Rock Chucker question

[Sshuker]

An older fellow my dad knows is moving to a retirement community, and I am the only one he knows that reloads. So, as he has been packing up the house, I have been getting his reloading equipment.

I got a very old looking unopened box with RCSB on it and opened it up today. Inside was an unused Rock Chucker. To give you an idea of the age, the price tag on the box said $59.00 and the tube of case lube in the box was so brittle, that when I picked it up, my thumb went through the plastic.

Anyway, I mounted it to my bench and decided to try it out by sizing and depriming roughly 200 30-30 brass that had been through their cleaning tumble.

Now, I have a Lee single stage that was my first press and it is still mounted to my bench for when my Dillon 550b needs intervention in one of the stages with a particular round.

The Lee nicely collects the primers through a tube into a bin under my bench.

The Rock Chucker dumps the primers at the base of the shaft and eventually they pile up enough to fall into the primer catcher.

I would be ok with that except that several primers have fallen into the priming arm slot, behind the spring. It looks like I will need to remove the pin and priming arm to clear the primers out of there.

So, what am I doing wrong?

Here is the configuration I have, as I see there are a few different setups.

[tripleS]

That is a downfall of the Rock Chucker! A while back I saw there was a shaft kit being made for the Rock Chuckers that had a hollow shaft with an opening near the bottom for the primers to drop out. I don't remember who was making them but I think they ran in the $30-$40 range.

[WVBob]

When I used that priming system I took the arm out so the spent primers could fall in the tray. I now use a Lee hand primer and don't have an issue.

[Hawk]

I have the exact same model. It's been a year since I've used it, but IIRC the de-primed primer falls down a groove in the ram and hits a small ramp at the bottom of the groove and should dump it out onto the base of the press. From there the primers roll off the base and into the primer catcher. I've never had them accumulate in the ram groove. If the groove is heavily lubricated, dirty, or rusty it could cause the primers to stick in there. Try cleaning the groove. Also, it's possible to go to fast with the press, which will not let the primer fall all the way down the groove before you start the down motion of the ram.

Also, that press is designed to "cam-over". In other words it should be adjusted so that at the top of the travel of the ram it should hit the bottom of the die and then with a little more pressure on the arm cam-over to finish the travel of the arm. The "Bump" created by the cam-over will help send the primer down the groove and into the catcher.

[abner13]

When I used that priming system I took the arm out so the spent primers could fall in the tray. I now use a Lee hand primer and don't have an issue.

Yep! All ammo I do on my single stage press gets hand primed with a Lee tool.

[Sshuker]

I figured this might take more than one attempt to explain, so I will pick up with the responses I got in mind.

I am not trying to prime the cases. The priming arm is just sitting there. I was already planning on hand priming once the cases get a second tumble to clean the primer pockets and get the lube off.

There is no problem with spent primers clearing the groove in the in the ram and they do pile up at the base of the press.

The problem is that some have fallen into the slot with the priming arm, so now the priming arm will not move.

It sounds like my solution is to push out the pin that the priming arm pivots on and remove the priming arm altogether. That way, in theory anyway, all of the spent primers that pile up will end up in the tray, even if they go through the slot for the priming arm.

[tripleS]

You are correct that you will need to remove the pin to get the primers out or if you have a tweezers you may be able to get them out. When I was using my Rock Chucker all the time I used to put a foam ear plug in the gap to keep primers from getting into the gap between the spring and priming arm.

[bug]

Remove priming arm by pushing out it's pin. It doesn't need to be there for what you're doing. I do prime on my RC press so I just put the arm back in.

Bob D

[Hawk]

Give RCBS a call. They are very helpful in solving customer issues related to their equipment.

Looks like they are closed until 1/5/15


http://www.rcbs.com/general/ask.aspx

I never had the problem you are describing. I'll have to take a look at my setup when I get home to see if I can come up with why.

Here's one guys idea in helping with the primers not falling into the catcher: http://ingunowners.com/forums/ammuni...ker-trick.html

[Bang]

Try a soft sponge or foam material that the ejected primer will bounce off of, while still allowing the primer arm to compress the spring?