Case Feeder Makes Your Ammo Reloading More Efficient

case-feed-ammo-reloader

For those that are into reloading their own ammo you know that getting an efficient assembly line process figured out will make your sessions much more enjoyable and productive. [Msoejacobsk] knew that he could buy a case feeder for his system, but didn’t want to shell out two hundred bucks for it. After a bit of thought he was able to build this case feeder for around ten dollars.

The purpose of the rig is to orient each empty casing correctly and feed it to the reloading hardware. This is accomplished by first separating one casing at a time using this angled tumbler. The disc that makes up the floor has slots cut in it which are the size of one casing. When that slot gets to the highest point of its rotation there is an opening through which the casing falls. To ensure proper orientation a V-shaped piece of heavy wire has been place in the middle of the opening. This acts as a fulcrum, letting the heavier base pull the casing in that direction. You can see this happen in the clip after the break.

[Thanks Alex]

87 thoughts on “Case Feeder Makes Your Ammo Reloading More Efficient

      1. Careful now! Don’t you know that guns kill? In fact, anything to do with guns, including brass, dies, chronographs, and weight scales kill. Reloading books are highly toxic. Even the word “gun” is highly radioactive, and should never be spoken out loud. Geesh!

        Agreed, nice project. I just helped a friend of mind re-purpose some old gearmotors (torn out of some large printers) to build fixtures for primer pocket cleaning, case trimming, and tumbling.

    1. ummm… Really, really!?
      Because “ammo” is mentioned it’s inherently divisive?
      This is a “re-purposing” site right?
      This is only used aligning brass pieces that have a weighting bias.

      …Does anyone really think restricting a gun is going to stop anyone from causing mass chaos!?
      Yes this is legit, yes it’s got many different uses for production alignment of many different loose stock.

      Thanks, HaD… Thanks for posting these things that I don’t have time totrack down.

      1. Yep, really. He’s not doing anything dangerous, illegal or wrong… so “why not”? That was in response to “Really”???

        I am assuming that CoolMod is upset that this has anything to do with guns.

    1. I was watching the original video trying to see where this invisible V shaped heavy wire was, and came to the same conclusion as to how he actually sorted the shells.

      Nicley done solution! Elegant, and no arduino in sight :)

    2. Thanks, I didn’t get it till I watched that vid. He’s relying on the center of gravity being about 1cm from the closed end and 4cm or so from the open end. By having the gap for the shell to fall through be shorter than the distance from the closed end to the center of gravity, the shell either tips and falls closed side down as soon as the CoG is over the gap or (if it’s backwards) is supported by the far side of the gap before the shell is able to fall open side down then continues to rotate until there is enough room for it to tip the other way and fall with the closed side of the shell down again. Of course he might have narrated all that, but I have no sound.

      Very clever.

  1. Its refreshing to see an online website that isn’t curbing away from gun related storys for fear that a the public might get upset. Gun ownership is an inherent human right, protected by the constitution. Sites like Gizmodo that publish Anti-Gun articles, encouraging the abridging of these inherent rights, frankly its disturbing. Glad to see,

      1. Not to turn this political…
        but Gun ownership -is- an inherent human right, recognised and protected by our constitution, specifically the 2nd Amendment. Just because countries outside of America choose not to recognise it as such, doesnt mean its not true. Being aware of places where the right to properly defend yourself is not recognised doesnt make the right any less real.

        1. Not to turn this pedantic, but…

          Gun ownership is absolutely not one of those rights. There are /three/ inalienable rights as laid out by the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What follows in the Constitution are not inalienable rights. For example, with regard to the Second Amendment, felons are not permitted to own guns. If that right were inalienable, /everyone/ would be permitted gun ownership.

          I should also note that only the Declaration of Independence lays out those rights as inalienable. Other constitutional documents from other countries may, in fact, not contain any reference to them.

