Automated Use of Those Slippery Devil Primers
As I said in my article on Dillon’s Primer Flip Tray, “I’m not fond of primers. Those slippery devils have been a pain to work with from my reloading beginning. Spill a box and forever crawl around on the floor, recovering a max of 97 out of 100.”
I actually do hate handling them but using the Dillon Primer Flip Tray and extra primer pickup tubes made the process palatable. And yet I wanted more!
More, as in: Dillon’s RF 100 Primer Filler. Its page in The Blue Press was well dog-eared. My wife got tired of whining and begging and UPS dropped off a box containing a Dillon RF 100 Primer Filler set up for large primers and the RF 100 Small Primer Conversion. I was almost giddy with the thought of something to finally put those troublesome primers in their places!
One nice thing is the tower-like structure of the Dillon RF 100 doesn’t take up much precious bench real estate with its 6”x6” base. For those who might worry, there is ample Dillon Blue present, unless you’re using large primers, which have a red filler tube.
Dillon color-coded the parts that have to be replaced between using larger and small primers, to aid in quick identification. First consideration working with the RF 100 should be, “I’m to work with large (or small primers), is everything set up correctly?” Check the filler tube and adapter color. If the same, and appropriate for your primer size, you’re almost golden. The Stabilizer plate must be the correct size.
The RF 100 Primer Filler’s design is pretty simple, when you think about it, and sturdy. Dillon designers recognized the dangers inherent in handling primers. Primer dust can collect or a primer can get jammed up and either might, remotely, cause the loud boom of up to 100 primers. They armored the filler tube and surrounded RF 100 heads with clear Lexan plates. (Remember, as my Father always said, “Stupid can always find a way to overcome planning.”)
Top to bottom, as a user, here’s what an examination of the RF 100 Primer Filler reveals. The Lexan box, shaped like an irregular polygon (I had to look it up too.) has six sides not all the same length and is atop a Dillon blue metal tower of Dillon blue. Primers slide from their box onto a sloped convex square in the Lexan, vibrate their way to a second level and through the hole. The second level continues the vibration theme.
This level has a narrow integral ledge along the side leading to an interchangeable curved metal piece (stabilizer plate), which topples primers standing on edge over, and a notch, which encourages primers to put their best side (anvil) up. The result is all the primers in the same orientation. These correctly oriented primers pass through the interchangeable feed adapter and into the color-coded filler tube.
There are only two items on the Dillon Primer Filler’s square base: A base for the filler tube and a blue button. The first is self-explanatory; the second starts a timed vibration run for 2 minutes.
Unless you are an impressively fast reader, the filler tube will be filled before you could read my words. And, hopefully without ever laying a finger on those slippery devil primers!
