Trying to Repair A Dillon RL-300!

[seagiant]

Hi,
I acquired a Dillon 300 that someone had done some "custom" work on. I really don't know what it was they were trying to accomplish? No matter, my mission is to repair it the best I can without having to do a lot of machine work.

The damage was a hole that was drilled in the front of the base(not even straight,go figure) for some reason. The bad news is on the original design there are two tapped holes for a primer post and a spent primer catcher at the front of the base and the threads were of course removed when the hole was drilled.

I turned a peice of bronze rod to fill the hole and will JB Weld it in and any small crevices will be filled,sanded,and painted. The screw holes will have to be redrilled and tapped also.

I could I guess go into this furthur and tig weld everything but see no reason to as it takes more time and work and will not be any stronger or work better if I did. Here are some pics!

[Artful]

*** - so the gunbutchering idiots have now moved onto reloading presses - Sorry to see that - and thanks for keeping repairing a bit of history.

[Weaponologist]

It's a shame some people wont ask for professional help before they try some stupid idea they saw on a DIY channel ..lol...
Please show us the after photo's...

[seagiant]

Hi,
Well,everyone seems to have a better idea! This guy figured he knew more than Mike Dillon I guess? There were only about 800 of these made and Mr. Dillon said he lost $100 on every one!

The bronze bushing for the ram is actually two bushings as one in the bottom and one at the top of the base. The one on the bottom is about two inches long and the top one is an inch. The bottom one was not cut or damaged as the drilled hole did not reach it! Plenty of bushing anyway you look at it and one reason I am able to get away so cheap on this repair!

After a couple hours for the JB Weld to set I took a file and started getting rid of the excess bronze rod I had put in. I have a belt grinder but was scared of heat on the epoxy so did it the old fashion way. Everything looks good and hope to drill and tap and paint tomorrow. That will put me back to square one as I am missing parts and will have to make them as this progresses!

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Good looking repair!

[LUBEDUDE]

That looks great SG!

It sure looks like it will work.

[seagiant]

Hi,
Thanks Gentlemen! I found more damage with the ram and the shell plate holder! I may have to do some welding and remachining on the holders. Yea I have two actually and they both were ground on! The ram was ground on the front and back creating flat spots with a small divot included.

I thought about welding the divot up but really do not want to put heat on anything I can keep away from. The only thing that would force me would be if it would not work as it's suppose to!

[Iowa Fox]

Good luck on your project seagiant, keep us posted with pics on your restoration. I hava a real soft spot for these old presses.

[Sghinds]

Very nice repair work. Good to see people keeping these presses alive.

[seagiant]

Hi,
Well...Admittedly I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can and get the loader back on line. I'm missing the complete primer system and know that is going to be a bear as the casing for that was originally cast and I will have to make it out of bar stock!

Just going to take it easy and work on one part at a time and one day hopefully have another Dillon 300 running!

[Alvarez Kelly]

I have a few shellplate platforms around... Maybe I have one that'll work for you.

[44Vaquero]

Seagiant;

Boy oh Boy! Did the previous owner find new ways to bugger up that press! Looks like she is in better hands now. Good luck on the rest of the restoration.

[seagiant]

Hi,
Thanks Fellas! Brian, PM inbound!

[seagiant]

Hi Brian,
Here's pics of under side! Ring heights are .180 and .200 small to large.

I don't know if the 300 and 450 share the same shellplate platforms? I do know they have an opposite rotation from each other when loading! (CW vs CCW)

I might call Dillon tomorrow!

[Alvarez Kelly]

Hi Brian,
Here's pics of under side! Ring heights are .180 and .200 small to large.

I don't know if the 300 and 450 share the same shellplate platforms? I do know they have an opposite rotation from each other when loading! (CW vs CCW)

I might call Dillon tomorrow!

I'll measure and inspect them when I'm back at the spares bench.

[Daddyfixit]

Nice work! I just can't understand what some fool was trying to do?

[seagiant]

Hi,
Thought I would show what I've done so far. Have a long way to go but will get the loader mounted on the bench and then work as I can on it! The good news is the ram is still nice and tight,smooth probably as good as it was in 1980 when it left Arizona!

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Seagiant,

Not sure if this will work, but might be worth considering and a try. Fill those damaged areas flat, then silver solder chunk of steel to them you can machine to match the rest of the machine. That would likely be a solid enough repair, especially if you added perhaps a couple steel pins and wouldn't heat things up too much.

Hope this helps,

Dave

[seagiant]

Hi Dave,
Well...I'm done with repairs unless I can't get a good shell plate platform from Bryan. Then I will have to weld up and remachine that piece!

Everything works as it should so far.

My next hurdle is to make a complete priming system!!!

[Artful]

Looks to me as if was wanting to make either auto-eject or auto-feed on the RL-300

[seagiant]

Hi Art,
I think you are right! I also think it was a complete failure! Just happy the guy didn't completely destroy the loader. I don't have time to dedicate my life to this reloader, but think I've got it back in shape to work again as it was intended!

Just hoping now that my machine skills are good enough to make a complete priming system!

[W.R.Buchanan]

You have other presses that have all the parts in tact. Make drawings for all the individual parts off those existing Primer Systems and then make the parts to the drawings. This is how we do things like this.

Welcome to the world of Reverse Engineering!

You will probably find that some of the parts are still in use on later machines as the engineers at Dillion are not stupid and tend to make use of parts that have proven successful on earlier machines when ever possible.

It is called not reinventing the wheel.

This should be a relatively easy project for you, but my best advise is don't make anything you can buy off the shelf.

