Idea: Autoreloader

[Gary Hagon]

Hey everyone,

Me and an old buddy of mine (former US Army engineer) came up with a rather odd idea, and I would like some input.

Him and I are working on designs for a low cost, fully automatic reloader
Currently we are looking at about 950 (working hard to get 1100) rounds per hour, assuming you have enough components to keep her running and dont mind the noise.

The current equivalent auto-reloader cost roughly $27,000. Currently we are expecting the materials to cost ~$5,000.

Now it all sounds "fine and dandy" but we are wondering what a hobbyist (or a gun range) would expect to pay for a machine like this and what features they would want the most (imagination is the limit).

Thanks,
Gary

to admin: didn't know if this belonged in build it yourself or reloading, sorry.

 

[Boris]

First question: what's the goal? Sale, rent, self ammo manufacturing?

I'm sure that materials cost less than retail on similar machines, but getting the contraption to work flawlessly and getting the design worked out will make up the rest of the difference.

With a price tag north of $5000, you got a tight specific group of people who would be interested in this. Mostly people cringe at the thought that many progressives with all the accessories and things to get started push over 1k.

My personal opinion on reloading crowd is that many are way too anal about doing things a certain way, even on pistol calibers.

As a disclaimer, I don't and haven't reload/ed much, certainly negligible compared to some reloading-bad-asses here.

 

[Rmccar4318]

Maybe a make your own. Bring your own components and use the machine to put it all together. Like a brew your own place.

 

[Dirtypacman]

If there is a way to get the cost down to around $2,500-3,000 (@800+ rounds per hour) I think you may find there is a market for it. Between gun ranges/clubs/and hardcore shooters (professional/semi-professional) that is not too much to drop to keep the ammo shelves stocked. This is all from the mind of myself no statistics to back it up just my two cents you could say.

I will be the first to offer my beta testing skills on your equipment.

 

[DR]

Look at what your competition would be:

Dillon 1050: $1700
Bulletfeeder: $550
P/W autodrive: $800

Just over $3k for a setup with a decent history. If you're starting at $5k you need some advantage over motorizing a Dillon. Is it faster or more reliable or easier to set up and use?

 

[Twigg]

Ammoload.

 

[Boris]

I envision it like a Laundromat type setup.

I know that people are building their own tumblers, but if you could have a setup to tumble your brass faster, may be autosort it. Then have a few automated reloading stations for various calibers with enough of spare shit in case something brakes. I'd not mind coming to such a place to reload a few 1K rounds, having a few beers and talking smak about Barry.

 

[EddieCoyle]

It would have to run flawlessly and cost a lot less than $5K before I'd give it a look - and then it would be pistol ammo only.

For how long would it run unattended? I mean, if you have to stand there and watch the thing and feed it primers every few minutes, what's the benefit of automating it? Would it make better ammo than an 'un-automated' progressive?

 

[Gammon]

1100 rounds per hour is no big deal. My 1050 will do close to that for a lot less money, without a bullet feeder or an electric motor. I would give up. Building a machine like a 1050 (or better) from scratch could cost you upwards of $100,000.

 

[Slowdive]

Would it come with a bullet puller that could de-construct 1000 rounds an hour? If it was set up perfect and stayed that way...great. At some point all machines need cleaning, maintenance, tuning etc. How would you know things are going sideways until you've produced several hundred or a thousand bunk rounds?

It's not like you have an in-line QC department that can detect these things in near real time. This is the fundamental flaw with "one-man in the basement" mass manufacturing operations IMO.

 

[PMD]

If you looking for a setup that runs great.
Craig from Forcht Firearms has come up with a chain driven Dillon 1050.
This is not a high output machine 900 to 1200 per hour. But does eliminate the pulling the handle.

http://www.forchtfirearms.net/dillondoc.html

Video towards the bottom of the page.

http://www.forchtfirearms.net/index.html

 

[PMD]

Btw.. The P&W setup works somewhat but requires a lot of fiddling and some parts have been know to fail. This is why I opted for the setup above.

 

[swampy]

1100 rounds per hour? I'd run out of components in 40 or so hours...what am I supposed to do for the rest of the winter?