GW Staar
Member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2009
- Messages
- 3,738
Hornady Bullet Feeder "slightly" modified to flip bullets and triple production! Very little cost to do it. So why go to the trouble? Four reasons come to mind:
1.Nearly zero pistol bullet caliber change hassle
2. Not only faster but much more efficient.
3. negligible cost
4. Much quieter
I pulled the idler sprocket so I could hand turn the plate during the testing…..this little video of my Prototype hand turned proves the concept. (btw, the Video can be seen full screen by clicking on the Vimeo name, then on the full screen icon on the resulting screen.)
The old turn down is still used, just not connected to the top. It serves as the needed ramp to flip bullets! ....so the top is cut out some....also there is a half moon grind where the outlet hole is.....which also serves as a locator.
Then the bullet disk is dropped in.....then the center piece.
Hornady's center piece has a hole in it where the bullet tubing used to go.......so I covered it with a piece of 1/16" thick hobby foam from Hobby Lobby......red of course!
It fits tight around the spindle...requires no glue...sits there fine and perfect.
You will notice no fancy material or hardware, just some scroll sawing on a little piece of ¼” hard board melamine and surgery scroll saw surgery on the Hornady bullet turning plate…. separating the top from the turn-down-edge.
Pattern to the right the main plate is marked to be scrolled. This one will be screwed to bucket over 1/2" stand-off nuts.
This one is the one I glued to the bottom of Hornady's de-edged plate. Glue? Contact cement applied to both surfaces, tack dry, then pressed together. That stuff holds.
The separated edge above will be dropped into the bucket where it normally goes, but raised 1/8" (I used pieces of a paint stirring stick and epoxy to make standoffs). but first it will be shaped.... 12 O Clock high is cut out the same height as the base plate's bullet drop area to allow bullets to fall over sideways. At 12:30 the ramp slopes upward to flip the bullets. Also a recess is sanded with a Dremel where the bullet outlet tube comes up.
In the same picture above you see that I used the existing threaded plate removal holes in the bullet turning plate to fasten the subplate to the plate temporarily so it can match the final shape of the plate. Below: sandwich complete.
Another view top to bottom: Hornady edge-less plate glued to thickening ring, screwed to the subplate.
Then I took the sandwich to my shop and used the wheel sander to smooth up and make all three the same diameter. One could use a hand belt sander turned sideways and placed on a bench to do the same thing....just back it to something immovable.
I made a router jig to modify the top plate (with the lower disk glued to it). Together they give me the depth I need for a bullet flipping rotating bullet plate.
Board is just there to prop up the jig so you can see the little white disk beneath and how the divet in the top of the jig was made to rotate the Hornady top. All I had to do is lower the plate to that stop, pull it out rotate to the next one and lower into the blade again. Adding parallel lines in the jig matching the depression in Hornady's plate made it easy to center each hole at each depression. Used a 1/2" router bit.
Result below.
The sub-plate disk was made to fasten to the Hornady bucket with 4 f'lat head 10-32 bolts ½” long….it also has the hole for bullets to drop in…….of course the Hornady had to be drilled below it…..and the original “outlet” was filled. Getting the outlet hole in the right place at the right size was the hard part for me. I envisioned a big hole was better than a small one and made a funnel to make it drop into the tube. What I didn't have is the distance below to do that right. Turns out that dropping it directly into the 5/8" clear tubing was better, faster. The funnel was too slow and make the plate hang on a bullet that didn't drop fast enough. Surprisingly, the heavy 230 grain .45 were the worst offenders......inertia I guess.
Hornady already uses bolts in the bucket bottom that penetrates the bucket cavity……so I just bought extension nuts, (had to use a grinder to make them shorter) then screwed on the extension nuts, added the plate (with outlet hole and bullet flipper built in).
A simple cut out at 12 O' clock on that the disk makes the bullets flip. So far it works fine for 9mm, 357, 40sw, and 45 acp.
I’m using only one of the original Hornady spring sweepers to knock bullets that don’t find a hole in the bottom, back to the bucket bottom. That used to be a the loud main feature of the Hornady....now it's minor ....much quieter thanks to not so many bullets falling back, and also thanks to a 1/4" thick rubber baffle I show in the video. The baffle also necessary to cover the bottom edge where the bullets are poured in, since without it many bullets can just lie there. I made the rubber baffle out of concrete block (CMU) expansion joint.....just happen to have some.