          1. And, for me, gun ownership comes under “happiness”, since I gain great joy from shooting my many firearms. And it comes under “liberty” also, since without my guns, I may not HAVE my liberty. And, if you were being “mugged” on the street, it would also come under “life”, since I can defend myself and those around me against a murderous thug, intent on taking MY LIFE.

            So it ABSOLUTELY IS one, all three of those rights.

          2. So sad to see so many smart people with so so little common sense. I’ll turn it political. Another gun fearing liberal that thinks you are obviously too irresponsible to own a gun because he is too irresponsible to own one.

      2. You may not know this, but laws and governments don’t grant or remove rights. Your rights as a human are there always and forever, regardless of what the law says.

        If your government says it’s illegal to use the word ‘fark’, your human right to express those syllables stills exists.

      3. No, YOUR “rights”, are restricted. In other words, you’re not “free”. Sorry for you.
        The “natural state of things”, is total freedom, with a few laws built in (like do no harm to others….) So, owning ANYTHING is, a natural right.

      4. Here’s how I see it: if my owning a gun does not directly and tangibly impact you, it is my inherent right to own a gun, and you have no business restricting my access to guns as you don’t have the right to be spared offense. (Though, that said, it’s your right to tell me otherwise until you’re blue in the face, as you’ve got a right to free speech and I likewise don’t have a right to be spared offense.) Anything short of that would be tyranny.

        That goes for literally everything. It applies to such hot issues as gay marriage, abortion, videogame violence, and the right to worship freely (Christians and Muslims alike, people, as well as anyone else that wishes to pray in public). The only gray area would be something like smoking in public, and that’s something where a compromise would need to be reached; it would be my right to wreck my lungs, but it can be proven that my smoke harms you too, and you thus have a right to clean air.

        And sure, one can make a case that more guns means more gun violence, possibly more total violence (the latter is a debatable point and a hot issue), but if I specifically choose to own a gun, that is my choice and mine alone. Individual liberties trump general societal tendencies every time.

      5. Well, how about this: The vast majority of euro countries grew out of a nobility/serf situation where the average person was not permitted to own personal weapons. Heaven forbid that a lowly peasant should be able to defend against any old titled POS.

        The US, Canada, and Australia, on the other hand, were settled by people who needed weapons to hunt and protect themselves from bandits. Fortunately, they’ve kept their firearms.

        All the raving against guns is fine, provided that is directed against their misuse by crazies and criminals. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the “Guns? poo-poo crowd” make no distinction, in fact acting as though the mere existence of a gun is something vile and distasteful.

        If you don’t like guns, no one is forcing you to own one, nor to borrow one. You don’t have to read about them or watch television shows that feature them. That’s your privilege. Don’t try to force your will on those who do like guns. That makes you mo better than any odd fascist dictator or abusive spouse.

        1. The basic Human Right is ‘Not to be murdered’ (Life). The firearm is the weapon that best fits the needs of the majority of human beings that want to protection for their Human Right. The immigrants that came here experienced the feudal system where the peasantry (slaves) weren’t even allowed to own bladed weapons. Much the rest of the world does not agree that you have the basic Human right ‘Not to be murdered’. For examples, Google ‘Genocide’.

          The generation that founded the US protected firearms in the US Constitution because they understood that you can’t enslave a people with the means to resist.

          Frankly, this is all just masturbation. If we couldn’t win a war on drugs, we won’t be able to win a war on guns. All you will do is remove them from the law abiding, to the benefit of the sociopaths. Fix civil commitment laws and lock up violent criminals for 20 years and you remove the predator. Sociopaths and the violent mentally are the problem, not their tools. Mass murderers will just switch to pipe bombs, or zip guns, or poison.

      1. Yeah, until they intend to use it to harm somebody else, or it’s very existence harms somebody else. So, them threatening other people to give them food and/or money, precludes any “right” to own anything.

