One man's trash, is another man's treasure!

[Sonnypie]

I'm always lookin out for stuff I can use for my hair-brained ideas I get.
Last trip to the range I was can diving for the plastic inserts the zombies toss from their store bought ammo.
Tacky? Well, that depends....

See I use SS Tumbling, so there is a drying process for my brass. The plastic racks work fabulously for that.

While diving (don't fuss, most everybody had left already) I got 5 of these nice cup shaped inserts, probably from 9mm. When I saw them down there crying "Help me! Help me!" like the ending of the movie "The Fly".
I saw racks for 30 cal boolits. 5 of them = 250 count of boolits.

Last night, I had my run of 312ea -30 cal -170g 311291 boolits, and my fresh batch of brass checks to put together.
I discovered I could drop the checks in these cups and most (miraculously) land cup-up. The few that landed cup down were easily inverted with some gentle easy blasts of compressed air to flip them.
So I have these racks with the checks in the bottoms. (These are ones that fell off. A small deflugalty I am working around. Thin copper, I believe. Hence the ugly boolit base)





Then I gather up a handful of the sticky tumble loobed boolits and rack them on the checks.
OK, now to set them, after cleaning the LLA off my hands. (Disgusting stuff! ) I put a thumb on each one and push down... Click.
OK, that hurts after a while. So I pick up a little wooden handle I had turned to hold a bore brush and pushed down with that. Ahh, much betterer.
A rack or two later I try my plastic dead blow hammer thinking back on Ben with his check setter and a small hammer.
Bop! Bop! Bop,Bop,Bop,Bop,Bop... Gently! The cups are plastic. Most emerged with the checks stuck on and the Lee push through sizing operation finished the job if they weren't fully squared or seated.

Boolits with brass butts.


Prior to cleaning off the TL LLA from the base.

Why? Well, you just never know when a brass monkey might show up and need put out of his mysery.
(I happened to have a piece of brass shim stock that has been around forever. Now it is usefull.)

I'm toying with an idea to set the checks as they are made.... Stay tuned.

[garandsrus]

I use those trays all the time to store boolits that have been sized and lubed. They work great.

You can write on them with permanent marker and then use alcohol to erase it when the time comes.

John

[Sonnypie]

I use those trays all the time to store boolits that have been sized and lubed. They work great.

You can write on them with permanent marker and then use alcohol to erase it when the time comes.

John

Yes Sir, John.
But these came in really handy for settin checks.
I have the darndest luck that way.

OK, back to cutting flashing...

[ChuckJaxFL]

You don't realize how en vogue you actually are. I've got a sophomore in college who would approve highly of the dumpster diving.

You're hip!

[RKJ]

I like that idea. I also pull the trays out of the trashcans out the range I go to. They're handy for holding the brass while I spray case lube on them. We're just being "Green".

[Sonnypie]

You're hip!

Oh Dear!
I didn't realize I was that far into my second childhood....

Last night I was setting checks to a bag of 120g-30 cals that have been waiting.
They "disappeared" into the cups. So I tried my little wooden handle pusher and it was working good. But then I thought about this piece of thin brass tubing I had picked up when tinkering on the feeder for the sizing operation.
I had cut this piece about 3" long, and lightly flared both ends, one bigger, the other smaller.
The smaller end fit down into the cups and the flare to it centered the check to the brass tube. I set boolit into the tube and used my handy-dandy 1/4" drill rod (6"L) to push the boolit into the check at the bottom of the tube. Tap, tap, tap... and pushed the boolit out of the tube into the cup.
Checked square and centered. Cool! All the 50 boolits are standing there in the cups. Now what? Got to get them out, need them standing up for feeding.... hummm.

So I grabbed another of these cupped finds and place it squarely on top of the one full of boolits W/checks. Hold the two tightly together and invert.
All the boolits transfer nose first into the empty and now the checked bases are up.
I have other wooden casing blocks that are flat on the bottom. I put the plain base of the wood against the cupped holder full of checked boolits and invert. Then set it on the bench near the sizer and lift off the plastic cupped holder.
50 boolits with checks set standing in 5 rows of 10 long ready to pick up and feed through the Lee sizer one at a time.

I have 5 of these (now valuable to me) plastic cupped ammo tray inserts. 250 cups in all. 200 cups for the process, with one for flipping.

Next up: When the checks get ejected from the press, I have to pick them off the ejector pin. I was just tossing them in a bin. Then fumble-fingering them into the tray cups later.
Now, and hence forth, they will go directly into the tray cups from my hot fingers, ready to be set to a boolit as the trays fill.

Pictures to follow, but I have to get ready to go fishing with the Brother-In-Law.
Have a good day!

[Sonnypie]

Ahh, fun fishin trip. He got one, I caught none, but we had fun!
So did the dogs.

As I said, pictures.
So I cut some strips I have GOT to get a cutter. Hard for me to settle for a paper cutter when I used to have sheet metal shears at my disposal.
So I made 6 strips from my flashing "sample" of 6" wide. I can punch 14 from a strip.
I decided to put the bare aluminum side inside, and the anodized side out for these.
Pickin and cupping in the plastic worked great:

This is after the flippers were done with the air hose.

The 5/16" hobby tubing with the flared ends:


A bad picture of the tube in place:


And with my 1/4" drill steel "hammer" in the tube:


Drop in Da Boolit:



Tap it into the check and move on:


Centers them up, sets them in, ready to crimp:


In a jiffy, you have a tray full:


Continued bee-low....

[Sonnypie]

Continued due to the rule of 10.
Limited to 10 pictures per post. :takinWiz:


This was where I got creative with flippin and floppin and finally stacked to send through the sizer to set the checks:

Tray inverted so the boolits are nose down:

(See why I used the anodized side out?)


One more step to get them ready for the sizer step, final inversion:

(Remember I talked about the flat base of the wooden casing trays?)

TA-DA! 50 boolits with checks installed ready for the Lee push through sizing die:




Marvelous Dahlin! Simply Marvelous!