My DIY Bullet Feeder

[Chuteur]

8. I will give the main collator a rest for a moment and take a look at how the collator disc was made.

Now I want to feed 9mm so screwing it up a couple of times taught me that:

a. The collator bullet disc needs to be just a little smaller than the collator, free enough to turn, but not to much space. As I stated above to cut the collator/flipper base disc I used a 1/4" cutter with the pivot being in the 3 1/8" pivot hole. To cut the bullet disc I used a 3/8" cutter.....making it just a bit smaller than the collator/flipper base with 1/16" either side.

b. The holes for the bullet to drop into also need to be just a little larger than the intended calibre - I used a 13/32" drill. It worked for me!

Two things to do on the collator bullet disc: drill the hub hole; drill and clean up the bullet holes.

The hub hole: I tried drilling the shaft of the motor to put in a pin, but either the shaft is made out of diamond or my drills are blunt so I needed a hub and not a pin to drive the bullet disc. I put a 1/4" drill bit in the drill then moved it down into the 1'4" hole in the disc and attached it to the drill bed. Then swapped out the 1/4" drill for a forstner bit to cut out the hole for the hub - slowly, drill a bit, check the depth with the hub, drill a bit,.......finally I drilled the four holes for the locking screws

The holes for the bullets: I marked up the disc into 12 slices for 12 bullet holes. I drilled a 1/4" hole in a board, put the disc on the board using a 1/4" bolt as a pivot point and then positioned the board so that one of the marked points was under the 13/32" drill bit. Now using the force I positioned the disc so that when it was drilled there would be a paper thin piece of plastic left on the outside edge of each of the 12 holes - that's PAPER THIN, ok? Once that was over the outside edge and sides of the hole were straightened and cleaned up using a straight router bit - not making the hole bigger, just opening it and straightening the sides. Easy......believe that and I'll sell you an igloo.

The effectiveness of the holes can only be seen when the disc is tested in the collator. It took me two attempts and even then the second time I had two holes which need a little, tiny bit more taking away as the bullets were not turning on the flipper.

....

Stay tuned.

[Chuteur]

9. Back to the collator discs, upper 1/4" and lower 1/2":

Lower - as stated just marked out and the hole for the motor cut and also a recess for the electronics as the PCB board is not flat.

The recess for the PCB



The mdf version I made first alongside the HDPE version. It was easy enough to use the mdf version as a jig for making the HDPE version using a trimmer bit in the router and takes about 5 minutes to make one now instead of half an hour.



The upper disc:

This caused me a headache and then it sort of dawned on me....I'm not a woodworker, or engineer, so whilst I get satisfaction from doing this kind of stuff I sometimes go the long way round to get a result.

It needs to be recessed for the flipper tray/slider and the flipper ramp. The flipper tray/slider size and design was worked out using cardboard then I knew how much area needed to be removed. I made a simple jig to router out this area to a depth just a smidgen deeper than the thickness of the flipper tray/slider. Basically I wanted the top edge of the flipper tray slider to be just a few thou lower than the flat surface of the upper collator disc - that that an approaching bullet did not bump into the flipper tray/slider, but smoothly dropped a little and carried on its way.

After routing using jig. The disc is screwed into the table to hold it in place.



Then the flipper ramp area needed to be routed. Easy actually. The area of the curve that neede to be routed was directly in line (a continuation of) the curve of the 6 1/4" inner curve of the collator disc. So just a case of putting back in a 1/4" bit on the router table, adjust it to the required depth, put the disc in face down after marking on the edge where the routing needed to stop and going for it. Once the curve was done it was lifted and the extra routing done by eye and using a straight edge.

...

[Chuteur]

10. Flipper ramp

Easy enough. I cut a piece of mdf on the same curve that the flipper ramp would have to sit in, cut it and then glued one on top of the other and set about shaping the ramp once the glue was dry.

1st, 2nd & 3rd cuts

... ...

