Bullet feeder ideas

[VHoward]

http://www.mrbulletfeeder.com/
I found these people who make a bullet feeder to go on your reloading press. They have a video on their site that shows it's operation. Looks like it could easily be modified to work with the star and ballisticast machines. The unit is $469 and caliber conversions are $150. But it feeds at around 6000 bullets per hour.

Just an idea for those who need speed.

[6bg6ga]

I don't think your going to have a lot of luck with this type of bullet feeder. This type will drop the bullet base first and that will be 180 degrees off of what is needed to run the bullets into the sizer nose first. The solution is to provide a means in which to flip the bullets so they are nose down. The requires manufacturing a wheel that is turned by a motor running roughly 12rpms. The bullet enters the wheel which is turning nose up and exits the bottom of the wheel as it is turned and is nose down when exiting.

The bad point about the mr bullet and such is they were designed only for jacketed bullets and from experience they do not function well with lead. In my opinion it is simply a waste of $469 plus the cost of conversions.

A very simple collator can be made and I happen to have made one. One purpose of the collator is to send brass to the loading press which it does. The second purpose is to send raw unsized bullets to the sizing press which it can do. In order to do the second operation my machine requires a less than 10 minute setup and its ready to be a bullet collator.

[castalott]

Google 'homemade bullet feed' on Utube. There are several cool ideas there. It may take some thoughtful searching to get them all

[dbarnhart]

here is a video of a 'bullet flipper':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw0VdRcZrpA

[6bg6ga]

exactly

Very easy to make. Just requires some control such as a limit switch or photo diode to turn the motor on or off.

[VHoward]

The machine I linked to initially loads them into the pick up plate up side down, then flips them right side up before dropping them. By modification, I meant remove the device that flips them so it drops them nose first. Go to that web page, scroll down and watch the video. You will see what I mean.

The only reason bullet feeders don't like lead bullets is because the lube in the groove gums them up. These would be fed before they were lubed.

[6bg6ga]

So if I understand you correctly the Mr. Bullet sends the bullets out nose first and then have a flipper to turn them base first? Never saw that function when I saw the first model of them. In my opinion they still do not work well with lead as they were designed for jacketed bullets and probably have a disclaimer for such.

If so they are still way over priced for what they are . Their asking price would build a number of DIY machines. Caliber conversions for $150 is totally ridiculous for a piece of molded plastic.

Just my opinion

[6bg6ga]

The machine I linked to initially loads them into the pick up plate up side down, then flips them right side up before dropping them. By modification, I meant remove the device that flips them so it drops them nose first. Go to that web page, scroll down and watch the video. You will see what I mean.

The only reason bullet feeders don't like lead bullets is because the lube in the groove gums them up. These would be fed before they were lubed.

You have to take into consideration that we both know and understand bullet sizing and lubing operations. So I fully understand that lubed bullets wouldn't be fed into a collator and back into a sizer. Lead and lead particles are the problem as they make a mess after time. Have played with a number of commercially made collators as well as manufactured my own. Using lead in a collator seems to require tolerances to be larger. Jacketed bullets having been made under tighter tolerances work well with the commercial machines.

My suggestion is to scrap the Mr. Bullet idea all together. Look at you tube as there is a nice design that can be made for less that $50 and a flipper for another $35-40 You not only will be money ahead but will have something that actually works

[VHoward]

I understand that the price is overboard. But also understand that the collator that Balisti-Cast is working on will also be in the $500 range. Magma's is around $1000 last time I checked.

The flipper in the Mr Bullet feeder is in the bowl. You can plainly see it happening in the video. It looks like it could be removed.

[slinger35]

Mr BulletFeeder will have a conversion for their boolit feeder to orient the boolits nose down in the near future for usage with the Star or Ballist-cast lube sizers. Use the base down conversion for reloading ammo. 1 Boolit feeder does it all. Will feed cast boolits as easy as jacketed. These boolit feeders are being used by ammo loaders that load millions of boolits on Camdex and AmmoLoad machines loading cast and jacketed. It comes set up for reloading. Optional nose first conversion will be in the $75.00 range. The Mr. Bullet feeder I have eats cast boolits as long as you use non tacky lubes. But when lube sizing there is no lube on the bullet until it is done.