DaveInFloweryBranchGA
Member
Well, after some struggles resolving a defective part or two and adjustment/tuning/tweaking issues, I was able to produce a few .223 cartridges. It appears time to give a report of the good, bad and ugly.
First, the press had some problems out of the box that may have been a defective drill hole in the press sub plate causing the primer punch to be improperly located. This was resolved when RCBS sent me a new sub plate. While this took a while due to RCBS using US mail and them on the West Coast with me on the East Coast, it eventually got here. This time factor of almost a week mailing time between coasts was a source of great frustration for me. Press sat idle during much of this time. Spare parts will be a must in the future due to this mailing time.
Got the new subplate on and things appeared "ok," so I decided to go ahead and prep some brass to load on the press. To do this, I used an RCBS lube/primer removal die, a Dillon 1200 trimmer with trim die and a Dillon .223 carbide resizing die to insure consistent resizing. Things went really well and here's a few pics with descriptions above pics:
First, the press ready to go, notice the Akro bins full of brass to be prepped to the left, the small shop vacuum behind the press and the coffee can soon to be a spent primer disposal receptacle on the right.
The press setup, notice the location of each die and how the shop vacuum tubing (came with the vacuum) attached to the Dillon collar. I removed the fitting on the end of the tubing and the tubing plugged right onto the Dillon collar. No need for an adapter. Worked fantastic with good vacuum.
Closeup of the brass during operation. Notice there is some brass speckles getting out and onto the shell plate, but not enough to cause the press to hang up or any other problem with operation. Press ran flawlessly during this operation.
Now here is a problem. The tiny primer disposal cup RCBS provides is just too small and fills up way to quick when you're processing 4K of brass. But I have a solution, see the next pic.
Harbor Freight pipe cutter to cut flare off of primer disposal tube.
Cutting the primer disposal tubing flare off to accept plastic tubing.
I bought this tubing at Home Depot. Works perfect on the primer disposal tubing and works perfect with the primers.
Mounted the tubing with a couple of wire bundle ties from a pack I bought at Harbor Freight.
Here's the tubing routed to a coffee can. Much more capacity when you're depriming bunches of brass.
After trimming/depriming/sizing the brass on press, I swaged the military primer pocket crimps with a Dillon 600 Swager and used the RCBS swager small primer button as a gauge to insure proper swage depth. I then tumbled and checked the FL sized brass with a Dillon case gauge. All brass was within satisfactory specification and properly swaged. So after tumbling to remove the lube, I was now ready to reload this brass.
The press setup and in operation. Note the bullets, the primer strip in the machine and the big blue bin with some completed cartridges. But this picture did not occur right off the bat, I ran into primer issues, documented on my thread numbered round 2.
What was the resolution? Bottom line, the press indexing cams needed to be adjusted, the primer feed cam needed to be adjusted and finally, the primer punch rod itself needed to be rotated once it was mounted. Oddly enough, this resolution came after those other items were resolved, so it may have been several problems/issues. This was the most ugly experience, resolving this issue. Not because of the adjustments, but because everything appeared to be out of adjustment when received or was caused to be out of adjustment by replacing the sub plate assembly.
Why so many? Probably some or all the adjustments were affected by replacing the sub plate. In retrospect, I probably should have gone through all the adjustments after replacing the sub plate, but the press ran well during the brass prep operation, so I decided things must be okay. I was wrong not to check and fine tune the adjustments.
The bad and ugly was the quality control issue that caused all the other extra work. But in the end, RCBS did send the parts needed to correct the problem. They were generous in this regard and sent more parts than I needed, creating spares for me for various plastic parts, none of which I forced and busted. So I now have lots of spare parts for the plastic parts of my primer feed.
A close up of the my loading setup, note the Dillon powder measure, the Redding seating die and a Lee factory crimp die. You can also see a modification to stop primer strip movement I copied from GW Starr's mods.
Notes of why the particular setup below the pic.
I'm using the Dillon measure because I got it for free during a trade and it has a larger capacity reservoir than the RCBS Uniflow. Additionally, it works well with WC846, a ball military powder I'm using. Lee Pro Auto Disk measures, the Hornady LnL measure and the RCBS Uniflow measure that came with the press would work equally as well. The decision maker was availability and capacity. I plan to leave this measure mounted on the die plate as long as I'm using ball powder to reload .223 cartridges. I sold my Hornady LnL measure with my Hornady press and I will likely buy another to reload other powders with because I like the capacity. My Lee Pro Auto Disk measures (I have 4) and RCBS Uniflow measures (I have 2.) will be used to handle lower capacity cases.
