{"id":10531,"date":"2020-11-19T05:38:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T13:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=10531"},"modified":"2020-11-19T05:38:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T13:38:38","slug":"star-reloader-the-final-tweaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/11\/19\/star-reloader-the-final-tweaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Reloader: The Final Tweaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ve been following the Star resurrection, and if you haven’t, you can get the earlier Star stories here<\/a>.\u00a0 This blog wraps up the last few bits and pieces on the Star.\u00a0 The resurrected Star is fully operational now and I’ve been making ammo on it.\u00a0 In a future blog, I’ll do a video showing the machine in action.\u00a0 I would have done it for today’s blog, but I’m out of empty cartridge cases.\u00a0 That’s a good problem…I’ve got to\u00a0 get to the West End Gun Club to shoot up some ammunition so I can reload again!<\/p>\n

This blog covers the last few details, the last few bits and pieces I cleaned up, a part or two here and there, a few adjustments, and mounting the Star on my reloading bench…so here we go.<\/p>\n

Mounting the Star<\/h2>\n

I needed to secure my Star reloader to my reloading bench.\u00a0 That necessitated drilling four pilot holes for the mounting screws, and two holes beneath the reloader (one for the finished rounds to drop through, and the other for the old primers to drop through).\u00a0 \u00a0Here’s what the holes in the bench look like (the upper hole is for the finished rounds and the smaller hole is for the old primers).<\/p>\n

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When the Star reloader operates, finished rounds drop from the bottom of the machine, which is why I needed that bigger hole you see above.\u00a0 When used primers are punched out of the fired case (we call this decapping), they, too, drop from the bottom of the machine.\u00a0 That’s what the little hole in the photo above is for.<\/p>\n

The finished Star mounts to the bench with four countersunk wood screws.\u00a0 It looks really good.<\/p>\n

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Tool Head<\/h2>\n

The tool head is the piece that holds the dies, the powder dispenser, and a few other things.\u00a0 It was basically rusted all over.\u00a0 I went to work on the sides with Scotchbrite and Kroil, and the tool head cleaned up nicely.<\/p>\n

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The arrows in the above photo point to key components that mount on the tool head.\u00a0 From left to right, we have the double charge safety (more on that in a bit), the priming lever actuator (which also mounts the came for the Hulse case feed mechanism), the decapping and resizing die (this brings the case back to its specification dimensions), and the case flaring die (this puts a bell on the case mouth to allow the new bullet to enter the case).<\/p>\n

Primer Feed Cam<\/h2>\n

The primer feed cam is a knife-like looking thing that mounts to the tool head.\u00a0 As explained in the blog on the case feed mechanism, this cam moves up and down with the tool head and actuates a lever, which in turns pushes a slider with a primer underneath the decapped case.\u00a0 The primer feed cam was rusty so I cleaned it with Scotchbrite.\u00a0 The part was originally blued, so I applied cold blue to the part to bring it back to near-original condition.\u00a0 It looks good.<\/p>\n

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Powder Dispenser Corrections<\/h2>\n

When you reload, one of the things you have to pay attention to is the powder charge.\u00a0 Too little, and you can get a bullet stuck in the barrel; too much, you risk blowing the gun up.\u00a0 With propellants like Bullseye (which occupy very little of the available cartridge case volume), that’s a real serious concern.\u00a0 One of things I wanted to do was make sure that the Star’s powder dispenser was dropping the right amount of propellant.\u00a0 You may remember from our blog on the powder dispenser that my Star has a powder bar marked 2.7 GR BE, which is the bar for 2.7 grains of Bullseye.\u00a0 That’s exactly what I wanted, so it was time to make sure that’s what the dispenser was serving.<\/p>\n

I added Bullseye powder to the powder hopper, cycled the powder slide a few times to throw a charge, and then I cycled it once more to capture a charge in my RCBS powder scale pan to weigh it.\u00a0 To my surprise, I found that the powder dispenser dropped about 2.2 grains of Bullseye instead of the 2.7 grains it was supposed to dispense.<\/p>\n

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I had an idea about what might be causing the problem, but before I tore into the powder dispenser, I thought I’d check with good buddy Bruce at Star Machine Works.\u00a0 \u00a0Bruce knows more about these machines than any man alive.\u00a0\u00a0Bruce told me that in his experience, the Star 2.7 GR BE slides throw over the specified weight to give 2.9 to 3.0 grains, not under as I was experiencing.<\/p>\n

I thought this for a bit and realized I probably had residual oil in the dispenser from when I cleaned it, causing the Bullseye powder to clump up, and I was right.\u00a0 Take a look:<\/p>\n

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I cleaned the dispenser with alcohol to get all the oil out, let it dry, reassembled it, and tried it again.\u00a0 Yep, Bruce was right…it was throwing right at 2.9-3.0 grains of Bullseye.\u00a0 I thought that would probably be okay (0.3 grains of powder is probably about what a fly poops), but I knew that 2.7 grains was the secret sauce for good accuracy in 38 Special in my Model 52 Smith and Wesson, and that’s what I wanted.\u00a0 I was thinking about when I looked at the powder slide again, and what do you know, I was once again blown away by how clever these Star folks were.\u00a0 There was an adjustment in the powder slide.\u00a0 It’s a little set screw in the powder slide, and by screwing it in or out you can adjust the volume of the powder slide cavity (and therefore the charge weight).\u00a0 Very clever, indeed.<\/p>\n

