DIY Hydro Seating Press - Another Reloading Rabbit Hole

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  • ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    Sharing some photos of the 3D printed parts that took almost 22hrs to print.

    c5e7774ef68e432bb50cb79698d4d6be.jpg


    9fa5c16a251191044aed7685984dd138.jpg


    Next step, I need to build the base plate. I’ve got some 1/2” aluminum sheet stock or may just use a piece of phenolic resin from the shop.

    Still need to tackle the Arduino programming. I’m a total novice in that area so if anyone who reloads is skilled in Arduino or Python programming wants to take on a side project tutoring me, I’ll repay those services by building all of the mechanical parts if you want one of these.


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    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    After farting around with some chinese closed loop stepper motor without serious documentation, I was finally able to get some movement.




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    smdub

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Nov 14, 2012
    4,644
    MoCo
    Cool project. I'm curious as to why you chose a hydraulic system w/ leaking, stiction, etc over an electronic load cell? Especially since you seem handy at the electronic/programming side.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    Cool project. I'm curious as to why you chose a hydraulic system w/ leaking, stiction, etc over an electronic load cell? Especially since you seem handy at the electronic/programming side.

    When I started I was looking at the 21st Century Innovations Hydro Seater. It uses a small hydraulic cylinder to create the pressure measured by a custom calibrated pressure gauge. My initial plan was to simply copy that design. I had known about the AMP automated seater which does use a load cell, but I thought that would be harder to copy. Now in hindsight I’m almost there anyway.

    I don’t really see much of a stiction effect, but I agree it’s a potential liability in the system. One up side is that a small pressure transducer and the cylinder seem to be considerably less expensive than a quality load cell.

    You, know half of the goals of these little pet projects is to teach myself how to solve the problems on a use case technical basis, along with learning how to expand my knowledge mechanically, electronically, and on a software basis. So who knows, I’ll probably end up doing a version 3.0 with a load cell in the future.


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    Broncolou

    Active Member
    Jan 22, 2013
    689
    Parkton MD
    What are you using for Brass/Projectiles? I've personally found more actual consistency in brass & Brass prep(assuming quality brass/projectile choices)
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    What are you using for Brass/Projectiles? I've personally found more actual consistency in brass & Brass prep(assuming quality brass/projectile choices)

    For 6.5 Creedmoor I’m using Lapua SR (Small Rifle Primer), which are excellent cases IMO. For projectiles I prefer Nosler RDF which are similar to Berger Hybrids.


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    Broncolou

    Active Member
    Jan 22, 2013
    689
    Parkton MD
    The Lapua brass is hard to beat....... the RDF is definitely leaving some consistency on the table. If you brass is all same age and solid prep, I would look at measuring projectiles for consistency with the numbers you've given for your neck measurements. Definitely cool to watch your process. You definitely identified you consistency in tension issue. Try measuring your projectiles for dimension as well as weight and you may find some pretty big variables....... be sure to spin them for the 264 dimension. The RDF's are a great projectile for the money but they are cheaper for a reason.
     

    4g64loser

    Bad influence
    Jan 18, 2007
    6,382
    maryland
    The Lapua brass is hard to beat....... the RDF is definitely leaving some consistency on the table. If you brass is all same age and solid prep, I would look at measuring projectiles for consistency with the numbers you've given for your neck measurements. Definitely cool to watch your process. You definitely identified you consistency in tension issue. Try measuring your projectiles for dimension as well as weight and you may find some pretty big variables....... be sure to spin them for the 264 dimension. The RDF's are a great projectile for the money but they are cheaper for a reason.
    I've not messed with a lot of different rdfs but in 264, I've used both 130 and 140. The 140s consistently outshoot the lapua 139s in two .260s. the 130s I tested against berger hybrids. Berger shot tighter groups across ten charge weights averaged out but both shot some very tight groups at specific charge weights. Shot with the same charge weights, same day, the berger 130 and Nosler 130 shot similar es/sd across the charge weight range. Averages were slightly higher with the Nosler IIRC but don't quote me til I dig up the data from a couple years ago.

