I’m in the middle of doing some reloading. I use a Dillon RL550B.
I’ve come to the realization that (1) I don’t enjoy hen-pecking primers and (2) it wastes a lot of time.
So, I’m looking for an easier way to fill primer tubes.
I’ve seen the Dillon RF100, but I’m hesitant because (1) it’s so pricey, and I don’t hate hen-pecking $350 worth, and (2) even the Dillon fans on Brian Enos’ site complain that it’s finicky with small primers, which is most of what I shoot.
I’ve seen the Frankford/Midway Vibra-Prime, and I would buy one in a heartbeat, but it seems to be discontinued.
I guess I could make my own, but that seems more strenuous than just continuing to hen peck.
I have seen one built similar to what you are describing it was on youtube also. They used a auto prime tray and gutted it out. I will try to look for it. Forgive me if it takes awhile I am on a shitty laptop that likes to overheat and shutdown while viewing videos.
Yea there are a few variations of the same concept here is another one. It uses a gutted out hand primer but its not the one I was originally thinking of .
I resisted and thought the RF100 was dumb for about 10 years (since it came out). I finally got one and have changed my mind. It is an awesome (but noisy) device. However, I do have about 1% of the primers going in upside down but have not spent a lot of time trying to adjust it. It is pretty new for me. (The upside down primers would not be a big deal on an RL 550B as you can see the primer on the slide and fix it – on the 1050 you don’t see them until they are loaded…)
I had a Midway / Frankford primer filler and sent it back because it was less than satisfactory but I don’t remember why. I can load tubes by hand 100 primers in less than a minute, say 1K primers in 10 minutes and it takes about 3 hours for one person to load 1K cartridges on a Dillon 550. Loading primers into tubes is 10 / 180 , less than 6% of reloading time. Regarding the Dillon primer loader, assume that it can load a tube with 20 seconds of operator time versus 60 seconds by hand for a gain of 40 seconds. Assume operator time is worth $36 per hour or $0.01 per second. The Dillon machine saves $0.40 per tube filled so will take $350 / $0.40 = 875 filled primer tubes to pay for itself. By this analysis it would be difficult to justify a Dillon primer tube loader. I recall that you have to buy a kit to convert the Dillon from one size to the other, more cost and time working against the Dillon, or buy two Dillon primer tube fillers.
You may not enjoy the hen pecking but I think objectively, it does not waste a lot of time. Think if it like foreplay. Something you don’t really want to do but something you do because it gets you where you want to be.
Speaking of which I sometimes enlist my wife to help. You could get your wife or GF to help, hell, maybe even both.
That is way, way too high of a failure rate.
I need a break from pulling the handle and find loading primer tubes to be a good way to fill the break time.
Dillon used to supply a heavy metal primer flipper that I think I used once. The late model Dillon primer flipper is, as is my trusty old RCBS made of lightweight plastic and works much better to flip primers as it is lighter and can be shaken much faster. If you are using a metal Dillon primer flipper the first thing you should do is chuck it in the trash and get a plastic flipper.
Thanks, Boxer and Thomas, those are the primer fillers I was thinking of building myself. It looks easy enough… I already have a line on an old Lee Auto Prime
OK, so I’ll just admit it: objectively it doesn’t actually take so much time, but subjectively I just don’t like doing it.
Maybe I can get my 5-year-old daughter to fill primer tubes for me…
No, really, I just taught her a new “game,” and she didn’t mind a bit. Now I have a full stack in the machine, and a full tube. With the three additional tubes I have the way, I think this may be the solution.
If I can figure out a homemade Vibra-Prime, then I could attach it to her bicycle (no self-respecting four year old wants to be seen on a tricycle, much less a five-year-old!).
My wife didn’t mind me getting our daughter out of the house for a couple minutes, either…
This is why I prime brass with a hand primer tool and some Peltors/eyepro while watching a movie.
It’s a lot more relaxing than dicking around with the progressive priming system, and it lets me focus on more important things when I’m running the press, like, you know, running the press.
Assigning a dollar value to your time isn’t really relevant unless you are actually willing and able to use that time to make money instead.
I think Bimmer has a point though - it’s not the time needed to fill primer tubes that is annoying, it’s that you’d rather not stop to do it at that point in the process.
The trouble with hand priming is first you have to decap, then prime then load which almost doubles the work of the normal progressive process. I don’t stop to load primer tubes for every hundred, I have several primer tubes for both sizes and load five or ten tubes at a time. You have to stop loading from time to time anyway, to add powder and such. Good to get up and take a stretch break two or three times an hour anyway.
I think the primer system on the RL550B is perfect. Knock wood, it’s never given me any trouble. I love it.
And maybe I’m missing something, but my press just about runs itself… new case, new bullet, crank it, turn it, and so on and so on, ad infinitum (or at least until I run out of primers)
The only fly in the ointment is filling the primer tubes, and it’s not the time or even the stopping, but just the act of hen-pecking that I don’t like.
Tim, I’ve got three more small primer pick up tubes on the way (thanks, eBay), so I when I get my daughter to help, then she can load up four or five hundred at a time for me…
I’m still looking for a deal on a Lee Auto Prime so I can make my own Vibra-Prime, but the knuckleheads on eBay keep out-bidding me. I might have to buckle down and pay $20 for a new one!
Ebay would be pretty danged cool without all them knuckleheads out bidding you and me! I just bought some Chatillon force gauges for measuring trigger pulls and such. Her is one: Chatillon gauge
I gave away a perfectly good cheap gauge. Do I NEED the Chatillon? No. I wanted it. Reason enough. Same with hen pecking. You don’t like hen pecking that is reason enough.
Thanks for the approbation… I’d like to think that I’m actually at a point in my life where I’m done paying dues and done doing work that I don’t enjoy.
Hen-pecking’s not the end of the world, but if I can get somebody else to do it, or buy an inexpensive machine to do it, then that would make my life just a teeny bit better.
BTW, somebody just put a NIB Vibra-Prime up on eBay, starting bid $40, plus $14 shipping. That’s $55+ for something that cost $29.99 new…
Who would have ever thought that reloading equipment would be such a good investment?!
As a dealer who carried these, I asked Battenfeld (makers of the device and parent of Frankford Arsenal and other related brands and somehow related to Midway [share addresses on the same street and the caller ID when they called me actually said “Midway Arms” or something like that]) when I learned they were no longer available. They said the sales volume was not high enough to make it worth while and would only be doing future runs as special orders by large resellers. I was having trouble getting more and at first I was told “manufacturing setbacks” [end of 2006/beginning 2007] were delaying them and then later that they were being discontinued and only being done on large special order runs, though I did get my small order at the time but then no more.
The consensus among the hard-core reloaders over at Brian Enos’ site seems to be that (1) a lot of them were coming back as returns because they broke and/or people couldn’t get them to work properly and (2) the production run was done, and it wasn’t worth it to Midway to do another run.
Even further off topic… I just found somebody with a busted Lee Auto Prime over on TFL, and I’m buying his trays so that I can make my own Vibra-Prime.
I have an old hair clippers here; the blades are worn out, but it still buzzes perfectly. Now I just have to figure out how to connect the clippers with the tray/tube assembly. I’m tempted to fab up something out of wood.
I tried like hell to make my Vibra Prime work without having an occasional upside down or sideways primer in the tube, to no avail. Finally tossed it. Much better to have them all right side up using the old poke poke poke, even if it takes longer. Great concept, poor execution.
Maybe they were not selling well because they were not working well?