Collating Magma 38-100 SWC - PROBLEM

[hunter74]

I have a 14 inch MA-Systems bullet collator marked MAS14BHD. I have 14C1-15790, 14C1-13560 plates. I also have the big universal one.

I can't for the life of me get the Magma 38-100 SWC bullet to reliably collate nose down into the sizer. I've run ned with this for 6 years but I'm getting tired of eyeballing the collator when running, to manually flip the boolits that's oriented the wrong way. I sell about 200 000 a year of these boolits so I'm willing to buy something else if it's working with this boolits.

I've thought about the big Mr Bullet feeder with nose down conversion, but since it's mainly plastic I'm not sure if it'll hold up in the long run.

GSI and Ammoload are two other brands.. but there's limited info out there.

What do you commercial guys use?

Do you have a tip or sollition for me?

Thanks

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[ReloaderFred]

I wish I could help, but we can't even get our Magma 125 gr. FP bullets to reliably feed through our older M-A Systems collator. The 105 gr. FP proved impossible to feed through the infernal M-A Systems collator, and that was after we sent it back to them for refurbishing.

At the SHOT Show, there was another company selling high end collators, but they're not cheap. Here's the link: https://onthemarkindustries.com/feeders/

I looked at them and talked to the engineer who designed them at the show. They are well machined, but again not cheap. You'd have to contact them directly for pricing, and in your case, whether or not they export to Europe. At least they're commercial grade, and from what I saw, they look like they'll last.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[hunter74]

I wish I could help, but we can't even get our Magma 125 gr. FP bullets to reliably feed through our older M-A Systems collator. The 105 gr. FP proved impossible to feed through the infernal M-A Systems collator, and that was after we sent it back to them for refurbishing.

At the SHOT Show, there was another company selling high end collators, but they're not cheap. Here's the link: https://onthemarkindustries.com/feeders/

I looked at them and talked to the engineer who designed them at the show. They are well machined, but again not cheap. You'd have to contact them directly for pricing, and in your case, whether or not they export to Europe. At least they're commercial grade, and from what I saw, they look like they'll last.

Hope this helps.

FredOh, yes. The 125FPs are tricky. 180RNFP 45s also are PITA but for me the 100SWCs are worst by far, and they are the ones I sell the most of. They are preferred by the revolver shooters over here for the great accuracy and mild recoil when shooting the type of field target shooting we do.

I looked at the link you sent, and they look great. Are they more expensive than MA?



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[dverna]

Hunter74,

I live about 2 hours from their operation. If you decide this is something you want to pursue, I would try to help you out. Suggest having 1000 bullets delivered to them for testing. It should be easy to source that bullet here in the US. I would watch the trial and give you an honest evaluation of how it goes.

We did this over 45 years ago when my mentor purchased a Camdex. We brought components and tested the machine in their shop.

I have no affiliation with them, but when I saw their area code in the contact info. I realized they were "local"...120 miles away (just under 200 km)

[ReloaderFred]

Oh, yes. The 125FPs are tricky. 180RNFP 45s also are PITA but for me the 100SWCs are worst by far, and they are the ones I sell the most of. They are preferred by the revolver shooters over here for the great accuracy and mild recoil when shooting the type of field target shooting we do.

I looked at the link you sent, and they look great. Are they more expensive than MA?



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I have equal problems getting the 200 gr. RNFP to collate, since they kind of resemble a marble. The 180 gr. RNFP is even worse.

On The Mark sent me a followup email from when I talked to them at the SHOT Show this past Friday. I replied to it today asking for more particulars and pricing. I'll let you know what their response is, but I suggest you also contact them yourself and see what they say. They seemed eager to get these out there, but all the components were first class, and the machining was also of a very high quality. They had a several on display in their booth, set up for different functions. I think the only hangup would be that they seem to prefer to feed bullets in the base first condition, as in loading them. Tipping them over for nose first feeding may require adding another feature, which of course means more money.

Based on the experiences we've had with the M-A collator itself, and the so-called "support" from sending it back to have it rebuilt, I don't care if I never see another M-A Collator........! We sent them 1,000 bullets with the collator, and they denied having any to test the machine with. We don't know if the bullets walked away, got lost, or whatever, but they were packaged inside the bowl of the collator, so it's doubtful they got lost in transit. They charged us quite a bit for "refurbishing" and shipping the collator back to us, but there was no improvement. That's the reason I'm looking for another source, just to get the Lube Master working again.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[hunter74]

Hunter74,

I live about 2 hours from their operation. If you decide this is something you want to pursue, I would try to help you out. Suggest having 1000 bullets delivered to them for testing. It should be easy to source that bullet here in the US. I would watch the trial and give you an honest evaluation of how it goes.

We did this over 45 years ago when my mentor purchased a Camdex. We brought components and tested the machine in their shop.

I have no affiliation with them, but when I saw their area code in the contact info. I realized they were "local"...120 miles away (just under 200 km)That's an amazing offer, thank you! I'll have that in mind!

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[hunter74]

Based on the experiences we've had with the M-A collator itself, and the so-called "support" from sending it back to have it rebuilt, I don't care if I never see another M-A Collator........! We sent them 1,000 bullets with the collator, and they denied having any to test the machine with. We don't know if the bullets walked away, got lost, or whatever, but they were packaged inside the bowl of the collator, so it's doubtful they got lost in transit. They charged us quite a bit for "refurbishing" and shipping the collator back to us, but there was no improvement. That's the reason I'm looking for another source, just to get the Lube Master working again.

Hope this helps.

Fred

I've heard someone else had similar experiences with them before. I wrote them an email, but I'm not optimistic about the answer.

I read that one commercial caster in the states usen the Mr Bullet feeder with great results so I may hook it up to my Bullet Master and try it, since I already have it on my Dillon



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[ReloaderFred]

They got back to me this morning with a price: $8,000 for the 16" machine, which is their smallest. That's way out of the price range of our small operation, so I thanked them for their time.

The impression we got of M-A Systems is that they're a small part of a larger company. I guess we'll have to just keep fiddling with our M-A collator and see if we can get it to feed better on our own, but it is frustrating, and sure takes away from production time.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[hunter74]

Ups! 8 large, that's insane! And I thought MA was expensive. The Mr Bullet feeder pro almost sounds inexpensive.

I've fiddled with my MA collator almost 2 full days now and with new wipers from a thick plastic bucket and endless adjustments of bowl angle and lift plates it's better than before, but not perfect. If I walk away from it, just across the room, you can bet your ass it's feeding at least one the wrong way.

Frustrating is not too hash [emoji36]

Thanks for the feedback Fred. I'm too small for that kind of money. I have to sell many bullets to get even with that kind of investment, so it's no way it's worth it for me.

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[dverna]

There is a 200+ page thread on making a collator in the 3D printer sub forum and the "guru" there is amazing, as are most of the other regular contributors.

I know "cheap plastic" is not commercial duty but at least it is easy to tweak and modify. If it works you can have spare parts printed up to minimize downtime. For the cost of 3D it would make sense to have dedicated spares for each troublesome bullet profile so there is minimum changeover time.

You may want to ask on that thread if anyone is using the bullet you are having issues with.

$8k for a collator is nuts unless someone is into high volume commercial use.

[Ausglock]

The Pro version of the MBF works great with SWC and FP 9mm bullets... the nose down works, but you need to play with the inserts to get a good drop. Our MA collator is an absolute dog of a machine for anthing other than RN bullets.

[hunter74]

The Pro version of the MBF works great with SWC and FP 9mm bullets... the nose down works, but you need to play with the inserts to get a good drop. Our MA collator is an absolute dog of a machine for anthing other than RN bullets.Have you tried the 100 swcs? Do you use the nose down kit? The thing with this bullet is that it's very short and therefore tricky to collate. To make things even worse it tends to hang up at the wc shoulder.

I've had a buddy of mine 3d print a nose down conversion for my small Mr Bullet feeder, but I didn't get it to work properly. He built his own feeder from the abowe mentioned 3d parts he printed.

Another thing was that the output was far too low.

It has been some days since I sent MA systems an email, but I don't really expect to get an answer. I guess they are to busy to deal with small fish like me.

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