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Spolar 12 GA powder drop tube issues

2K views 33 replies 9 participants last post by  creeker 
#1 ·
When loading 12 ga hulls on my Spolar, the hull end-of-life seems to be primarily determined by how well the hull tip stays open. After a few reloads, the powder drop tube will start catching on the lip of the shell and causing problems. This is even more noticeable on 6 point hulls since their unobstructed opening diameter tends to be a bit smaller.

I was thinking of trying a 20 gauge powder drop tube on my 12 gauge setup. I may find that I create new problems by not opening up the shell enough for the wad insertion stage though. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Joel
 
#6 ·
I have Spolar #563 and changed the SHOT drop tube to a 20 gauge because green dusters had a tendency to fold over when the tube hit them. The bent ones sprung back so fast it was a pain in the butt. I have never changed my powder drop tube and rarely have I had it cause a problem except on hulls I should have tossed anyways.

Maybe you are just trying to get one too many loads out of your hulls? I know I have been known to do that.

If you ever get folded over wad petals you may want to make that change. I currently use DR TGT wads and they are flared so that I probably would have no issues using the 12 gauge shot tube again
 
#8 ·
+1 on what Sportshot2 said. On mine #625 I replaced the shot drop tube with the 20ga unit. The 20ga shot drop is now standard on the 12 ga per Dicksie. Is it possible that you are having an indexing issue so that the powder drop tube is not centered. OR has the tube been bent or installed incorrectly? I have never had a hull last long enough to get that tight besides unless someone has screwed up the deprime station the case mouth gets expanded there just before going to the powder station.

--- Chip King ---
 
#9 ·
One place you might want to look is where Chip King said, up inside of the deprime assembly & make sure there isn't anything like plastic stuck up in there,also pull all the dies and make sure there isn't any
flattened shot stuck under the edge of one of the dies.On that machine,a little bit of shot can cause
havoc, because of the close tolerances.P/S I found that out the hard way.
 
#10 ·
The deprime plunger (item 32) on my 12 gauge tooling appears to be the same size as the one on my 410 ga tooling. I measure its outside diameter as 0.375 inches in the constant diameter region just below the deprime plunger cup. It appears that this station will only stretch the 12 ga shell mouth to this 0.375 inch dimension, which is smaller than the powder drop tube at its tip. Logic tells me that the loader should stretch the mouth of the shell at the deprime station to almost fully open. Perhaps this was an assembly error at the factory.

Anyone have any comments on the size of their deprime plunger? :wink:
 
#12 ·
chipking said:
Just went down and measured mine. It is .629 so it looks like you may have found the problem. Did you buy it new? and did it come with different gauge tooling? Maybe a slight mixup has occured.

--- Chip King ---
Originally I bought the loader new for 410 only. Later I ordered 12 gauge tooling new from the factory. It looks like they built the 12 ga tooling with one wrong part number installed (410 part on 12 gauge tooling). Even with the wrong part installed it works great for three reloads on a Gun Club eight crimp hull!

Over the years I've owned three different loaders. The Spolar (with power hydraulics) is by far the best. I've loaded over 1700 shells in a single afternoon without any significant body fatigue. Pretty awesome tool, and now it can get even better!
 
#14 ·
creeker said:
Call the Spolars and explian the situation,they may want you to send the part back.They are good to deal with.I had some parts lost in the mail and they shipped me new ones right away.
Strangely enough, I spoke with Spolar and Robert told me that they've been shipping 12 gauge tooling with a 410 size deprime plunger (item 32) for about the last 10 years. This means that the 12 gauge shell mouth is not currently expanded beyond 0.375 inch diameter at the deprime stage. It is sized beyond that only at the powder drop stage.

When I pick up a once-fired Fiocchi 6 point hull, the opening tends to be very similar to the tip diameter of the powder drop tube. This means that even on the first reload of this hull, the powder drop tube will routinely catch on the hull tip and bend a bit of it slightly inward. This isn't a major problem, but it seems that these hulls would reload better (and more than once?) with a full-scale 12 gauge diameter deprime plunger.

Robert from Spolar did offer to send me a drawing for the original 12 gauge diameter deprime plunger. I can have a machine shop make the retro-part, but that would be custom made and priced appropriately. I haven't yet decided whether to pursue this or not.
 
#16 ·
What Curly said get the print. We will go from there. You may just need to make a long bushing with the .375 ID and a .630 OD with a 45 degree taper on one end. Slide it on the current decapper assembly, lock it with locktite or a set screw and go back to loading.

I have to say that sounds like a bogus answer and I would have expected better from Spolar.

--- Chip King ---
 
#17 ·
chipking said:
I have to say that sounds like a bogus answer and I would have expected better from Spolar.
That would be two of us, even lowly MEC furnishes gauge specific depriming/hull expanding rods.

That bushing sounds like a great idea. How about making a bushing that is a slight press fit, heating it up, slipping it into place and allowing it to cool. It will stay in place until Obama's debt is paid off.
 
#18 ·
I have heard of some having trouble like you describe. I personally have never had that type of trouble, I will have to ask my wife, because she is the one that reloads. We were at the World Shoot some years ago, when we walked into the Spolar booth, she took one look and said "that looks so easy I think I could reload on that press", we bought one and I haven't reloaded a shell since!!!
 
#20 ·
creeker said:
Is this trouble,unique to this particular reloaders situation,or is it common to others.Why would they
still continue, to put the 410 plunger in the machine for 10-years if it were so?
Probably because nobody complained, then they probably allowed the larger expanders to deplete.
I am still sorta flabbergasted that Spolar took the path they did in response to the problem. Kinda cheesy, I think. :?
 
#21 ·
Gee maybe my 12 year old Spolar is better than a new one?