  2. cool project, but replicating for “around ten bucks” is probably not in the cards. Sometimes the cost claims on this site really leave me scratching my head. Remember: just because you happened to have some pvc and lexan scraps in a corner that happened to work for your build DOESN’T mean they add $0 to the project cost.

    1. I agree. A few sheets of plastic cost way more than $10, especially if you just hit home depot (sticking with the overpriced retail store theme here). Because those parts from digikey instead of radio shack would have him bragging about how this project only cost him $3. I’m also skeptical of how long plastic will hold up to the tumbling brass treatment, should be fine for just a hobbyist. The feed is clever, and even though this realistically is more than $10 it’s still an inexpensive design.

      1. That’s the CASH it cost HIM at the time. Why do you all bitch about this, are you broke and angry? or don’t stockpile stuff you might think you’d use later?
        It’s not necessarily what it’s going to cost YOU. That’s all up to you.
        If anyone actually valued their time into the equations the numbers would be higher than going out to buy one.

        I mean I built a motorized gt snow racer. I found a pocket bike, kids bike, and a goped all in the garbage. $0. I spent $25 on the GT.
        $10 in paint, $5 on new welding tips. And about $50 getting the thing tuned up and running well. carb/reeds/pullstart. In my eyes I built a Mosled for under $100. Should you find the same things in the trash, your on the same budget. If you had to buy them you’d be around the $500 range. None of that includes the time spent.
        http://pxn.ca/images/Mosled/IMAG0274.jpg

        Project costs may vary based on the resourcefulness of the creator.

      2. Two words, “dumpster diving”. Seriously, you can get tons of scrap stuff, for nothing. My neighbor, got a nearly new stainless steel “bar sink”. Check out construction dumpsters too, you can find pretty good “scrap” in those too, but make sure it’s scrap.

        Come on, use your noodle.

      3. For what it’s worth, the commercial solution he mentions is also made of plastic. The dillon XL650 he mentions is a high-quality press, and the company still makes plenty of the parts and accessories from plastic, because they know what will stand up under different conditions. As to the price, he forgot to include the price of his workbench, tools, house, etc. as well. He said it cost HIM under $10. He said he had some of that stuff lying around. He didn’t try to deceive anyone. Try it yourself: 5 gallon bucket with a lid to cut for the disc: free from the grocery store pastry counter. Motor: $5 for a motorized jar opener from the thrift store. Chassis: free scrap wood from a construction dumpster. Wire and a switch: you should probably have that if you’re reading this site.

      4. The stand can be made from anything, plastic, metal, wood.
        The canister can be made from any old plastic container, old latex paint bucket for instance.

        The motor might be tricky but I hear that slow AC motors can even be had cheap brand new, they use them in ovens and ice makers in fridges and such, so those would work too.

        A switch should be able to be found, but the microswitch you probably need to buy, but he did buy a new one.

        All in all you can get close with this project, unlike some other projects I’ve seen where they use once-in-a-lifetime finds as parts that are just ridiculous to suggest others might find too.

      1. If they are all different, orientating won’t really do much good. I’m thinking do it by weight instead of geometry:

        Separate one at a time.
        Drop on scale
        Read output on scale with microcontroller
        Push off scale with servo+solenoid into an appropriate bins (which surround scale)

        Alternatively use an older coin sort way:

        Slide them single file down a track with a series of doors that are spring closing. Each door has a slightly stronger spring. Though jamming would be hard to solve.

        Anyone else have an easier to implement solution?

        1. Machine vision and a magnetic pickup on a crane? Slower, but that has been the only one of my brainstorms that seems capable of dealing with a large set of shapes and sizes.

        2. If you’re not trying to line them up very neatly, but just separate them out, a much easier solution would just be to roll them over a sheet of metal or plastic with progressively larger apertures, or sift them through progressively finer wire meshes.

          You’re not likely to separate out different types of screws with any consistency, but if size is your sole concern, it would be much cheaper, simpler, and quicker just to sift your bolts.

