Collet Bullet Pullers

[HMFIC]

Thanks again guys. I went ahead and bought the Hornady one over at BassPro yesterday. I've already used it with .223 and it works flawlessly. Very nice setup. I will probably buy the RCBS one at some point too just cause they're pretty reasonable and it would give me a back and another one in case things work better with it under whatever circumstances. They didn't have it in stock otherwise I would have just bought them both. I only bought the .22 collet for now but I'll be going back to get the .308 one right away and other ones as needed.

I have to say that I do really like the cam system on the Hornady. When it's adjusted correctly, so the case mouth catches on the outside of the collet, you can just press the bullet up into the die and the collet free floats so you don't have to be precise there. Then it's just a matter of flipping the lever over to cam the collet tight and bazinga... good to go. Really well thought out design. I can't wait to buy the RCBS too now just to get intimate with how they designed theirs.

Blitzfike, how did you make your collet for the .50? Turn, drill and ream some stock and then cut slots in it or ?

 

[Blitzfike]

I drilled a slightly undersize hole and them reamed it with a Half inch reamer. I then polished the resulting hole with some diamond lapping compound. I started with a longer piece of stock so I could hold it in the lathe chuck without having to change it's position during the machining process. My chuck is 40 plus years old and has some wear on it, so repeatability is not as good as it once was. I then machined the taper on the end of the collet and moved it to the mill to cut the slots. I didn't have a thin enough keyway cutter to cut the slots so I resorted to the hack saw method. That leaves some ugly edges which I removed with a small triangular file. I then moved it back to the lathe to cut it to length, bore the top end for the screw and threaded it. Inside threading I usually do with a hand tapper with a live center holding it in line with the part being held in the chuck. Lots of tap magic and a little time and you have a good clean threaded hole in line with the axis of the tool. After all that, I chucked it in the lathe and polished it again to be safe. I ended up about 10 thousandths oversize for the bullets which works well in this tool. I cut the tapers for both the collet and the holder with the cross slide adjusted fot the angel I wanted, so that everything matched without having to guess at it. (I used to same procedure to cut tapers for prop hubs for one of my homebuilt aircraft.) The body of the tool was made from a piece of hydraulic ram left from another project. Good tuff stuff with chrome plating on the part except for where I threaded it and the top end where the screw goes through for the collet. I also made the screw portion from a piece of grade 8 bolt, large enough to turn down and leave a head large enough to put another piece of rod through for a handle. This was pretty labor intensive, but turned out pretty well. At the time, I couldn't find one made to fit the Lee 50BMG press, so I made what I needed. Blitzfike

 

[Blitzfike]

I sent you a PM, Blitzfike

 

[HMFIC]

I drilled a slightly undersize hole and them reamed it with a Half inch reamer. I then polished the resulting hole with some diamond lapping compound. I started with a longer piece of stock so I could hold it in the lathe chuck without having to change it's position during the machining process. My chuck is 40 plus years old and has some wear on it, so repeatability is not as good as it once was. I then machined the taper on the end of the collet and moved it to the mill to cut the slots. I didn't have a thin enough keyway cutter to cut the slots so I resorted to the hack saw method. That leaves some ugly edges which I removed with a small triangular file. I then moved it back to the lathe to cut it to length, bore the top end for the screw and threaded it. Inside threading I usually do with a hand tapper with a live center holding it in line with the part being held in the chuck. Lots of tap magic and a little time and you have a good clean threaded hole in line with the axis of the tool. After all that, I chucked it in the lathe and polished it again to be safe. I ended up about 10 thousandths oversize for the bullets which works well in this tool. I cut the tapers for both the collet and the holder with the cross slide adjusted fot the angel I wanted, so that everything matched without having to guess at it. (I used to same procedure to cut tapers for prop hubs for one of my homebuilt aircraft.) The body of the tool was made from a piece of hydraulic ram left from another project. Good tuff stuff with chrome plating on the part except for where I threaded it and the top end where the screw goes through for the collet. I also made the screw portion from a piece of grade 8 bolt, large enough to turn down and leave a head large enough to put another piece of rod through for a handle. This was pretty labor intensive, but turned out pretty well. At the time, I couldn't find one made to fit the Lee 50BMG press, so I made what I needed. Blitzfike

I want to thank Blitzfike publicly here for sending me one of his home grown .50 collet pullers for my LEE BMG press. I'll try to get a couple of pics later tonight, but it is one fine peice of craftsmanship and works great! I'm really grateful for you sending this Jim and I will pay your generosity 4ward too.

Just one more reason why OSA is so great. It's the members like Jim and others here who are thoughtful, informative, generous and just all around great people. To have this group of people all communicating across the whole state, sharing their experience is really a wonderful thing.

Thanks again Jim!