Rifle Case Collating Improves on Lee's shaker: How-To-Build Included.

Shaker Collator for Rifle

This is what I made to feed my Homemade Case Feeder for my RCBS Pro2K. I planned to make an electric collator later, Dillon style, but this works pretty darn well, and was well worth the Saturday I spent on the project. (it took longer to make the video and slide show) I can load a dozen tubes of anything in 3 minutes, and that's enough to take care of me for an evening of loading. If not, whats another 3 minutes.

I didn't I buy the Lee because that one doesn't feed bottle neck rifle. Nor does it feed the tiny short 9mm's without upside-down mistakes. I made a single, simple plastic conversion part that loads .223, and .308., and little inserts to make 9mm mistake free.
Made a few videos to demonstrate:

Loads 76 .223 cases in 35 seconds (4 tubes)
Case Orientation is always perfect as long as I load it from an edge.

64 .308 cases in 1 minute....same comment

Speed winner: 160 40S&W cases in 20 seconds.
base down every time

Next picture shows a tube storage rack on the left and the case feeder tube on the right. I just place 3 tubes in the rack and one on the feeder tube...and pull the pin. Next two pictures illustrate.


The next picture shows a closeup of the rack base. I screwed on an alum. bar to the back of the channel to make it drop in my AKRO bin support. Then I epoxy-puttied short pieces of tubing to the base. When I trim I just lift out the base and replace it with an "out" bin for the trimming process.


Lee's collator is prettier but not as versatile. Maybe they will improve it.

Adding another video to demonstrate how I use these:

Thanks JC98!!

I'm giddy! Read by 2, appreciated by 1!
Not surprised, I almost didn't post it....slightly limited scope of interest. That's okay, guys.

jmorris said:

I like the holder and clear tube. I just used PVC with clips I made from 1/16 filler rod, in a bucket. Made an extra long feed tube for the 650 that would hold 25 rounds. Gave the setup to a fellow reloader once I went with a collator, so don't just chunk it once you upgrade.

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I'm anal about never throwing things away.......pack rat, I am. That's why I always seem to have something to McGiver something up. I saw the holder idea from one of the posts in the $28 Case Feeder thread. Thought it was a good idea, but I had to think a bit, because I'm so crowded...there was just no place to mount such a thing permanently. The AKRO slot and the Case Feeder support was a godsend....heck it was the ONLY possibility.

greyling22 said:

neat. I really like how big it is and how well it worked with 223.

you know there are a couple of easy fixes to make the lee collator feed 9mm just fine. http://forums.loadmastervideos.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1771
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wonY_HaH0sQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm3sK3qE05M&feature=related i used this method, but instead of punching out the holes in the coffee can lid with a socket I just used a 45acp case. works great.

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yes, I saw those youtube fixes. I was actually looking for such, as well as for mods to the Lee to allow it do 223 and 308. Couldn't find any rifle mods so I decided it would be easier to just start from scratch.

Using 1/2" CPVC couplers having the built-in ridge in the middle seemed like a good idea. Simple to reduce the hole size. Unfortunately, no matter how you reduce the hole the slower the tube fill speed.

Rifle was a different problem completely. Obviously I couldn't enlarge the holes so those long cases would fall so the idea came to make slots over the existing holes, then "L" slots to improve speed. Shaking side to side moved any dropped in the slot away from the actual hole, into the hole. What can I say...it worked. It doesn't care whether its .308 or .223.......I haven't tried 30-06 type lengths. I don't load them progressively at this point.

Even though this is a really old thread that I repaired today, post PhotoBucket's dance of death, I noticed that....
I never posted the rifle/pistol shaker collator how-to here on my favorite reloading forum!....just on AR15.com. oops... I don't even spend that much time on that forum anymore, I prefer THR, much friendlier here.

Anyway, here is the how-to! Even if nobody cares. It was cheap, built in once day and it saved me a lot of time and money! I can't not share it with my friends.

Even if you don't plan to read the whole rerun thread, I added 3 short video's at the top of this thread, demonstrating how well this contraption works, please check them out. Hope someone can use this....it's really easy to make.

I planned to buy or make an electric Dillon-style collator (they're not that difficult to build), but when I built my case feeder I decided a Lee style case shaker would feed my tubes for a while. I was honestly surprised how well it works, and I'm not so sure a powered collator would be that much of an improvement. I know it won't...if electricity ever disappears.

I looked at a Lee case shaker, but there was no provision on it for rifle cases and they aren't 100% reliable orientating 9mm in the right direction.. Since my case feeder feeds both rifle and pistol, I decided to make my own shaker and see if I could improve Lee's design. Using super long (3') clear tubes, a funnel from an auto supply, some pouring resin and 4––1/2" CPVC couplers and some more stuff to make it load rifle too. (egg crate lighting lens, and clear styrene plastic sheet.)

I started with a 7 to 11 cup, a razor blade, and four 1/2" CPVC couplers from home depot.

Below: Used them to cut the cup mouth to the same height as the coupler.

Then I epoxied the cup-cutout & the 4 couplers to a piece of styrene plastic. Now I have a mold to pour resin in. The base and cup-cutout will be removed, so I brushed vasoline on those two inside surfaces.