        3. If you’re not trying to line them up very neatly, but just separate them out, a much easier solution would just be to roll them over a sheet of metal or plastic with progressively larger apertures, or sift them through progressively finer wire meshes.

          You’re not likely to separate out different types of screws with any consistency, but if size is your sole concern, it would be much cheaper, simpler, and quicker just to sift your bolts. At the very least, it would cut down on the work you’d need to do sorting them out by hand.

      1. It MIGHT be a killing machine, y’know, if you built a gun with a loading press on the top. It would look fantastically Seuss-ian.

        I’m guessing “Gravis” thinks every fired bullet kills an innocent person, (So the police are not allowed to reload, right?) and that there are no shooting sports. I guess if every bullet is a “kill” then I should be tried for countless thousands of murders for all of the paper targets I’ve shot.

        Practitioners of archery and javelin throwers need to give up their killing devices, too. Right? Those are weapons. Is that what you think?

        More people are killed per year by blunt instruments than rifles. Perhaps all of the people reading this DIY site should be the target of your judgement and give up their killing hammers. There are more unregistered hammers in the US than guns.

        Is that how you think? Shameful waste of brainpower, indeed.

    1. Why are you assuming that the person is doing any kind of killing? Do you say the same about Chemistry and Electronics clubs? Just a bunch of people learning to make bombs, right? Stop with the Chicken Little shit.

        1. I think gun owners are feeling pretty cornered these days. They’re getting it from everywhere and everyone so you’re bound to find them chomping at the bit these days. Also I don’t own guns and probably never will but doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate them for what they are. Mechanical devices involving the culmination of a number of sciences.

          1. Gun owners are not feeling cornered, we are feeling exhausted.
            Its really tiring explaining again and again why being able to defend yourself is important.
            The US is only 200 years old, and shooting skills were still taught in NYC high schools as recently as 1969 in NYC. The switchover to this belief that we are living in a more civilized times is not untrue, but it is -BECAUSE- of Guns, not despite them.

            Its aggravating having to REEXPLAIN the constitution to people who wont take the time to both read and try understand it. The right to both ‘Free Religion, Speech, Assembly’and and ‘keep and bear arms’ are pre-exisiting rights, recognized by the constitution. Without one, the rest cannot be guaranteed. Its Sad to see people willing to give up one because of an irrational fear.

            Hoplophobia is the Irrational fear of firearms and other weaponry… now that’s a recognized phobia,,, Do you know how many Mental iIllness’, forms of pyschosis, or diagnosis are related to extreme violence specific to guns or firearms?
            None… Guns are tools, not the part of the sole underlying condition…

            The hardest part of the current gun debate is waiting for the next shiny thing to show up and distract the extreme anti gunners onto the next thing… ironically likely to be a cause in some 3rd world country where the ruling group take all weapons away from the populace and then slowly destroys their freedoms and eventually kill or imprison the ones who try to fight back.

  3. I’d like to see stage 2 — the process that this process feeds. In the video he starts with a bucket of unsorted casings and ends with a bucket of unsorted casings. He can halt the process by hand, but he can’t (for example) have the machine give him a properly-oriented casing when he reaches for it; so stage 2 shouldn’t be a manual process. It must be something else.

    1. Right. All gun owners shoot kids. If that were true, then there would be no kids as there are tens of millions of gun owners in this country.

      You have fists? Great. More women and children will be beaten to death.

  4. The militant gun owners fund groups like the NRA. Any reasonable restrictions on gun ownership have been suppressed for decades with a flood of money and propaganda, so that now the place is awash with 300 million guns, which is then ironically used as a reason to justify buying more guns, arming teachers, getting ballistic armor for little kids.

    How hard is it to get a gun in America? Why is it so easy?

    Find a mirror, pro-gun folk. See the guy in it? He helped arm the people that shot up those school kids. Own that.

    Neat hacks still have a context. Here, the context is still gun violence.