In retrospect, I should probably have saved some money and used a Forster competition seater to seat the bullets. I will probably get Forster in the future and may sell the Redding die, though it is very nice.
The Lee factory crimp die is ideal for making a small crimp in these basic rounds slated to be used in an AR15. Cheap insurance for a bit more reliability.
For those who might want to buy one of those nice small shop vacs, very handy in your reloading room, here's a pic of the box. I got it at Lowe's.
Here's a nice box to store freshly loaded primers in. It's a cigar box, the wood was very dry, so it absorbs any moisture and keeps the primers just the way you like them, nice and dry.
Finally, this press is somewhat different in operation than my Hornady LnL progressive. I like the simplicity of the auto advance of this press and like the primer feed system, now that things are fairly well ironed out. (May require a bit more tuning on my press, but others may not run into this problem.) I don't like the die plates, nor the fixed die position, but will live with them. The LnL bushing setup gave much more flexibility and I will miss that.
This press is very much like a significantly improved Dillon 550 with automatic advance. It's bigger, heavier with more room to work. I like that. It's much better than the 550 I owned, even taking into consideration mine was flawed. The auto advance is so much nicer to me than manual advance.
Do I miss my LnL? Yes, I do, but it was an older model and after a decade and several press upgrades, I was tired of it. I wanted something new and different. While this press has had some problems, I expect these are mostly ironed out and all will soon be put to rest. I hope to load as much on it as I did on the Hornady.
In the meantime, I'm glad I bought the press.
Things I would change:
1. Eliminate the fixed hole in the die setup of the press. I'd rather have a five hole die plate or die bushings. The RCBS engineers envisioned the fixed hole would be for the powder measure, but I find I prefer to put the powder measure where I want to.
2. Add primer system adjustment to the instructions, a primer advance stop to the primer system and a primer seating stop to the primer punch. I'm currently copying GW Star's versions of these mods to my press.
3. Tighten tolerances on the small primer punch. This may be current run presses/punches though.
4. Replace the die plate with LnL style bushings. This adds to the flexibility of replacing a single die and doesn't cost anything speed wise from the die plates.
5. Offer two strengths of springs for the auto advance ball detent. One for rifle cartridges and one for pistol.
6. Make the machined parts of the powder measure case activated powder drop out of machined steel instead of the casting metal they currently use. It works fine, but just could be cleaner out of the box. Eliminate blued parts for the powder drop. I prefer in the white parts for this area. Easier to see what's going on that way.
First, the press had some problems out of the box that may have been a defective drill hole in the press sub plate causing the primer punch to be improperly located. This was resolved when RCBS sent me a new sub plate. While this took a while due to RCBS using US mail and them on the West Coast with me on the East Coast, it eventually got here. This time factor of almost a week mailing time between coasts was a source of great frustration for me. Press sat idle during much of this time. Spare parts will be a must in the future due to this mailing time.
Got the new subplate on and things appeared "ok," so I decided to go ahead and prep some brass to load on the press. To do this, I used an RCBS lube/primer removal die, a Dillon 1200 trimmer with trim die and a Dillon .223 carbide resizing die to insure consistent resizing. Things went really well and here's a few pics with descriptions above pics:
First, the press ready to go, notice the Akro bins full of brass to be prepped to the left, the small shop vacuum behind the press and the coffee can soon to be a spent primer disposal receptacle on the right.
The press setup, notice the location of each die and how the shop vacuum tubing (came with the vacuum) attached to the Dillon collar. I removed the fitting on the end of the tubing and the tubing plugged right onto the Dillon collar. No need for an adapter. Worked fantastic with good vacuum.
Closeup of the brass during operation. Notice there is some brass speckles getting out and onto the shell plate, but not enough to cause the press to hang up or any other problem with operation. Press ran flawlessly during this operation.
Now here is a problem. The tiny primer disposal cup RCBS provides is just too small and fills up way to quick when you're processing 4K of brass. But I have a solution, see the next pic.
Harbor Freight pipe cutter to cut flare off of primer disposal tube.
Cutting the primer disposal tubing flare off to accept plastic tubing.
I bought this tubing at Home Depot. Works perfect on the primer disposal tubing and works perfect with the primers.
Mounted the tubing with a couple of wire bundle ties from a pack I bought at Harbor Freight.
Here's the tubing routed to a coffee can. Much more capacity when you're depriming bunches of brass.
After trimming/depriming/sizing the brass on press, I swaged the military primer pocket crimps with a Dillon 600 Swager and used the RCBS swager small primer button as a gauge to insure proper swage depth. I then tumbled and checked the FL sized brass with a Dillon case gauge. All brass was within satisfactory specification and properly swaged. So after tumbling to remove the lube, I was now ready to reload this brass.
