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Anyone heard of modifying SDB to use as a through powder die for BP?


El Catorce

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Has anyone heard of or know of anyone that has found a work around to the square deal B to use the second station (bell and powder) without the powder measure dispenser? Dillon strongly prohibits the use of black powder in their powder measure. Having a manual through powder die would really help speed up black powder reloading by allowing the user to scoop BP into the powder funnel/belling die at the top of the stroke on station 2 of the Square Deal....

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Yep; I have made my own adaptor. Buy from Dillon the powder die adaptor that is included in the tool head. Second buy a powder funnel/ case expander for your chosen caliber. Epoxy the funnel/expander in the die adaptor, make sure it is straight in the adaptor, your belling  adjustment. is as usual, only the funnel does not float in the die adaptor. For a powder funnel on top, I have a powder flask funnel (brass) with the stim cut off to bottom out in the die adaptor. 

Works for my 44WCF reloading.

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2 hours ago, Phantom, SASS #54973 said:

And to think of all these hundreds of thousands of rounds of BP...millions...done right thru the Dillon factory powder drop system...

I did it for well over 20 yrs in this game. Works just fine.  

 

Snakebite 

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I think it's a liability issue for Dillon.  It's not that BP won't work in any powder drop, it's just the (perceived) associated risk with BP, i.e. static electricity.  If you're still concerned you could use a BP sub like AAP, Dillon has no issues using it.

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The issue is NOT STATIC ELECTRICITY. The issue is that there could be a piece of contamination in the powder and if your powder measure happened to catch that contamination it may cause a spark that would be hot enough to ignite the powder. With a plastic hopper the resultant blast would hit the operator of said press right in the face.

 

The BP powder mill that used to be in Louisiana blew up because a piece of quartz rock got caught in the corning mill and was pinched until it broke creating the spark that ignited the powder. The accident investigation team came to this conclusion by forensic analysis the the remains of the mill combined with worker statements about the day to day operations. It was commonplace to sweep up all the raw ingredients and  powder that spilled onto the floor during the various stages of processing and reintroduce it back into the mix.  Well the floors were concrete and very old. The concrete also happened to contain a lot of quartz as part of the aggregate used.

 

What makes BP powder measures special is there is no ferrous metal in the mechanism and the powder hopper is designed to deflect any accidental ignition of the powder up and not out.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Lefty Dude, SASS # 51223 said:

Yep; I have made my own adaptor. Buy from Dillon the powder die adaptor that is included in the tool head. Second buy a powder funnel/ case expander for your chosen caliber. Epoxy the funnel/expander in the die adaptor, make sure it is straight in the adaptor, your belling  adjustment. is as usual, only the funnel does not float in the die adaptor. For a powder funnel on top, I have a powder flask funnel (brass) with the stim cut off to bottom out in the die adaptor. 

Works for my 44WCF reloading.

Thank you! This is exactly what I was shooting for... I’ll be ordering those parts first thing on Monday! Another example of the Collective Intelligence available when the finest people on this forum decide they can help. I was very hesitant to ask in fear of asking a “stupid question” but decided to pull the trigger anyway.  As you can see from the responses, most people that responded really did try to help without being condescending at the lack of knowledge that prompted me to post the question in the first place. 
 

Gracias amigo, via con Dios!

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Not sure how to mount it on a Dillon but you could get a Lyman 55 black powder measure; its manually operated but a lot faster than dipping. Hornady used to make a case activated BP measure that has a brass drum and aluminum hopper, which is what I use on my Hornady LnL. You might find one of those one ebay,  but again not sure how it would mount on a Dillon.

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I have been shooting black about 65 years.  Started with 12 and 16 ga as that was what dad shot and paid for.  Been loading and shooting .44 WCF for about 50 years.  The best day for reloading was when dad brought home a reloading press.  There are 1/2 doz Dillons in the reloading room bone stock from Dillon that load black powder more times than not.  SDB's I drop out of the powder measure as I am doing pistol, .45 Colt, .44 WCF, .32 H&R Mag, and .357 Mag.  The 550B's do .45-70 Govn and 38-55 as I have a drop tube setup and use the powder station to compress.  A lot faster than a single stage.  I do use a card wad in all and the rifle get a felt wad with BP lube and card wad.