Randy

[seagiant]

Hi Randy,
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I just took a primer off one of the other machines and studied it pretty good. I can make it. There is no shelf as there is NO parts from Dillon. I guess when he went to a complete casting on the RL-450 he pretty much started with a clean sheet. The shell plates and linkage for the ram match but thats about it!

To make the parts,turning boring,milling, drilling and threading will all be involved. Sort of like the projects they give you at Vo-Tech School,a little bit of everything! I will have to increase the thickness of the top part so I have enough meat to hold the threaded round part that holds the screwed in blast shield. I'm going to cut these close and red loctite them together. I have made things at work and I've been pretty impressed with the strength if the parts are fitted right!

I'll cut pieces square and do all the machine work and then cut to shape last so I can hold everything correctly. This would probably be childs play to you but I will actually have to turn my brain on!:violin:

[Alvarez Kelly]

No progress? :-)

[seagiant]

Hi Brian,
I haven't had time lately have to go back to work! Work seems to always get in my way!

[Alvarez Kelly]

Work! :-)

Believe me, I understand.

Still, I was looking forward to seeing your primer system machining project.

Safe travels.

[seagiant]

Work! :-)

Believe me, I understand.

Still, I was looking forward to seeing your primer system machining project.

Safe travels.

Hi,
Thanks Brian. I don't see any problems once i can get to it! I have the proper powder measure and with the shellholder platform and primer catcher I got from you, with the primer system made I will have a complete loader!

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

As I'm looking at the top of that press, I'm thinking you could bore the hole size for the dies to the same as the big hole in an RCBS Rock Chucker or Lee Classic Cast, put in a Hornady LnL Bushing adapter and have quickly changeable reloading setups using the Hornady LnL bushings. There's plenty of metal there to enlarge the holes for sure. Sorry I can't remember that larger die size, but the Lee .50 caliber dies are that size I know.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Greg: You always have to have your brain turned on when making parts. Lots of times I avoid doing work until I CAN get my brain behind the project. I am easily distracted.:veryconfu

The accepted sequence of events for making a part are generally.

1. Square up stock, or blank out the part. Most all parts are either Square, Rectangular, or round to begin with. You should always try to get the part's overall finished dimensions as close as possible during this phase since these dimensions won't change and generally provide reference points for other features.

2. Drill all holes that you can.

3. Remove all unnecessary stock that will still allows you to hold onto the part

4. and finally profile or produce any odd shaped variations last. Don't miss any previous operations as when you get to this point the part should be done and you may not be able to hold onto the part to perform those missed operations.

This sequence will get you thru 99% of the things you will ever make, and is still valid with only minor variances for the other 1% as well.

If I am making multiple parts I usually run one or more all the way thru the sequence of events to make sure I haven't stepped on my pud, or missed something,,, then I run all the parts thru. ( I do the same thing when reloading ammunition, as it cuts down on having to use the bullet puller..)

Also Always question designs that have odd shapes for the necessity of the weird shape. IE; will some other easier to make shape work for the part.

Lots of times engineers design parts around Castings which gives them flexibility to make odd shaped parts with very little machining required after the fact, and sometimes yield some aesthetic benefit as well. Usually this means the part doesn't necessarily have to be that exact shape to still function correctly. It was done for manufacturing reasons not necessarily functionality reasons.

When reverse engineering said part you are not necessarily bound to that exact design especially when you are only going to make one or two of the parts as replacements. In fact your machined parts will probably be better than the originals anyway! See pics below:

White part made from casting, $50ea. Machined part from billet made by me,,, $500ea.! And yes,,, That is a picture of a $500 scrap part! We like to call them[smilie=b: "set up parts."

They actually only wanted 10 parts when there was 250+ castings originally made so it was cheaper to machine 10 parts than go out and get more castings made! It took me 2 full days to decipher and redraw the drawings so I could understand them and develop a sequence of events to make the parts. I made these parts twice and the first time we made the parts around round material and lathe turned concentric bores and then whittled the outside down to the finished shape.

This method sucked!

So the next time I had aluminum blanks Blanchard ground to finished size and bored the concentric holes in the mill using multiple Criterion Boring Heads on my Quick change tooling and then cut the outsides down to finished detail. This worked better but neither method was a picnic and I earned the $500 ea both times.

Such is the case for your primer dispensers base which is made from two castings. My first question would be,,, Do the tabs on the sides have to be tabs or could the holes be part of a bigger rectangular part and still work? Second question is could I make it out of Aluminum? and still have a part that would last?

A perfect example is the Charge Bar I made for my DL266.

I shamed Hornady into sending me the drawings of the part since they no longer supported the machine. :violin: I then looked at what features were needed and what was unnecessary, and then decided what material would be appropriate for the part. I knew I didn't want to make it from Aluminum as the originals were made from aluminum castings and I felt they didn't work as smoothly as they could have , so I made mine from a piece of Blue UHMW. Black Delrin would have normally been my first choice of plastics, but I had the UHMW and it was very close to being the right size to start.

The shape of the part is Trapezoidal and so all the other features of the part were done before the sides of the part were cut to their angle. I made a simple fixture to hold the part so that I could cut the angles on the sides with a tapered End Mill, as I needed to be able to remove it from the fixture to test fit it in the mating part as the width of the part governed how tight or loose it would be in the shot/powder dispenser. This was critical so that the charge bar doesn't leak fine grained powder like the Hornady made parts do.

This is the result, and it took about 4 hours to redraw and plan the job and then 2 hours to actually make the part. By drawing the part yourself (essentially Reverse Engineering it) you familiarize yourself with the part more deeply and the sequence of events necessary to make the part kind of fall in place. :mrgreen:

This is how I do it,,,, YMMV.

Randy

[dragonrider]

Nice work SG, it's looking real good.