Limitation of the Hornady bullet feeder

[Don1357]

Howdy all;

This weekend in one fell swoop I upgraded my entire reloading setup. Let's just say that it pays to setup those Craiglist notifications to your email. I went from having a budget Lee turret press to a Hornady progressive with a ton of bits and pieces.

Now I'm thinking about getting the bullet feeder. Anybody got any experience with them and care to share? Does it work well with cast bullets? How about rifle bullets?

[JimB..]

I have one.
It is loud and near my head, so I throw a towel over it.
I use it for pistol, don’t think there are dies for .22 caliber rifle bullets.
I expect it would gum up with lubricant, but should work fine with coated bullets, haven’t tried.
You can buy just the die and use pvc or al tubing to feed bullets if you want to try without investing in the collator.

[Bohica793]

Go with the Mr Bullet Feeder dies rather than the Hornady. I started with the Hornady die and could never keep it adjusted. The Mr Bullet Feeder just works.

[Don1357]

So the dies are the same with or without the electric hopper? Awesome.

How finicky are they for bullet sizes? As you know cast bullets can have a bit of a range.

I see 44 which I shot, but no 45-70 which is fatter than 45ACP. that sucks.

[JimB..]

I hear only great things about the Mr Bullet feeder dies. I also hear that they did a better job implementing a copy of the Lyman M die on their powder through expander than Hornady did, but I haven’t compared.

I don’t believe that there is a .458 die, or at least I’ve never seen one.

[lancem]

I use the Hornady dies with cast and the plastic tubes. Works great, at least for 9mm which I load a ton of on my LNL. The only thing I did in this case was buy both 38/357 die and the 9mm, switched part of the innards so that they would handle my oversized .357 9mm cast boolits. Others have simply enlarged the die a bit to make them work but I don't like changing things if I don't have to, may want to load jacketed stuff someday.

[1bluehorse]

Not sure which bullet feeder die we're talking about now. Started with Hornady and went to Mr Bulletfeeder. I can tell you the Hornady bullet feed die for 9mm does NOT work well with plated 9mm bullets. Some times they drop sometimes they don't. Got tired of screwing with it (with the Bully adapter and Lee bullet tubes) so it's sitting on the shelf.

[BNE]

Go with the Mr Bullet Feeder dies rather than the Hornady. I started with the Hornady die and could never keep it adjusted. The Mr Bullet Feeder just works.

I did the same thing. I like Hornady, but they missed the mark with their bullet feeder. I would not even bother with the collator. Look up Mr. Bullet feeder and get the cylinders they sell instead of the collator. Stupidly easy to use and set up. If it looks like a bullet, Mr. bullet feeder will drop it perfectly in your brass.