Automated push through sizing

[Sakdog]

Has anyone ever developed or worked on devising a system for automated push through sizing of tumble lubed boolits?

I was thinking about this the other day and was thinking of two designs the first was a box frame with a dual acting shuttle moved by a linear actuator (too slow methinks)or opposed motors and an acme leadscrew. the thing would be going back and forth shoving boolets that are fed into a guide channel by way of a chute.

Another would be a ram press actuated by way of a little flywheel and connecting rod spun by a motor

Have toyed with perhaps something actuated by the mechanism in a reciprocating saw too I need to see if the stroke would be long enough

I really would like something that I could pour bullets into and hear a satisfying kerchunka a chunka kerchunka chunka as bullets are being mashed through a sizer and falling into a bucket.

I never was nuts for the sizing process

Thoughts? Feelings? warm fuzzies?

[jameslovesjammie]

Pneumatic. This is a forum member's video of a Pneumatic Star sizer he made. Completely awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnH6WhUvGxs

[Wayne Smith]

I think Sakdog is thinking of something using something like a Lee push through die. The problem there is injecting the lube. You need some sort of valve process to accomplish this. There have been several ideas posted here in the past.

[Sakdog]

This is correct, Push through. Not so much looking for a system that uses an actuator for the mechanics of a press. I am looking to come up with something that will, through a feed mechanism, size boolits en masse.

I am thinking that preliminarily I might be able to come up with something using the aforementioned reciprocating saw as the mechanical drive.. Maybe...

Whatever I wind up experiment with I will still be applying the pre-sizing lubrication as well

[DCM]

I think Jmorris came up with a way to automate his lubesizer as in just pour in the boolits and they come out sized and lubed.

[DCM]

I found it here http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=107444 .

[Buckshot]

.............A manually operated push through sizer has been on my mind for many a moon, but no move on my part has been made to do anything about it. The push through is without a dou bt the most accurate means to size, or to simply lube in a slightly oversized die. My idea was to use 1" OD dies so it would accomodate up to .75 Cal slugs.

If you think about it, ALL cast boolits share 2 items regardless of their weight or diameter. One is that lube has to be applied beginning at a certain point, and secondly lube cutoff has to be made at a certain point. Lube shutoff would almost univerally be close to the top of the pushrod, while the lube 'start' point could vary by 1.25" or such a matter, via adjustment of a valve arrangement.

The idea would be a simple die without the shenanigans of special lube hole placement to satisfy various designs. I'm thinking a ring of lube passage holes. The die itself would be a simple cylinder, and it would carry no idiotic flanges, threads, or "O" rings. Lube sealing and die retention would be handled by the press itself.

...............Buckshot

[dromia]

Put me down for one when you get it fettled Rick. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/adamsutherland/Smilies%20FB/FB%20UK%20Smilies%202/icon_thumbup.gif

[Sakdog]

Wow that link has some extravagant and beautiful machinery. Very nice. Yeah Ill have to do some experimenting with this.

Good discussion.

[Sakdog]

Initial results with using a reciprocating saw look somewhat promising. At this juncture I am looking for proof of concept.

For the moment everything is held together with C clamps but. I do have a drive mechanism hooked up to a de-handled lee hand press and it is functioning. The stroke on the recip. saw that I have is 1.125" which should be about right for what I want to accomplish.

Devising a reliable feed mechanism is going to be the major hurdle. I think the first attempt will be a gravity fed magazine of boolits. In either case I will probably have to modify the "standard" lee pusher shaft so that it accepts 1 boolit and only 1, whilst a chamfer allows the 2nd in series to get pushed back into the magazine as the plunger passes. I know that I will have a handful of remelt bullets that went sideways

The other issue is that this reciprocating saw even at its lowest setting is a bit fast...maybe too fast. I might try a router speed control to dial it down but that is a ****-shoot. I have a feeling if I slow it down to a good speed there wont be enough linear force to push it through

Fun tinkering though.