The press setup and in operation. Note the bullets, the primer strip in the machine and the big blue bin with some completed cartridges. But this picture did not occur right off the bat, I ran into primer issues, documented on my thread numbered round 2.
What was the resolution? Bottom line, the press indexing cams needed to be adjusted, the primer feed cam needed to be adjusted and finally, the primer punch rod itself needed to be rotated once it was mounted. Oddly enough, this resolution came after those other items were resolved, so it may have been several problems/issues. This was the most ugly experience, resolving this issue. Not because of the adjustments, but because everything appeared to be out of adjustment when received or was caused to be out of adjustment by replacing the sub plate assembly.
Why so many? Probably some or all the adjustments were affected by replacing the sub plate. In retrospect, I probably should have gone through all the adjustments after replacing the sub plate, but the press ran well during the brass prep operation, so I decided things must be okay. I was wrong not to check and fine tune the adjustments.
The bad and ugly was the quality control issue that caused all the other extra work. But in the end, RCBS did send the parts needed to correct the problem. They were generous in this regard and sent more parts than I needed, creating spares for me for various plastic parts, none of which I forced and busted. So I now have lots of spare parts for the plastic parts of my primer feed.
A close up of the my loading setup, note the Dillon powder measure, the Redding seating die and a Lee factory crimp die. You can also see a modification to stop primer strip movement I copied from GW Starr's mods.
Notes of why the particular setup below the pic.
I'm using the Dillon measure because I got it for free during a trade and it has a larger capacity reservoir than the RCBS Uniflow. Additionally, it works well with WC846, a ball military powder I'm using. Lee Pro Auto Disk measures, the Hornady LnL measure and the RCBS Uniflow measure that came with the press would work equally as well. The decision maker was availability and capacity. I plan to leave this measure mounted on the die plate as long as I'm using ball powder to reload .223 cartridges. I sold my Hornady LnL measure with my Hornady press and I will likely buy another to reload other powders with because I like the capacity. My Lee Pro Auto Disk measures (I have 4) and RCBS Uniflow measures (I have 2.) will be used to handle lower capacity cases.
In retrospect, I should probably have saved some money and used a Forster competition seater to seat the bullets. I will probably get Forster in the future and may sell the Redding die, though it is very nice.
The Lee factory crimp die is ideal for making a small crimp in these basic rounds slated to be used in an AR15. Cheap insurance for a bit more reliability.
For those who might want to buy one of those nice small shop vacs, very handy in your reloading room, here's a pic of the box. I got it at Lowe's.
Here's a nice box to store freshly loaded primers in. It's a cigar box, the wood was very dry, so it absorbs any moisture and keeps the primers just the way you like them, nice and dry.
Finally, this press is somewhat different in operation than my Hornady LnL progressive. I like the simplicity of the auto advance of this press and like the primer feed system, now that things are fairly well ironed out. (May require a bit more tuning on my press, but others may not run into this problem.) I don't like the die plates, nor the fixed die position, but will live with them. The LnL bushing setup gave much more flexibility and I will miss that.
This press is very much like a significantly improved Dillon 550 with automatic advance. It's bigger, heavier with more room to work. I like that. It's much better than the 550 I owned, even taking into consideration mine was flawed. The auto advance is so much nicer to me than manual advance.
Do I miss my LnL? Yes, I do, but it was an older model and after a decade and several press upgrades, I was tired of it. I wanted something new and different. While this press has had some problems, I expect these are mostly ironed out and all will soon be put to rest. I hope to load as much on it as I did on the Hornady.
In the meantime, I'm glad I bought the press.
Things I would change:
1. Eliminate the fixed hole in the die setup of the press. I'd rather have a five hole die plate or die bushings. The RCBS engineers envisioned the fixed hole would be for the powder measure, but I find I prefer to put the powder measure where I want to.
2. Add primer system adjustment to the instructions, a primer advance stop to the primer system and a primer seating stop to the primer punch. I'm currently copying GW Star's versions of these mods to my press.
3. Tighten tolerances on the small primer punch. This may be current run presses/punches though.
4. Replace the die plate with LnL style bushings. This adds to the flexibility of replacing a single die and doesn't cost anything speed wise from the die plates.
5. Offer two strengths of springs for the auto advance ball detent. One for rifle cartridges and one for pistol.
6. Make the machined parts of the powder measure case activated powder drop out of machined steel instead of the casting metal they currently use. It works fine, but just could be cleaner out of the box. Eliminate blued parts for the powder drop. I prefer in the white parts for this area. Easier to see what's going on that way.
