Made my own wood handle for my Dillon

[mwsenoj]

Been wanting to make a wooden handle for my dillon press for some time now and did a test last night with pretty decent success (see attachment at the bottom of this post). I have a lathe but it's in storage but I came across a fella on YouTube who makes wooden balls with a holesaw and a bit of elbow grease and time so I gave it a go. (Video cred: http://youtu.be/G5x9EYvndsw )

I plan to do another in iron wood, but wanted to ask if any of you have ball handles on a press that are larger than 2" in diameter. My test ball came out about 2.7" which is quite large and I don't have too much ironwood to mess with, so I'm trying to find a tried and tested ball size that's a bit bigger than Dillons standard but not too big.

View attachment 205816

 

[bigfinger76]

The attachment link doesn't work. Try embedding the photo in the post itself.

 

[45_auto]

Best thing I ever did for my Dillon was to replace the ball with a roller handle.

 

[CLP]

Best thing I ever did for my Dillon was to replace the ball with a roller handle.

Agree. I was leery at first because the Dillon alternative is like 40 bucks- but it was well spent. Makes a huge difference during long loading sessions.

 

[jmorris]

The only presses I have with rollers on them are 1050's, I prefer the ball myself.

 

[LeftyTSGC]

I'm with the Roller Handle. Here is what i did for my SDB

 

[mwsenoj]

Let's try this...

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f...A-F211-4196-91F7-B321231DE076_zpsahzj0oss.jpg

Or

 

[horseman1]

Beautiful work! It's even better than it looks, because it looks like you may have bled on it a bit!

 

[mwsenoj]

I did a bit of checking and it seems to be just smaller than a baseball. A racquet ball is about 2.25". I'm going to grab one of those today to see if that is what I want. And yes, I stupidly chewed up my middle finger with the hole saw so I put on a dr.'s glove and a leather glove after that.

My main reason for posting if it wasn't clear in the first post is to see if any of you have used bigger sized ball handles and like it.

 

[sawdustdad]

LeftyTSGC, nicely done on the roller handle. I like that.

 

[LeftyTSGC]

LeftyTSGC, nicely done on the roller handle. I like that.

I acutally bought that online, did not make it myself. but works great.

 

[mwsenoj]

Ok, another one down. The new ball is ironwood that I bought a chunk of down in Mexico about 8 yrs ago. I used the same method as in the video except I power chucked the hole saw instead of moving it with my hand. The final diameter is 2.215" +/- 0.006" judging by the 5 spots I measured, so I'd say it's pretty round! The Dillon ball is 1.85" by comparison. I can already tell that it has two advantages, one is the size is nice and the second is that the ball is smoother than Dillon's resin ball. It's nicer to look at too!

 

[carbine85]

I'm half tempted to make a joke here but the mods might ban me

 

[flashhole]

Nicely done. We have a local crafts store called Michael's, I think they are a chain. I bought half a dozen wooden balls from them (really cheap) and outfitted all my Lee Case Length Cutter Tools (my own ball handle cutter). Much easier on the hands. I like the finish you put on the ironwood ball, did you use polyurethane?

I think 2.25" diameter is about perfect.

 

[mwsenoj]

Just a carnauba wax

 

[mwsenoj]

I used to do a fair bit of wood turning and have some polishing stuff like rouge and white diamond buffing compound and finally the wax. I'm pretty curious to see the handle over time pumping out 20k rounds on ol blue

 

[flashhole]

Wow, I would never have guessed you could get a wax finish to look that good. I guess the thing about wax is you can always put more on if it wears off. That's where character via use comes in.

 

[silverking]

I picked up a cheap replacement cue ball from Dick's. Just the right size for my hands.
Clamped it in my small drill press and bored the right size hole and attached it with epoxy.
Still solid after three years.