Quote from Reloader on September 9, 2016, 2:20 am

Have been loading for competition on my XL650 for about 8 years now, haven't had any issues so to speak, until this last 500 rounds I loaded yesterday.

It started with a little grinding/clicking sound that I couldn't pin point and ended up last night with me having to manually move the shell plate a fraction of an inch to keep from crunching cases on the powder drop tube. As long as I slowed my process way down and watched closely I could catch it and turn the plate just a hair.

In that last 500 I also change primer brands as I ran out of Federal SPP I made some practice ammo using S&B SPP. It seemed like the primer system was dragging a little and I thought it might be the European primers but I disassembled the primer system and cleaned everything out.

Today I started looking at prior posts trying to find a solution but didn't find anything exactly as I was experiencing. I just went out and checked the machine closely and noticed there seemed to be just a hair's movement to the ram platform (the top of the ram that the shell plate bolts to). I thought about that for a few and decided to pull the shell plate. What I found is that the two cap screws which hold the platform to the ram had worked their way loose. Everything is snugged up tight now and the machine is running smooth and quiet again, even with those darn European primers.

Just putting this out there in case anyone else has something similar happen.

For the record I load 1,000s of .38 wadcutter and Semi-wadcutter plus thousands more 9mm annually.

I do see that I am going o have to get a new "triangle" piece for the case feed mechanism. It appears the actuator rod had worn a pretty decent groove in the ramp.