Cast Bullets in Bullet Feeder on Dillon Progressive

[AnthonyB]

Anyone using conventional lubed boolits in an automated bullet feeder? I am curious about the lube gumming up the feeder. I’ll be using Carnauba Red.
Tony

[oldsman]

I tried it, way to many hang ups even with hard lube like magma I was fiddling trying to get it to work on the mrbullet feeder it was faster to set the bullet by hand then dealing with all the jams . I now switched to powder coating and feed as slick as jacketed

[Pee Wee]

Anyone using conventional lubed boolits in an automated bullet feeder? I am curious about the lube gumming up the feeder. I’ll be using Carnauba Red.
Tony

I have adapted the lee bullet feeder to my 550 and a buddys 650 works great. You have to use a lee bullet seating die tho.

[KAYDADOG]

I once had the same results. Lubed bullets would not work in a auto bullet feeder.
Came across this here awhile ago and the solution was coating the bullets in Mica.
Very little is needed. Place in a plastic bag and roll them around to get 100% coated.
Sometimes in the lower feeder one of the retaining balls may dig into the lube if not 100% coated.
For the most part Mica did solve the problem and now I have no problem using cast lubed bullets in a auto bullet feeder.
Hope this helps.

[Rfeustel]

I tried mica and had mixed results and made a mess. I think the bullets had soft lube. I switched to PC and never looked back (or hand feed). I haven’t tried tumble lube and would be interested to hear people’s experience with that.

[dverna]

Many reports of lubed bullets not working with bullets feeders. I am looking at getting a bullet feeder, and will try BLL first. PC is too messy for me and I worry about the fumes from baking.

Will follow with interest.

Will look into the Lee unit as well.

[jmorris]

The only one I could use for more than a couple thousand without cleaning was a GSI feeder with a custom collator I built that’s not completely unlike the MA Systems collators for commercial reloading machines.

I don’t know of any of the “dropper” style feeders that work well with was lube.

There was a finger style bullet feeder that was pneumatic, sold by Scarch IIRC that worked with wax bullets but the far less expensive plastic Lee bullet feeder doesn’t work well for long with any bullet before you have to restore the tension by taking it apart and boiling the fingers. It winds up being faster to put it in a drawer and go by hand, even with a collator.

[dverna]

After looking at the Lee, it seems very Mickey Mouse.

[jmorris]

That’s a nice way to put it. The concept is OK, the execution just didn’t turn out well.

The only photo I could find of the pneumatic one that Lee must have copied is in this thread.

https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/1...bullet-feeder/

They, like the MA Systems collator were quite expensive but constructed very well.

[Rfeustel]

I should also add I tried the hornady die when it first came out, and the RCBS collet style die. I gave up on those too. So now I buy PC for common calibers and profiles, and hand feed for everything else. I’m sure someone has figured out the magic. I’ll probably try 45-45-10 and see how that goes.

[dverna]

That’s a nice way to put it. The concept is OK, the execution just didn’t turn out well.

The only photo I could find of the pneumatic one that Lee must have copied is in this thread.

https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/1...bullet-feeder/

They, like the MA Systems collator were quite expensive but constructed very well.

I could not get the link to work. Anyway, "expensive" is relative. Having a $40 do-dad that does not work reliably is expensive. I do not enjoy tinkering and adjusting. If $150 does the job it is worth it for me.

If I go with a bullet feeder, I will buy a bullet die and hand feed it. I cannot see much of a speed increase by adding a collator. My desire for a bullet die is to prevent my fingers getting pinched placing bullets under the tool head. But a bullet die that will not handle lubed bullets off the Star is worthless. I prefer to size and lube in one operation. If I need to PC, it kills it for me. Having to both PC and size reduces productivity by 50% and gains nothing over hand placing lubed bullets on the 1050.

Since 90% of what I shoot is .38/.357 and 9mm, using BLL might be sufficient. I would try that as an option. If it works, I would get a custom mold for each caliber so I would not need to size.

[jmorris]

Anyway, "expensive" is relative.

True. Back when a new 1050 cost $1200, the MA Systems collators were around $1000 by themselves. The feeders were more than that, likely a reason I can’t find many photos of them these days. There was a good video of how they worked on ghostholster.com when Angus was selling a used one with collator for a little over $1k but he took it down.

[LenH]

I bought a Mini Mr Bullet feeder in .45 AP and I used it for about a year. I was using lubed bullets with the thing with Valiant 160 Gr lead SWCs. The red lube made the tubes nasty,
but it worked for what it was and caused more problems that it solved. I took it off the 550B and put it up and somewhere in my stash of not used reloading tools.