Please talk me out of primer filler

[runfiverun]

my arm didn't get any bigger but I got a sore shoulder and can feel it in my hands.
the roller handle for the dillons is a brilliant invention, if I ever see one for the P/W's i'll get three of them.
they compare to the shovel handle for the star sizers.

I have had an occasional issue with the Dillon primer tube fillers but it almost always centers around adjusting the little plastic drop through adaptor up or down just an 1/8th or 1/4 turn on the screw.
I bought the second one because I hated dialing in the thing when switching from big to little primers.
now I just have them set and leave them alone.

I still have to poke the wolf SR primers but have done that so many times I usually dump 2 boxes in the big flip tray and use both hands to fill 2 tubes at a time so it goes pretty quickly.
and no I don't really care if I get 105 in one tube and 95 in the other I rarely run off 50 or 100 count batches of anything except test ammo for a new rifle.

[kayala]

runfiverun, how long it take converting from small to large. Would filler plus conversion piece be a viable option ?

[DerekP Houston]

I suspect that filling primer tubes increases my cost of reloading since that is a good time to stop and grab another beer... <burp>

you called it! I bought extra tubes for my LnL but it still takes me just as long to refill them.

[dverna]

I have over 20 tubes and it is a pain to fill them. If I was smart, I would fill them while in front of the boob tube.

In fact, that may be a better option than another investment. I just need to make up a liitle rack to hold the filled tubes. 2000 rounds is about as many as I load in one sitting anyway.

[kayala]

wow 20 tubes is a lot of plucking

[dverna]

wow 20 tubes is a lot of plucking

Yep!!

Used to shoot cowboy action and went through 400 rounds per week. The price and reported issues some had with the Dillon primer filler caused me to seek another path. But r5r may have identified why some users had problems.

Like I said, my Frankford Arsenal unit worked most of the time but it was not good enough to meet my standards. The manual method works 100% of the time and I just waited to find deals on Evilbay for more tubes.

My my buddy had a Camdex machine. I think it used a Synchron(sp) vibratory feeder and it worked extremely well. Thought about building the primer system myself but never got around to it. That thing made over 2000 rounds an hour. Made a Dillon 1050 look like a Lee. LOL

[castalott]

I have the Hornady ( red handgun looks) and IF you put it together right, it will work perfect 95% of the time. The metal tube has to engage the bottom of the tray with just the right amount of force. It has to be held at a 'just certain angle ' to work.


Small sized primers work better than large with my example but both can work really well. It is not perfect though.

[OS OK]

Look fellas....those tube manufacturers put those pesky little plastic thingies on the end of the tube for a reason...to pick up primers.

All you have to do is 'hum a little tune' and before long you'll be plucking and grinning...sorta like this...

"La.............Ti.............dh..uh..dah........ .di...............da..........." and so on. See how easy, you just hummed, plucked and loaded 5 primers!...it beats picking them with tweezers and dropping them in the tubes...besides I ain't gotta song for tweezin!

[Lloyd Smale]

mine would feed unflipped primers into the tube and sometimes just not feed. Adusting the rheostat would a lot of time take care of the non feeding but in a lot of cases increased the number of flipped primers. Bottom line is for 400 bucks and with dillons name on it, it should run flawlessly. I gave them a fair crack at getting it running right. Three trips in (that I payed shipping on) and it still wasn't any better then it was when I bought it. The idea of it is to be able to dump some primers in it turn it on and ignore it while you load and have a tube ready when you run dry. It just doesn't run well enough to do that and if you have to sit and watch it the FA unit is actually faster. For just what return shipping cost me 3 times I could have bought 3 more FA units and been set for many years. The only reason I even bucked up that 400 bucks was the FA units were discontinued for a couple years and it was that or nothing. Thankfully there was enough people out there that liked the FA unit and begged for them to come back. I bought 4 of them the first time I saw them listed again. They do wear out.

[OS OK]

Lloyd, I see people complain about that Dillion...could it be that they mount them on the bench where they loose some of their vibratory action into the bench itself. What if they were mounted to concrete through a steel stand bolted up nice and solid...would that help.
Years ago, decades actually...I wired up a production line for a little factory that made vibratory bowls to feed an assortment of shapes of items, from screws to clips to you name it.
They always insisted that the bowl had to be bolted solid to get the proper tuned action.

Just a thought...charlie

[Lloyd Smale]

actually one of there suggested fixes (that didn't work) was to sit it on a rubber mat to reduce the vibration and also had me install a rheostat so I could turn down the vibrations.

[kayala]

As I understand "turning down vibrations" should've taken care of "flipped" primers ? From what I can guess from youtube videos "high" (or maybe more intense) vibrations might cause primers to "jump over" those traps that supposed to weed out primers which are not properly oriented ? I guess the challenge is to find that "sweet spot" ?

[Garyshome]

I have two vibraprimes one I paid for the other FA sent me for free to shut me up about how worthless they both are.

[Lloyd Smale]

ill take all the "Junk" ones and parts nobody wants

[runfiverun]

a swap over is pretty simple.
2 little screws and 2 plastic parts then the tube itself is inserted.

they can be a bit picky about the primers you use, plated versus non plated makes a difference.
and the roughness inside the filler itself plays a role in how they work.
I tried adding soap stone to the ramp and a couple of other tricks.
but in the end I found the roughness actually helped.
once you have them dialed in you can hear the primers conga lining their way around and dropping in the tube.
if I'm on top of things I can dump a box of primers in and fill the tube then dump the tube into one of my filler tubes and replace everything and get a second box done before the machine shuts itself off.

I dunno how the cut the rejector notches but they do toss out the upside down ones and send them back around again.
the guide on the top being set in the right place helps set the primers where they need to be to drop into the tube and the adaptor piece has to be set to the right height for the primers to drop straight into the tube.
once yu do it a few times and make the mark-1 eyeball adjustments you can figure it out.

[JakeBlanton]

So I've been loading some 9mm today (1k) on my 650 and it dawned on me - I'm not really liking plucking them primers on the other hand the improvement is over $300 . Can owners chime in and talk me out of it or tell me resistance is futile

Talk you out of it? OK...

Prolonged use of automated primer fillers will eventually have the following effects upon you:

• baldness
• loss of hearing
• friends dying before you
• weight gain
• decreased bladder capacity

[OS OK]

Hey Jake...my wife was a Blanton out of Connecticut, any kinfolk up there?

[JakeBlanton]

Hey Jake...my wife was a Blanton out of Connecticut, any kinfolk up there?

Not that I know of, but it's entirely possible that some of my ancestors were not that picky with respect to their dealings with Yankees and might have spread the genes around a bit. Family rumor is that we originally came over from Scotland, but I've never been the type to take the time to research that sort of thing. I figure that the reason we ended up over here was because we weren't successful over there.

[OS OK]

The wife says the Blantons came out of Sweden to East coast in early 1800's, co-created with Benedict's out of England. Must not be your tribe. Yeah, I get ya...those damn Yankees!

[JakeBlanton]

The wife says the Blantons came out of Sweden to East coast in early 1800's, co-created with Benedict's out of England. Must not be your tribe. Yeah, I get ya...those damn Yankees!

Scotland or Sweden -- doesn't matter since they are both too cold for this Southerner. Besides, that's only 500 miles, about the same distance as driving from Key West to Jacksonville. I suspect there was a lot of "cross-pollinating" done before that time.