On pins and needles........ Saving material is a good thing if it's still strong enough. Couldn't help wondering if starting the pivots at the peak and continuing the angle to the edge would be another option if needed. But what you got could work too. Interesting unique design for sure.
Curious how you are using an openscad file in freecad......didn't know they were compatible.....details?
All I do is import the stl and create an object. Then mod away.
So Freecad can edit .stls. That may be worth looking at. Design Spark took that feature away in it's new lesser free version, which was disappointing. It didn't modify circles well anyway, but it was useful for some things.
Plate looks good, hope it works as good as it looks. Always sweet when a design works perfect the first try. If is has problems with cases not wanting to go up the incline, try more angle. If that's necessary (hopefully not), you may even want to make an outlet with more angle. Fun stuff isn't it.
I’ve been using freeCAD, to modify STL‘s also. What I do is make a mesh out of the STL then make an object out of the mesh and then refine the object. The problems I’ve been running into doing this is that freecad is really slow in doing any drawing or updating the file with the converted STL. Besides, the APP inserts, which were very easy to modify, I found the bullet plates take too much time to update the drawing with my modifications. It was actually faster to just draw out a plate myself with my modifications.
The other problem I ran into was that any STL file I brought in wasn’t on the XYZ axis center that I wanted it so I would have to offset my XYZ to try and match the STL. But like I said the Lee APP inserts, since Tyler had already figured out the sizes and heights I left the outside dimensions alone and just modified the insides to fit my tubes and tightened up the bullet fit better. It only required a quick one sketch drawing of the inside profile from top to bottom and then I padded it around the z axis. I left the outside alone and they printed and work very well.
Last edited by flybyjohn; 02-23-2024 at 10:53 AM.
I've done a lot of changes and additions to this project to suit my personal needs and enhance my usability of certain things. I'm going to see how the drop chute works but will probably draw one up with a angle to it or maybe an adapter that has an angle to it. I run 9mm exclusively so everything I build is tailored towards that. I forked the project and keep adding items to it and maybe I'll send a pull request to Tyler when I am happy with my final additions.
If you are using it for baseup brass feeding DO NOT DO THIS. I mean you can certainly try, but it will just cause you endless headaches. I probably burned 50 hours on this issue alone. Any changes to the geometry on that drop chute will cause cases to jam.
Base up brass feeding is extremely finnicky, and every detail on the design represents hours and hours of problem solving, design, redesign, and a lot of filament.
I sure wouldn't know.....I have bulge busted some .40S&W on a RockChucker years ago with a Redding Gx, but never have run into 9mm problem brass....so that's not a feature I use. Brass for me is base down collating only....and glad of it, I can see. I only do two things on an APP....deprime brass before tumbling, and swage primer pockets....and I never collate, base up, anything, bullets neither.....so that in my mind, as my best friend loves to say, "is just wrong"!
Last edited by GWS; 02-23-2024 at 03:37 PM.
Glock bulge is a thing, even with MA dies. If I forgo powder check and use a FC die I can get down to 4-5 out of 100 that need to run through the buster, otherwise it's like 15-30 every hundred. Don't feel like dropping 1k on a rollsizer so busting prior to loading should help. I'm a competition shooter so I'm very picky about my ammo, lol
That is part of it yes, and you definitely want to smooth it out. But if it is angled no amount of smoothing will solve the problem, in my experience.
to expound on your question about feeder angle, you want a lot of angle because gravity is what forces the case to pivot outward on the pivot point.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |