I sent a used 550b that I bought, to Dillon for a rebuild. If you are thinking about doing this, it's FANTASTIC!! The press looks "brand new!! New paint, good and tight, and lubed up and ready to go. Money well spent. It is so nice I've decided to keep it. If you want a "new press" for $130.00 ($80.00+ shipping to them($50.00 in my case)send it to Dillon!!!
Last edited by hotshot357; 07-23-2019 at 02:23 PM.
I sent my SBD in .45 ACP back twice (in about 400,000 rounds) and it came back with new dies, looked new, worked like new.
Nothing quite like the job Dillon does!
Can't beat Dillon for service or quality.
I wish they didn’t do this stuff, their products would be a lot more affordable
In the long run, they end up being the most affordable!
Yep. Buy once and you family is set for generations to come.Originally Posted by sigep1764
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7
I prefer to do business with American companies, buying quality products that are engineered to last a LONG time, and have support when the product does have a failure.
But then again, I'm using a 100 year old scroll press to make brass,
A 100 year old can seamer to seal up my garden harvest,
A 60 year old canner (retort) to sterilize the cans & jars,
My tractors were made in 1939 & 1951, etc.
Some guys want cheap & simple, others have long term in mind...
Hope I'm not asking a stupid question here What do you mean by using a scroll press to make brass? You post a lot of interesting stuff. Glad you joined!
Sometimes life taps you on the shoulder and reminds you it's a one way street. Jim Morris
That's a good question I don't know either , but I have come to understand that JeepHammer and a few others here use stolen alien technology to process unworldly quantities of brass .
"The truth is out there "
About the opposite of alien technology...
More like Archimedes or ancient Egypt.
Before hydraulic power and everything having an electric drive motor, mechanical devices were often run off a central shaft with belts or gears (belts were more common, easier to make and less alignment issues).
The outside housing of the press (frame) has a decreasing radius 'hole' in the frame, like snail shells decrease in volume/size.
As the dies rotate in the frame, the frame pushes in on the dies to draw brass from 'Cups' into case blanks.
It's just a rotary press instead of a straight line press.
The decreasing radius provides the constant MOVING pressure (mechanical force) to draw copper/brass, no hydraulic pressure needed.
When you have enough motor/gear reduction there isn't any interruption in force application, no 'Start/Stop' during the drawing process so no fault lines in case walls as it's drawn.
Keep in mind it takes CNC monitoring equipment and switching/valving now to be fast enough to keep the draw moving.
In a mechanical scroll press, it's simply shaft speed, which they had figured out about 1800 or so (so NO, I didn't invent that either).
It made brass buttons and tubes for about 100 years before I bought it for scrap weight and made dies for cartridge brass. It might have made cartridge brass at one time since the die blocks were longer than a .30-06 blank, most button and copper/brass presses had shallow die fixtures, but no cartridge brass dies came with it, just buttons and tubes (almost all thermometers/pyrometers had metal sample tubes, like the old style temp gauges in vehicles).
Once someone invented hydraulic pumps and electric motors to do the work, straight line presses became the 'Normal'. You don't have to tear the entire press down to fix something on one die/bearing set since everything isn't encased in 6,500 pounds of cast iron, you simply work on the die set giving you problems.
---------
"Unworldly quantities of brass"...
Hardly!
You sould watch what General Dynamics or ATK rolls off the lines in military contracts or civilian manufacturing!
They have more brass miss the catch bins and land on the floor, from one machine, in an hour than I can make in a month if I ran 24/7.
ATK/GD runs the Lake City ammo plant in Missouri, and they kick about 10 Million LOADED rounds out the door a day when in full production,
I can make about 10,000 blanks a day, which still have to be machined...
(There goes the rest of the month in machining...)
The only advantage to a scroll press is the initial cost, scrap weight for cast iron.
It makes good, consistent draws, but it's not exactly CNC equipment, more like wooden spoke wheels and buffalo hide technology.
State of the art circa 1890s...
-----------------
There is also a reversed version of this press, the center shaft has 'Cam Lobes' that apply pressure to the outer ring of dies.
Can you imagine the weight of that outer ring die holder?!
Can you imagine trying to keep bearings in that outer ring aligned perfectly with the center shaft?!
WAY more of a challenge than I want to take on!
I've never actually seen one in person, just old books and in drawings, and I can understand why they aren't around anymore...
Last edited by JeepHammer; 08-10-2019 at 05:15 PM.
everything is relative to what our perceptions are . For me a couple of thousand cases is a lot .
Mr. Morris is one of them with alien DNA, he builds from scratch!That's a good question I don't know either , but I have come to understand that JeepHammer and a few others here use stolen alien technology to process unworldly quantities of brass .
"The truth is out there "
I'm a 'Modifier', I buy off the shelf and modify to make it do a little something I want.