    In 6mm, the rdf 105s didn't like my 6br but the average velocity and es/sd were VERY close to the hybrid 105s shit same day/same charge weight range. Groups were twice the size but that may be due to the 8twist barrel.
     

    Sundazes

    My brain hurts
    MDS Supporter
    Nov 13, 2006
    21,304
    Arkham
    When Dr. Zimmerman took the bandage off the first time, my heart sank as I looked at the damage. He said with total confidence “This looks great, you’ll
    be fine, and nobody will even notice”. I thought he was blowing smoke up my ass, but he was totally right. I had folks who have seen me for weeks at a time and simply not notice that I’m missing my left Index finger.
    I didn't notice either. We will have to compare scars.... I was in an accident as well where the trauma surgeons said they needed to figure out how to put my elbow back together. He told me later during recovery, if this happened 10 years earlier, I would have lost the arm.
    Back on topic. I never really thought that the FPS deviation would be so extreme, until I shot with you guys at Peacemaker. So now, I will blame all my misses on the primer seating, OAL, etc. Hell anything. Ok, never mind it's me.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    Back on topic. I never really thought that the FPS deviation would be so extreme, until I shot with you guys at Peacemaker. So now, I will blame all my misses on the primer seating, OAL, etc. Hell anything. Ok, never mind it's me.

    A few years ago I also had no idea how much a difference it makes. Last week I had a chance to test the 15 rounds I loaded with the manual version of hydro press. The seating pressure was mostly around 46lbs with 3 that were above 55lbs. So I was expecting to see some correlation between seating force and muzzle velocity. However that was not the case. For the 15 rounds tested I had the absolute lowest Standard Deviation in velocity that I’ve ever obtained from any hand loads. 7.0fps with an Extreme spread of 24fps.

    f1576402794092f7139d869b897ac98f.jpg


    So on one hand it seems like I’m moving in the right direction. However, on the other hand a difference of 24fps in MV still equates to a difference of 6” drop at 1000 yds. That could surely put you off target at that range.


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    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    I had some breakthrough progress the past few days on the Automated Seating Press. I’ve been watching tons of videos on basic Arduino programming and holy crap I’m learning some new $hit.

    So check this out. I’ve got the press to do a start up routine where is moves up to the home position until it hits a limit switch, then slowly back down to set the zero position. Then I measure the distance from the ram to the top of the die and enter this number into my code. I also enter the maximum limit at the point the die bottoms out. So this is already better than the AMP machine where you have to manually adjust their head with a wrench.

    When I start the cycle the head moves down and then starts recording the press force on the head. It holds in the down position for 2sec then moves back up to the zero position and waits until I press the button again.

    But wait there’s more. I found some software called MeguioLink that cost $45 and has built in code libraries for Arduino that will pass serial data out to their windows program. So you can see on my screen the actual pressure curve over time which is almost exactly how the AMP machine works. I’ve still got lots to do, like program an emergency stop button and maybe some sort if easier way to enter the die height. I’ve also got to build some enclosure for the Aruino, power supply and wiring, but I think I can actually reload some stuff with this as is.

    I’m pumped. My son asked me if I was going to start selling these. I said “No this is how I keep my mind off of business, I don’t want to ruin my hobby”.




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    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    Way to go!

    Thanks man. I did hire one of those fiver guys in Pakistan but he canceled the project because of the floods.

    The cool thing is that now that I’m getting some good basic understanding of how things work, I’ll be an even better student.


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    chipu12

    Member
    Apr 8, 2023
    1
    Chicago
    Very nice project, I'm interested into replicating this project since i don't have the $1400 to spend for the Amp seater. I have a 3d printer and i used Arduino R3 board to build an open source project for automatic induction brass annealing.