Hey Curly was shooting with a friend last week who had what appeared to be a double charge of powder in one of his shells and I thought the gun was going to get thrown right out of his hands, luckily no one was hurt and the Browning double auto survived with no ill effects.

When asked "what was that" he said I was loading on my Mec and the handle broke, I guess in the ensuing problem solving I must have got a double charge. Have you heard of other handle issues with Mecs? I am just throwing it out there so if others break a handle they would be wise to double check their powder drop before moving on.

I think it would take Superman to break a Spolar handle.

Not wanting to get into what is better Spolar or Mec they all can have issues.
 
#23 ·
I have seen Mec Progressive handles that have failed, none suddenly and none that have not lived a long and hard life. Your buddy should have blamed himself, regardless of the handle breaking.
 
#24 ·
Ok, lets kick this off in the right direction,

Since we know that the spolar began it birth as a improvement of the pw machine, let back it up to there, and them go back forward again,


In the above tool set, we can plainly see that the primer knock out is in fact the size of the 410 in this tool set. So lets start there.


This is the primer knock out punch on a 12 gauge 800 machine, and as you can see, the top OD of the punch is much wider, and it comes down to the taper of the end of the large section to the tip punch section, that will first expand the hull folds back open the first time.

Next we get into the powder drop tube, and in the spolar tool set you can see that the drop tube is tip tapered, while on the PW unit, the bottom of the powder drop tube is smaller OD, then the hull full taper enlarger is more towards the top of the drop tube after the longer lower straight that will too, expands the hull folds open again for a second time as the hull is worked through the machine. With spolar using the 20 gauge drop tube, the hulls folds are not folded back at this station either, while on the PW powder drop tube, starts out as a smaller 20 gauge Spolar OD tube, but at the last of the handle down stoke, the top of the hulls hits the taper section and the end of hulled flared open again.
Note: so no one is confused, the PW rotates clock wise, while a spolar rotates counter clockwise, being that on a PW, the next station is to the left, while on a spolar, the next station is to the right.

So we see that the with spolar using a 410 primer punch out tool, then a 20 gauge powder drop tube, at neither of these stages has the end of the hull folds be flared back fully reopen.

At his point, we have just about taken the topic as far as everyone else, but lets take it step farther, and take it to the next station on the machine, the wad insertion station. With the folds of the hull not fully flared open at either steps before this station, you can end up with the wad wanting to cock as it being guided into the hull.

Here at the wad insertion station, instead of the wad guide fingers dropping easily into a hull that the end folds have been pre-flared back open , the tip of the wad guide not only has to find the center of the folded in end of the hull, but then as the hull is being forced down, the wad guide and wad now how to do all the work to flair the hull open (read if when the wad is being driving downward, the tips of the fingers may not fully seat deep into the hull to begin with, and now with the tips of the fingers less than ideal depth into the hull, the angle of attack/the pressure needed on the wad to get the hull end open can cause unneeded pressure of the tube/ram to the wad that can compress the wad compression section on the wad before the wad made it through the wad guide fingers, cocking the bottom of the wad as it goes through the fingers/being seated into the hull (windjammer users, take note on this since I have a friend that had the some problem through a few gauges, being a cocked wads in reloads causing "Poofer" when everything else was correct with the loads).

Since I make my own parts when needed, lets get to it.

On the wad knock out tool, we make a new 12 gauge knock out tool in the PW fashion, but lengthen the tip to full OD taper section so that section is less likely to catch up on the hull folds as it states to open then up (bottom is the same OD of the end punch, then taper up from there to the main OD with just a longer taper than a PW tool).

Next the powder drop tool, and here we just use the PW design with it smaller straight bottom section, and the tapered to larger hull folds re-flair section so that tool as well flairs the hull top fold again as well. Again we borrow the PW design, and again, go with a longer taper at the top OD, with it the OD the primer knock out tool as well (for that second flaring of the hull before the hull makes it to the wad insertion station).

Now with the two new tools in the spolar machine, when you comes the next station/ install the wad, the top of the hulls is re-flared open before hand (twice as a mater of fact), and will not have problems with neither the guide fingers dropping cleanly into the now flared open end of hull, and since now a great deal of pressure is not needed to get the wad through the finger into the hull (to flair the hull end back open), no more cocked wad as well.

Now the bad news, in VA/on the road for the next few months, so not photos or dimension for the new tools But yes, we are legal to make PW style tools for the spolar machine without patent infringement, so long as they are not for resale/for your own machine). So if someone is looking for me to make them the new tools for free for their machines (read so I don't get sued), get in line since there are a few guys that I have to do PW mods for first once I get back. If you just need dimensions, then they too will take months to get, but really not needed since you can pretty much figure them out of your own.

Lastly, if you going to reload 410 with 296/H110 in the spolar and still at the lathe, then you may as well make the improved seal (and do the mag insert into the hull insertion post), but those are other topics in themselves that need there own posts (read: got to hate a tease since that write up will be month out as well). :lol:
 
#25 ·
No wonder,I've never had a problem,my primer punch is 12ga.Also FYI [attention Curly] Spolar uses
MEC pre crimps on their machine,the one in the picture looks like it.They also did use the red hornady
pre crimps originaly.I noticed this a few years back, when I ordered some parts from Spolar and it said,MEC on the pre crimp.P/S they work fine!
 
#26 ·
creeker said:
No wonder,I've never had a problem,my primer punch is 12ga.Also FYI [attention Curly] Spolar uses
MEC pre crimps on their machine,the one in the picture looks like it.They also did use the red hornady
pre crimps originaly.I noticed this a few years back, when I ordered some parts from Spolar and it said,MEC on the pre crimp.P/S they work fine!
I knew that already :D , except that I heard that they remove the alignment nubs from the interior sidewall, but I do not know if that is absolutely true.
 
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