I don't show the bullet outlet in the video, but a search of Hornady Bullet Feeder and my name will show you what I use and how. That hasn't changed.
1.Nearly zero pistol bullet caliber change hassle
2. Not only faster but much more efficient.
3. negligible cost
4. Much quieter
I pulled the idler sprocket so I could hand turn the plate during the testing…..this little video of my Prototype hand turned proves the concept. (btw, the Video can be seen full screen by clicking on the Vimeo name, then on the full screen icon on the resulting screen.)
The old turn down is still used, just not connected to the top. It serves as the needed ramp to flip bullets! ....so the top is cut out some....also there is a half moon grind where the outlet hole is.....which also serves as a locator.
Then the bullet disk is dropped in.....then the center piece.
Hornady's center piece has a hole in it where the bullet tubing used to go.......so I covered it with a piece of 1/16" thick hobby foam from Hobby Lobby......red of course!
It fits tight around the spindle...requires no glue...sits there fine and perfect.
You will notice no fancy material or hardware, just some scroll sawing on a little piece of ¼” hard board melamine and surgery scroll saw surgery on the Hornady bullet turning plate…. separating the top from the turn-down-edge.
Pattern to the right the main plate is marked to be scrolled. This one will be screwed to bucket over 1/2" stand-off nuts.
This one is the one I glued to the bottom of Hornady's de-edged plate. Glue? Contact cement applied to both surfaces, tack dry, then pressed together. That stuff holds.
The separated edge above will be dropped into the bucket where it normally goes, but raised 1/8" (I used pieces of a paint stirring stick and epoxy to make standoffs). but first it will be shaped.... 12 O Clock high is cut out the same height as the base plate's bullet drop area to allow bullets to fall over sideways. At 12:30 the ramp slopes upward to flip the bullets. Also a recess is sanded with a Dremel where the bullet outlet tube comes up.
In the same picture above you see that I used the existing threaded plate removal holes in the bullet turning plate to fasten the subplate to the plate temporarily so it can match the final shape of the plate. Below: sandwich complete.
Another view top to bottom: Hornady edge-less plate glued to thickening ring, screwed to the subplate.
Then I took the sandwich to my shop and used the wheel sander to smooth up and make all three the same diameter. One could use a hand belt sander turned sideways and placed on a bench to do the same thing....just back it to something immovable.
I made a router jig to modify the top plate (with the lower disk glued to it). Together they give me the depth I need for a bullet flipping rotating bullet plate.
Board is just there to prop up the jig so you can see the little white disk beneath and how the divet in the top of the jig was made to rotate the Hornady top. All I had to do is lower the plate to that stop, pull it out rotate to the next one and lower into the blade again. Adding parallel lines in the jig matching the depression in Hornady's plate made it easy to center each hole at each depression. Used a 1/2" router bit.
Result below.
The sub-plate disk was made to fasten to the Hornady bucket with 4 f'lat head 10-32 bolts ½” long….it also has the hole for bullets to drop in…….of course the Hornady had to be drilled below it…..and the original “outlet” was filled. Getting the outlet hole in the right place at the right size was the hard part for me. I envisioned a big hole was better than a small one and made a funnel to make it drop into the tube. What I didn't have is the distance below to do that right. Turns out that dropping it directly into the 5/8" clear tubing was better, faster. The funnel was too slow and make the plate hang on a bullet that didn't drop fast enough. Surprisingly, the heavy 230 grain .45 were the worst offenders......inertia I guess.
Hornady already uses bolts in the bucket bottom that penetrates the bucket cavity……so I just bought extension nuts, (had to use a grinder to make them shorter) then screwed on the extension nuts, added the plate (with outlet hole and bullet flipper built in).
A simple cut out at 12 O' clock on that the disk makes the bullets flip. So far it works fine for 9mm, 357, 40sw, and 45 acp.
I’m using only one of the original Hornady spring sweepers to knock bullets that don’t find a hole in the bottom, back to the bucket bottom. That used to be a the loud main feature of the Hornady....now it's minor ....much quieter thanks to not so many bullets falling back, and also thanks to a 1/4" thick rubber baffle I show in the video. The baffle also necessary to cover the bottom edge where the bullets are poured in, since without it many bullets can just lie there. I made the rubber baffle out of concrete block (CMU) expansion joint.....just happen to have some.
I don't show the bullet outlet in the video, but a search of Hornady Bullet Feeder and my name will show you what I use and how. That hasn't changed.
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