While the case qualifier is 100% electric, and the Camdex can't operate without electricity, air pressure, about everything I have for processing & reloading can be manually operated (PULL HANDLES!)
When you start with manual, you can always go back to manual if necessary, and when something jams, a pull handle let's you 'Nudge' or 'Bump' to dislodge the jam.
When you don't have a billion dollars worth of aerospace designers to make the 'Jam Clearing' equipment, a handle comes in real 'Handy' (pun intended).
I have old eyes, so trying to visually inspect thousands of cases in a setting makes me crazy.
A case qualifier goes a LONG way towards not getting eye strain headaches, and a machine doesn't lower it's standard as it gets tired.
Since people mix in .204 Ruger cases, the mouth qualifier knocks them out, simply a pin on a solenoid that enters the case mouth.
Bent/crushed/undersized mouth, it gets knocked out the bottom, same with occasional loaded rounds, even if the bullet has been pushed back into the neck/case.
If the case body is deformed very much, the side wall grip can't be maintained so it falls through on it's own.
A rare earth magnet on the exit chute catches steel cases.
It doesn't have to be complicated, like guys that add magnets to case feeder tubes, I just catch them before they reach (and jam) the case feeder...
When I talk about 'The Process', it's all the process, not just what the machines do...
If you have a media separator, magnets in the brass basket catch steel before steel makes it's way to the case feeder.
KISS, Keep It Stupid Simple.
When I use pins or chips cleaning, I put a 5 gallon bucket paint strainer in the media separator bucket below the basket.
Fill the bucket with water, the brass dips into the water, surface tension is broken and chips/pins wash out of cases.
The paint strainer collects the pins/chips and you don't have to dump the bucket every time to collect pins/chips for the next batch.
Pins/chips all neatly in the paint strainer for transport back to wash tub.
KISS.
Without pins/chips, I screen out water and the brass is DAMP,
I dump dry walnut media right in and tumble again, both drying and polishing the brass.
Screen out media and dump brass for another load.
Since I use a cement mixer, a screen over the mouth keeps me from dumping & lifting brass several times.
The brass goes in once, comes out once, dry media being MUCH lighter than brass it's a back & time saver.
I sun or oven dry the media, not the brass, and the moist brass just keeps dust down, I've never had it clump like about everyone said it would...
KISS.
The reason for the cement mixer?
Made to handle the weight of 15 gallons of brass,
Costs about $300 which is equivalent to a much smaller vibratory tumbler, and cheaper than a good rock tumbler that does about a gallon.
Even 'Horror Freight' mixers last for years with brass and they start about $150.
Easy dump built in! Try to lift & dump 15 gallons of brass, steel pins and water from a rock tumbler container and this becomes a HUGE deal!
Again, KISS.
YOUR 'Process' will differ with volume and equipment.
If it's a gallon once a month, then throw them in a screw on lid can/jar and roll them around a while.
Then shake the brass off and throw it in the vibrator to polish (if you want polish).
The CLEAN brass won't plug up your media nearly as fast,and polish will be MUCH quicker, and no oven drying required.
I dump into the long, rectangle 'Disposable' plastic concrete trays for a visual inspection & transport to the machines.
This gives me room to push brass around to pick out the odd sized brass, loaded & mangled rounds, belt links, rocks, and what ever else was big enough to stay inside the screen.
That longer tray let's me use a 'Scoop' efficiently when feeding the machines.
A 'Finger Picker' will inspect as he pulls from the bucket, no scoop needed.
It's all in the volume you do, mixed civilian range brass guys have it the worst, that's why Mr. Morris built a case sorter, I mostly do bulk already (mostly) sorted, and the case qualifier catches what I don't see on cursory inspection.
It's the process as a whole...
I don't look down on small volume guys (like a lot of processors do) because every single improvement/idea probably came from a garage and a small volume guy.
This is mostly manual work that got a drive motor, and with 20 million 'Garage' reloaders working, they ARE going to come up with good ideas and try things most people discount as 'Impossible', or just don't think about.
(Like running DAMP brass in Walnut shell...)
As much as corporate conglomerates want to make us a 'Buy Everything' and 'Consumer' economy, this is STILL AMERICA, and we still have people willing to do for themselves, exercise brain cells, fail 10 times before they get the design right...
What starts out as cardboard & tape today in someone's garage might be the best idea to come along in 50 years!
I mix old with new,
*IF* it worked 200 years ago, you can bet it works today.
Why use CNC robots to move what gravity will move just as well?
Reloaders & other garage tinkers have this figured out, it might be 'Slower' but they do just as good a job as $12 million in CNC equipment in a lot of cases, and no armies of specialty educated people to do the job...
Last edited by JeepHammer; 08-10-2019 at 06:26 PM.
JeepHammer, I understand now - brass cartridges. Thanks.
Sometimes life taps you on the shoulder and reminds you it's a one way street. Jim Morris
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