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I screwed the set screw in to reduce the cavity volume by what I guesstimated would be 0.3 grains, and I got it right on the first try.\u00a0 The dispenser drops exactly 2.7 grains of Bullseye now.<\/p>\n

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On that issue of overcharging a case:\u00a0 The real concern is that you inadvertently double charge a case.\u00a0 That could be disastrous.\u00a0 The risk could be heightened, I think, by the fact that you have to manually advance the Star’s shell plate after each pull of the lever.\u00a0 \u00a0The mechanism does not automatically advance each time, and if someone wasn’t paying careful attention, an inadvertent double charge could occur.\u00a0 \u00a0Well, the Star folks thought of that, too.\u00a0 The Star reloader incorporates a gizmo called the safety cam.<\/p>\n

The Star Reloader Safety Cam<\/h2>\n

This thing is very clever, which seems to be a hallmark of everything on the Star.\u00a0 It’s a toggling guard sort-of-deal on the left side of the reloader that I cleaned with Scotchbrite and Kroil.\u00a0 You can see it in the photo below.<\/p>\n

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Take a look at the red and yellow arrows in the photo above.\u00a0 That blued-steel Y-shaped toggle guard translates back and forth on its pedestal.\u00a0 There’s a wire spring underneath the guard that makes it naturally flip to the position you see the photo above.\u00a0 Now, look at the post beneath the tool head (the yellow arrow points to it).\u00a0 If you attempt to operate the lever and lower the tool head (which would also operate the powder dispenser and drop 2.7 grains of Bullseye into the cartridge case beneath the powder dispenser), that post will hit the toggle and stop further tool head downward motion.\u00a0 When that happens, no powder will drop.\u00a0 \u00a0We want that, because the case sitting below the powder dispenser has already been charged with propellant.<\/p>\n

Okay, this is going to get a little complicated, so bear with me.\u00a0 The Star reloader’s shell plate does not automatically advance.\u00a0 You have to manually advance the shell plate as a separate action (it isn’t slaved to pulling the reloader’s lever).\u00a0 Now, imagine you’ve pulled the lever in the previous step, doing all the things that makes happen (knocking out the old primer, resizing the case, inserting a primer in the next case, flaring a case mouth, dropping 2.7 grains of Bullseye into the primed and sized case, and seating a bullet and crimping the case).\u00a0 Wow, that’s a lot.\u00a0 Now it’s time to manually rotate the shell plate to the next position.\u00a0 \u00a0When we do that, the finished cartridge (new primer, new powder, new bullet, crimped bullet) advances into the safety cam toggle, rotating the toggle toward us.<\/p>\n

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You can see all this in the photo above.\u00a0 The safety cam toggle rotates toward us (indicated by the red arrow), pushed there by the completed cartridge case just before that case drops through the reloader (the case is indicated by the yellow arrow).\u00a0 When the safety cam toggle moves toward us, the post mounted on the tool head (indicated by the green arrow) now has a clear shot at a hole in the shell holder (it’s no longer obstructed by the safety cam toggle), and the tool head can be fully lowered.\u00a0 The new cartridge drops through the reloader, through the hole in the reloading bench shown at the top of this blog, and into a box waiting below the bench.\u00a0 When the completed cartridge drops through the reloader and the lever is raised, the safety cam toggle’s spring pushes it back to the natural position, and the lever cannot be fully lowered again until the next cartridge case pushes the safety cam toggle to the safe position.\u00a0 It’s clever and it’s complicated, but it’s simple and it prevents dropping the tool head twice on the same cartridge (thereby preventing a double charge).<\/p>\n

Seating and Crimping Die Adjustment<\/h2>\n

The final die in the tool head is the seating and crimping die.\u00a0 It does two things.\u00a0 It seats the new bullet in the cartridge case (it pushes the bullet in to the correct depth), and it roll crimps the cartridge case around the new bullet.<\/p>\n

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Seating depth and crimp are made through two adjustments.\u00a0 There’s a locknut on the seating die beneath the tool head to lock the die in place, and there’s another locknut on the seating post to lock it into position.\u00a0 \u00a0Crimp is adjusted by positioning and locking the entire die in the tool head, and bullet seating depth is adjusted by how far the seating post is threaded into the die body and then locked in place with its locknut (see the red arrows in the photo below).<\/p>\n

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Case Feed Tube Support<\/h2>\n

The last item I needed to add was the case feed tube support.\u00a0 \u00a0You may remember that I jury-rigged an external support from a coat hangar.\u00a0 It was definitely a bit of Bubba engineering, but hey, it worked.\u00a0 Good buddy Mike saw that, felt a wave of pity and a willingness to help, and asked me if I wanted a part that he had.\u00a0 \u00a0I said yep, Mike shipped it to me, and here it is installed on my machine.<\/p>\n

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This project has come together very nicely.\u00a0\u00a0I just loaded another 50 rounds of .38 Special with the Star. I used a different bullet (the Hursman 158-grain cast flat point, which is what necessitated the bullet seating depth change described above).\u00a0 The Star sure did a nice (and fast) job.\u00a0 I loaded 50 rounds in less than 10 minutes. This thing is really cool and I am getting used to the tempo and the hand-eye-coordination\/feel of the thing.\u00a0 At first, I felt like I almost needed another hand to operate the Star because there\u2019s so much going on, but I got the hang of it very quickly.\u00a0 You only have to do three things each cycle:<\/p>\n