After the resin dried I drill a holed in the center, pushed in a T-nut into the top and an eye-bolt from the bottom. The eye bolt is to anchor a bungee cord down the center to hold the clear tubing in.

This is a picture of the bottom with eye-bolt protruding.

The funnel was measured using the cup-cutout mold's smallest diameter set over the funnel from the bottom and then the funnel was marked and cut with a dremel.

Notice the ridge on the casting....that will give the funnel a place to seat.

Epoxy putty glued the funnel to the casting.

All glued up, below. If you think about how the funnel opens away from the casting you will see how all that epoxy putty not only glues it but locks it in. (the casting ridge locks it on the outside of the funnel. It's there to stay.

I glued 4 3" lengths of clear 9/16" ID tubing under the casting. They push in to the center ridge in the coupling. That center ridge comes in handy later too. Also in this picture is the bungee cord that fastens to the eye bolt already mounted on the casting, and also fastened through a hole drilled into a PVC Cap (cap measured 2 7/8" ID). A washer and the bungee's staple was all I needed to secured the cord.

Here's the finished product before the black satin finish. You can see how the bungee and cap secure all four tubes while you load cases.

Below, just a picture to show you the inserts. Notice the ridge inside a CPVC coupler. That makes is easy to neck the holes down by inserting a smaller tubing inside, so I won't repeat Lee's problem loading 9mm in their tool. Without it you get 1 or two 9mm cases upside down. The Case with the "O" ring is just to stop up a hole or holes so I can load one or two tubes instead of four.

Like this.

Below: For the 9mm reducer insert, I wrapped plastic embossing tape around it....the wrap stops at the ridge inside the coupling. BTW long cases like .38 or .357 don't need reducers.

Below: Black Satin-Finished tool with 9mm reducers. You can see daylight through one of the two slots inside the funnel that hold the rifle conversion part in.

Okay, now for the rifle conversion: I bought a egg crate diffuser from Home Depot (for fluorescent lighting) and cut it up with a small diagonal cutter....THREE layers. Below is the middle layer the bottom layer is identical. I'm cutting four "el" shaped holes for rifle cases to fall in. You need the "el" shape for the longer hole...to allow longer cases to fall...heavy end first. I could have made slots instead, but "els" made more cases fall faster. (trial and error)

Below: This is the nearly finished part. I used clear styrene plastic instead of opaque because clear is more flexible. Notice the tabs 90 degrees from each other on the outer edge. They go into slots cut in the funnels. They just bend slightly and slip in. All this is glued together with liquid model airplane cement. All it is is a solvent. You touch a loaded brush to a joint and capillary action glues the parts together. It's important to use styrene for the clear piece or you can't glue them solid.

Here's the finished conversion...all three layers glued. I color coded them to help you see it.


Below: This is what it looks like inserted into the funnel.

Below: Four loaded tubes ready for the Case feeder.

jmorris said:

I was about to post that I like it then realized I did 5 years ago, after I watched the videos but now I notice the OP was Sept 27 2012 and the video is Sept 8 2017 and I don't see any "edited" in the op and didn't think you could edit here that old anyway.

In any case (no pun intended) your work was worth watching again, thanks.

Also that looks like the back of a bottle of Dillon's rapid polish up on the shelf behind the lamp, your not secretly going "blue" on us are you?

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This is too funny! The powers that be, gave me temporary "edit" power to save the more useful of my threads from Photo Bucket Disease since ALL my thread's pictures are ransom notices. And I think this is a test. Jmorris, you're probably next!

Anyway, I realized that though I posted a small "I made a custom shaker" here on THR, I did not post the how-to. You'll notice that post is "New" not 5 years old. You may have read it on The Firing Line forum, but here there wasn't much interest at the time. Didn't want to waste the bandwidth.

However, in the interest sharing with my good friends here, and preserving the pictures which are now "attached" and hosted here, I added the how-to as a new post to the 5 year old thread............and BTW, thanks for the post.........five years ago.

I don't think I posted but one of the videos anywhere, so I added three or four to help explain.

As for the Dillon bottle.....I have a couple of their products....just no equipment....and not because I don't like the presses.....they just didn't fit what I wanted to do at the time.

higgite said:

Great post, GWS, but I wish you would get off your fanny and figure out how to make that work for 9mm and .45 caliber bullets. No fair using the laws of physics and gravity as an excuse for not doing it, either.

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But higgite, it DOES work for 9mm and .45 ACP. I did those first! .40 S&W was the third caliber, and my that time I was good enough at it that I started the "how-to".

there is one slight problem with 9mm, though, it loads slower. To keep from having Lee's problem with upside down 9mm cases in their shaker, I made inserts to make the holes smaller. (its in the how-to.....look closer!) But the smaller the holes the longer the collation.....but at least they're all right side up!

higgite said:

GWS, reread my post.

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I did....twice more! Sorry I'm dumber than the average monkey.....don't get your meaning, what am I missing on this collator thread?

Oh, Duh! Bullets! Yup you got me on that one! Though it's not like I haven't tried ....... no inspiration, and I'm too dumb without it. Or maybe it's not having enough persuasion or motivation....since I bought and use an electric Hornady bullet feeder/collator. (My last thread resurrected BTW). You're right tho, when the lights go out, we'll be sorry. I'll have another look.