Once again, a large lot of rusty, crusty, and busted reloading equipment found its way back to my garage. Actually, there were/are some really nice pieces in the mix including a Star lube-sizer (brand new, never had lube in it), a LAM-II, sizing dies for both the Star and LAM, a bunch of Lyman molds, a nice Lyman pot, and die sets. Besides the Star sizer, what really caught my eye in the listing was a RCBS Green Machine in 38/357. Just to preface all this, I am fully aware of the horror stories that these machines leave in their wake. No fear, I have other RCBS and Dillon machines to keep the loaded rounds flowing. I've been on the look out for one of these machines for some time now as I have developed a sickness for tracking down and cleaning up old and interesting reloading equipment. The GM is just going to be a project/conversation piece, and, if I can get it working smoothly, all the better. Plus, for the $$ I spent on the whole lot, the casting and sizing equipment made me feel pretty good about the investment.
So lets see what we're working with. The listing categorized the equipment as having "light surface rust"....
Well, that might have been a slight understatement. At least all the parts were mostly freely moving. The only obvious part missing is the case feeder. Even the dreaded primer feed system is present and accounted for. The Little Dandy powder measure (and a couple of charge bars) were in a separate box and appear to be in like-new condition. Fortunately, RCBS put together a very detailed owners manual and parts list/diagram for this machine. This comes in super handy as there are apparently some where in the realm of 5,000 pieces to this beast (only a slight exaggeration).
So, lets get started tearing this abomination apart!
Luckily, so far everything has broken free after a day or so of soaking with penetrating oil. There is a LOT of rust on the majority of the blued parts, but most don't seem to be pitted too badly. The paint is actually in pretty good condition. The plan is to give all the rusty bits a good soak in Evaporust and see what comes out. So into the magic elixir they go!
Which brings us up to date as of this morning. I'll keep updating this thread as this progresses. In the mean time, if anyone has one of these buried in their back yard or ready to gift as a white-elephant to your mother-in-law for Christmas, let me know. I might be interested in complete/incomplete machines and parts!
DdB