing yesterday. Took the dillon piece off my 550 and mounted it to the bench. Works pretty well. I have a thicker bench so was able to mount it low enough to allow die removal.

Still haven't got the STAR up and running to any degree...neeed to cast way more boolits...but I think it should work fine.

It's currently a bit below zero so the thought of going out into the COLD garage, starting up the furnace and having at it....isn't very appealing. LOL.

FN in MT

"The heats in your tools"[smilie=1:

It should not take long for the sprue to freeze in that sorta weather.

No_1
12-13-2008, 06:19 PM
Forrester,

Excellent contribution to the post and ingenious use of what you have available to make something more usable to you.

Robert

KYCaster
12-13-2008, 07:27 PM
Like this?

I have since added a Star heated base instead of the Lyman and a boolit feeder and the shovel handle.



Forester, how do you like the boolit feeder? I tried it and it slowed down production substantially, especially when I factored in the time it took to load the tubes.

Seems like a lot of guys like them.

Jerry

madcaster
12-13-2008, 07:37 PM
Forester,
You have a great setup there!

cajun shooter
12-14-2008, 10:41 AM
I use the same setup as Forester. I think the chute came off my 550AT. The only problem is that a bullet will sometimes slip through the slot and go to the floor. When sizing bullets with a large lube groove and soft lube it doesn't work as well. This is when I catch each one and put it in styrofoam trays. Hard lubes work great.

Forester
12-14-2008, 12:51 PM
I use the same setup as Forester. I think the chute came off my 550AT. The only problem is that a bullet will sometimes slip through the slot and go to the floor. When sizing bullets with a large lube groove and soft lube it doesn't work as well. This is when I catch each one and put it in styrofoam trays. Hard lubes work great.

If you look closer at the chute on mine, I took a piece of cardboard, and duct taped it to the chute,, it fills the little cutout in the chute and it adds some padding so bullets don't get dinged more than necessary.

Forester
12-14-2008, 12:59 PM
Forester, how do you like the boolit feeder? I tried it and it slowed down production substantially, especially when I factored in the time it took to load the tubes.

Seems like a lot of guys like them.

Jerry

I tried loading a bunch of tubes but when you figure in the time doing that it did not save anything, let me see if I can explain my process with the boolit feeder.

First, with the temperature and pressure up to what they need to be I fill the factory tube all the way up. Then I start pulling the handle and pickup a handful of bullets from the tray to the left. While pulling the handle I drop more bullets into the tube. Usually I can get through 2-4 handfulls before the rate I am pulling the handle out runs my rate of filling it. Thats ok because at about 4 or 5 handfuls fed without stopping for a second I can outrun the temp/pressure and not get good lube grove fill. At that point I stop with the handle long enough to refill the tube (12 or 13 200gr LSWCs) and then start the process over. I can comfortably run 12-1500 bullets an hour this way. The limit is really only how fast you pull the handle you can always up the temp and pressure but if you pause too long then you end up with a mess!

If that does not make sense I will take a video and see if I can post it here somehow.

runfiverun
12-14-2008, 06:33 PM
i just sort the boolits and fill all 25 tubes at a time, then start sizing and get someone to fill tubes while i go. if i can't then the 750 i do at a time will have to do till i fill them again.

KYCaster
12-14-2008, 09:50 PM
Forester, that makes sense. The thing I disliked most about the boolit feeder was the handle travel on the up-stroke to pick up the next boolit. When trying to go fast I would often fail to push up far enough and mis-feed. Very frustrating. I imagine that the D handle would help that situation a lot, but I never tried one.

I do the same thing for very short runs on the Size Master. Not hard to do a couple hundred before the machine outruns me.

When feeding boolits directly into the die you need to raise the handle just enough to get the boolit under the punch. The difference in the handle stroke makes a big difference in the production rate...of course you have to be careful not to center-punch your thumb in the process. I came close a few times but so far haven't drawn blood.

FN...sorry for hi-jacking your thread, but to answer your original question...I had a shelf on the front of the bench and let the boolits drop directly into the box they were packaged in. That was for production runs with hard alloy and hard lube. When sizing boolits for my own use I may drop them directly in the box, drop them on a cushioned surface or even catch each individual one, depending on the circumstances.

Jerry

chrisx1
12-15-2008, 12:26 AM
I just have a small akro bin mounted below it. My bench is fairly thick, so it works for me.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii174/chrisx1/DSC03608.jpg

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii174/chrisx1/DSC03610.jpg

Russel Nash
12-15-2008, 06:34 PM
so this bullet feeder contraption is just a tube you have to fill by hand?

That kinda sucks.

I thought Star or Magma made a collator/feeder for it.

You put the bullet's in the hopper, a motor spins a plate and drops them down a tube and then they go into your star lube sizer.

Forester
12-16-2008, 02:06 PM
so this bullet feeder contraption is just a tube you have to fill by hand?

That kinda sucks.

I thought Star or Magma made a collator/feeder for it.

You put the bullet's in the hopper, a motor spins a plate and drops them down a tube and then they go into your star lube sizer.

They do, but its about $600!

I think the boolit feeder has upped my production by about 3-400 boolits per hour.

GabbyM
12-17-2008, 11:56 AM
I've come down on my thumb once with the punch. imagine if I made much of a habbit of that I'd get a bullet feeder.

I use the Akro bin holder off my Dillon as do others posted here. However I mount the bracket on top of the bench to the left of the Sizer. Which places the bin underneath the die. the little bullet shoot sticks up on the left side and I rest my wrist on it while dropping bullets in the die. This way I know where my hand is. so far I've kept in rythum well enough to still have my finger tips. Drop bullet , roll wrist back THEN stroke ram.

Russel Nash
12-17-2008, 05:44 PM
Forester on the first page wrote:


If that does not make sense I will take a video and see if I can post it here somehow.



That would be great because I have NO idea what these tubes are that you guys are talking about filling up with bullets.

YouTube would be my suggestion for posting a video.

Just come back in here and post the link.

Thanks!

Forester
12-17-2008, 05:49 PM
Forester on the first page wrote:



That would be great because I have NO idea what these tubes are that you guys are talking about filling up with bullets.

YouTube would be my suggestion for posting a video.

Just come back in here and post the link.

Thanks!

I plan to cast some in the next couple days, especially if this rain continues here. I will see about taking a video when I size them up.