Glueing



Shaping



Test fit. I forget how many times I assembled and disassembled the collator

[Chuteur]

11. Locating the bullet drop hole.

This was a problem first time. I made the hole just back inside the sidewall of the collator well after the flipper ramp. Problem trust me. I made a new hole right after the flipper ramp on the flipper extension of the disc and it works a treat.

I also figured that if I drew an imaginary line the bullet needed to pass fully over the drop hole and not ride on any edges of the hole. The collator will be at an angle so I figured that the bullet would be resting on the back edge of the bullet disc and worked it out from there..

[Chuteur]

12. The bullet feed tube assembly.

Now, you can either go with the idea on the Crimson collator where the spring tube is twisted/screwed into the plastic of the base plate, or you can do something a little more exciting - I chose exciting as I will probably want to change out feed tubes easily for different calibres.

The bits are all in the picture and are all from L*we's:



Pic shows the working version and the bits for a second one. The grey 1/2 Lasco widget is cut down and sanded down in diameter before being superglued into the 1/2" coupling. Then you need to run a 1/2" drill up and down inside the assembly to remove any protrusions which bullets may land upon and cause a blockage. I then wrapped a couple of layers of electrical tape around the spring and screwed it into the 1/2" coupling.

The white fitting with the femal screw thread goes into the base plate of the bullet collator and is superglued in. That way you can easily screw the spring assembly in and out and change it over for a different one (calibre). Ignore the temporary brackets and bits of wood, they are just the temporary mounting arrangement whilst test running.

...

Down into the bullet tube and into the Hornady bullet dropper die. The black super expensive fitting on top of the Hornady die is a rubber chair leg tip (pack of 4 L*wes, $2.99), just drilled a tube sized hole in it..



POINT TO NOTE: YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THE FEED TUBE ASSEMBLY TO THE SPRING IS SMOOTH INSIDE.

[Chuteur]

I've had a couple or three PM's on this. Is it useful for people? And the rules are that if you build one you have to post a picture of it, ok!

Having done some test runs loading dummy rounds I find it pretty exciting that a pull of the handle gives a finished round with virtually no extra effort and pfaffing.

I had a guy around to quote for some work today and he saw the setup in the garage:

Him: "Yuh shoot and reload, huh"?

Me: "I certainly do".

Him: "Whats that reloading press, not seen one like that before".

Me: "Dillon 650, progressive".

Him: "Hmmmm".

Me: "I'll show you". Turned on the case feeder, connected up the bulletfeeder and cranked the handle. I had him open mouthed at the first completed round.

[punkey71]

VERY useful.

I appreciate all the effort.

Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Chuteur]

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I should have mentioned earlier about glueing HDPE plastic. It is wonderful stuff, machines easily, and is the stuff used for plastic cutting boards. However, what makes it excellent for cutting boards is what makes it painful to glue. It is so naturally slippy that glue will not stick to it easily. That is for glueing anything to HDPE, or HDPE to HDPE.

Solutions:

1. Buy a really expensive industrial glue at $50 a tube...........nope!
2. Use screws in as many places as possible ........... that works!
3. There is a two part superglue pack in L*we's that works. Read the pack's, you want the one with the two glue packs: One is an activator mini sharpie pen type thing that you wipe all over both items to be glued, leave for a minute then apply glue to one item and press the items together for 30 seconds........that works too!

[SeriousStudent]

Thank you very much for taking the time to create the photos and build documentation. I greatly appreciate it.

[Chuteur]

13. The sweeper spring. (Part = 1 - sweeper spring 11/32” x 2 3/8” x .035”” (L*we’s, hanging up in the hardware section))

This knocks back bullets that only make it halfway into a hole. Easy peasy.

As it is to be mounted on a curve (the 6 1/4" curve) I had to cut a piece of plastic on that radius, made it about an inch deep so I could drill a hole for the spring to go through and wide enough for two screws to hold it in place.

Google up the crimson collator pdf instructions and you can see how he attached the plastic to the sidewall. Here you see mine on the inside left of the sidewall. I made the hole for the spring just a bit smaller than the spring so it would allow for the spring to be screwed up and down to allow for differing bullet lengths.