    Maybe next time, post a design for a mechanical sorter that separates guns from those that should not have them, before they kill people. It’s probably an easier problem than making a machine that separates fired rounds from the bodies of your fellow citizens who did nothing to deserve getting shot.

    1. I know someone who used a gun to defend herself against a rapist. You don’t care enough to let weak women defend themselves against strong rapists.

      You would rather she be raped and left for dead. Look in your mirror at the monster that you are.

      1. The awesome power of your argument has not overwhelmed me yet. But keep trying.

        Societal problems require societal fixes.

        Not all problems require shooting.

        There are societies that have far less rape without resorting to arming every woman. How do they manage that? Some of those societies do so with far tighter gun regulations than America. Is that an inconvenient fact? Is there nothing to learn there? Maybe we should be figuring out how to end rape culture in America and be more like the successful countries? That’s doable.

        The massive proliferation of small arms across America is a societal problem. While, for the most part, the guns sit unused, or are legitimately used for hunting or sport, they provide a ready supply of weapons for crime, for mayhem and atrocity. That excessive availability is intentional and the product of the political will of both the NRA and gun owners like you. The inevitable blowback then is ignored, dismissed, or then loudly shouted down when the cognitive dissonance gets too bad.

        We don’t have to continue down that route. We could walk away from it.

        1. Don’t get sucked in, Hat is trolling. If you can’t win a war on drugs, you can’t win a war on guns. Criminals will just buy them where they buy their coke.

          If you want to remove the problem, you have to remove the predator rather than the tool. Mandatory 20 for using a gun in a violent crime would probably do it. Regulating the naturally law abiding does nothing.

          1. You can buy coke from most Federal Firearms Licensees? Amazing. ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html )

            I hope the judge gives that Adam Lanza multiple mandatory 20 sentences. Surely, that will deter him now. That will remove the predator. Wait, where is he now?

            Regulating law abiding gun owners does nothing. Adam’s mother Nancy Lanza was a law-abiding gun owner. She had a constitutional right to defend herself against bad guys. I’m sure it will be effective at taking out bad guys, should she ever need to. So how many bad guys did her Bushmaster XM-15 kill? Anyone know? What were the little bad guys’ names?

            But none of this has anything to do with the rotating brass aligner for reloading. I’m getting so off-topic. Carry on! Have fun!

        2. Just out of curiosity, what about all the murderous deaths in the United States that are not attributed to firearms? And if we’re going to talk about legally sold, taxable and tangible goods regulated by the government, we might as well say that cigarette and alcohol manufacturers have more blood on their hands than do the manufacturers or owners of firearms.

          There are MILLIONS of people who enjoy firearms for sport. There are also millions of people who enjoy automobiles for sport, and there are more vehicular related deaths each year than firearms related deaths. You’re placing an absurd amount of blame on a large number of people because of a few isolated incidents. You want to change the world for the better by reducing homicide? You can do that by becoming a positive role model and helping children by educating them. You could also educate yourself further about firearms and their usage, history and implications in current social strata and not sound like an extremist. That would make your arguments much more palatable and, you know, sane.

  5. Enough. This was a great hack to save someone who reloads ammunition a bit of money. It showed a home-made replacement for a machine that sorts objects.

    You can’t assign evil intent to the person who made the hack, to any DIYers that might make their own, or to anyone that appreciated the hack and posted here.

    People that commit crimes are responsible for the crimes that they commit. Not the tool that they use. No one here is guilty for any crime committed using a gun unless they committed the crime. If every gun owner is guilty by association, then any knife owner is also guilty by association. Anyone with a voice would then have to be guilty of slander and hate speech.

    Lets let this hack be what it is: good work.

    1. Absolutely, technology is always completely neutral and free of moral context. So, musing about technology is thus a morally neutral activity. Any blood spilled by the tech slides right off, leaving the object of admiration pure and clean, and the admirer undisturbed. Cool how that works.

      Let’s move on.

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