    Thank you

    Chip F.
     

    Russ D

    Ultimate Member
    Nov 10, 2008
    12,029
    Sykesville
    Out of curiosity what are you using for case neck lube? I’ve recently started using neolube and have seen some benefit on target.
     

    KRC

    Active Member
    Sep 30, 2018
    615
    Cecil County MD
    Thanks for sharing this journey - very interesting. FYI - I have NO interest in going down that rabbit hole!
    A few questions: (and maybe I've missed answers)
    1) What/how do you treat/condition the inside of the case necks prior to loading?
    2) Have you repeated this exercise with moly coated bullets?
    3) Have you attempted to coat the inside of the necks prior to loading? (for example: moly or lanolin)
    4) Can you make a correlation between precision of rounds with lower seating force? Or higher force? Or do you just have limited seating force-MV correlations at present? (I assume all other variables held constant.)
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,500
    God's Country
    Out of curiosity what are you using for case neck lube? I’ve recently started using neolube and have seen some benefit on target.


    I have used Moly powder, but I found that MV dropped about 10-15fps from unlubricated loads. I read about neolube on Snipers Hide but have not had a chance to buy any to test.



    Thanks for sharing this journey - very interesting. FYI - I have NO interest in going down that rabbit hole!
    A few questions: (and maybe I've missed answers)

    1) What/how do you treat/condition the inside of the case necks prior to loading?
    A: Normally after resizing I clean and brush them with a nylon brush only.

    2) Have you repeated this exercise with moly coated bullets?
    A: NO, I've never used moly coated bullets.

    3) Have you attempted to coat the inside of the necks prior to loading? (for example: moly or lanolin)

    A: I did try Moly powder as noted above, but I did not see an improvement in MV extreme spread and did see an overall drop in velocity. I might give Neolube a try and tighten up the neck interference fit a little bit.

    4) Can you make a correlation between precision of rounds with lower seating force? Or higher force? Or do you just have limited seating force-MV correlations at present? (I assume all other variables held constant.)

    A: I have not collected enough data yet to make a determination. After I started this project, I got slammed with some major work and life issues. I do hope to get 40-80 rounds loaded up and logged in time for a possible long range trip to PNTC.
     

    KRC

    Active Member
    Sep 30, 2018
    615
    Cecil County MD
    Thanks for your responses. I'm probably one of many waiting to see if and what significant correlations result from your efforts.

    I did not know of Neolube (apparently graphite particles) but have found coating of the inside of necks with moly powder can be best done with a suspension of moly powder in GunScubber, and with lanolin in a solution of lanolin in xylene solvent. Both can be applied with a Q-tip, and the carrier volatilizes off quickly. (Lanolin is not soluble in isopropanol as reported in other forums.) I'd be interested the effect of either of these on seating force, MV and precision. I have pretty much universally, in multiple cartridges, found the best precision with bullets seated with the minimum neck hold required to keep the bullet in place when twisted by hand.
     

    MTplinker

    Active Member
    Dec 30, 2021
    126
    Annapolis
    I don’t know where I’ve been lurking, but it should have been here. I work in aerospace, and I can appreciate the work you’ve done on this project.

    It’s checked a lot of the same technical areas of a space project: mechanical, software, controls, metrology. Range time is akin to environmental test or flight test. Cool. You’re just missing budgets and program management, but it’s a hobby so you get to ignore those.

    Let me know if you ever want any help on the Arduino coding, but it looks like you’re done. I was wondering if a pressure feedback control from the hydraulic sensor to the motor control, e.g. maybe as simple as a proportional controller, could produce more consistent force application during bullet seating.

    I’m pondering whether force is a function of the depth the bullet has been seated to or force is a function of time. The graphs of seating force vs time look like the pressure profiles are pretty consistent even if the peak pressures vary, so maybe nothing to be gained from a feedback control.

    Anyway, kudos to you. Cool project.
     

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