 

Don't know what lead you use but I have found that WHYTE LEATHERWORKS BIG LUBE BULLETS work the best for me.  Have run a 2 day match never cleaning my rifle as the bllet carries enough lube.

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Early on I bought into the "Hoppla" about loading BP. I made medal hoppers for my Dillion, had grounding wires connected all over the place. Then I started actually doing a little research to see what I could find out about this perceived danger.  I could not find even one actual event pertaining to ignition of BP in a loading machine. So I took some BP in a dish and used a Pizo sparking unit out of a BBQ to try and ignite it. I was unable to make it happen. I've never worried about it since. Without doubt, Static electric charges have ignited Grain Storage dust, and Supposedly have set off some Powder production plants where there is a lot of actual BP dust in the air. I believe that if electrical or spark ignition is to take place, there needs to be very small particles in the form of dust in the air for it to happen.

 

Snakebite  

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7 minutes ago, Snakebite said:

Early on I bought into the "Hoppla" about loading BP. I made medal hoppers for my Dillion, had grounding wires connected all over the place. Then I started actually doing a little research to see what I could find out about this perceived danger.  I could not find even one actual event pertaining to ignition of BP in a loading machine. So I took some BP in a dish and used a Pizo sparking unit out of a BBQ to try and ignite it. I was unable to make it happen. I've never worried about it since. Without doubt, Static electric charges have ignited Grain Storage dust, and Supposedly have set off some Powder production plants where there is a lot of actual BP dust in the air. I believe that if electrical or spark ignition is to take place, there needs to be very small particles in the form of dust in the air for it to happen.

 

Snakebite  

Bingo! Not the same product, but the same results. I recall when in junior high the fire marshal came out and did a presentation about various fire dangers. The one that stays with me to this day was a demonstration of the flash capabilities of gasoline. He had a clear plastic tube that 6 or 8 drops of gas were added to.  He then took a wand that had an electric spark on and held it above the mouth of the cylinder and pushed the button. Nothing happened. Then the end of the wand was lowered all the way into the cylinder, still nothing. Finally the wand was pulled out of the cylinder slowly with the spark applied constantly. When the proper air/fuel mixture was reached it sounded like a shotgun going off.

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26 minutes ago, Goody, SASS #26190 said:

Bingo! Not the same product, but the same results. I recall when in junior high the fire marshal came out and did a presentation about various fire dangers. The one that stays with me to this day was a demonstration of the flash capabilities of gasoline. He had a clear plastic tube that 6 or 8 drops of gas were added to.  He then took a wand that had an electric spark on and held it above the mouth of the cylinder and pushed the button. Nothing happened. Then the end of the wand was lowered all the way into the cylinder, still nothing. Finally the wand was pulled out of the cylinder slowly with the spark applied constantly. When the proper air/fuel mixture was reached it sounded like a shotgun going off.

Gasses will only combust when between the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) and Upper Explosive Limit (UEL) when the speaker was to near the bottom, mixture was too rich. As he moved it out once the mixture was between the LEL & UEL it popped. Learned this early in my maritime career, when needing to do welding in or on barges. As a practical matter, we never do hot work on barges if they are in the UEL range. 
 

I along with many others, doubt that static electricity will set off black powder. I suppose their is some legitimacy to Sedalia Dave’s thoughts on using a metal hopper that would direct the blast up instead of into face of operator. 

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3 hours ago, Newt Tashootin said:

Thank you! This is exactly what I was shooting for... I’ll be ordering those parts first thing on Monday! Another example of the Collective Intelligence available when the finest people on this forum decide they can help. I was very hesitant to ask in fear of asking a “stupid question” but decided to pull the trigger anyway.  As you can see from the responses, most people that responded really did try to help without being condescending at the lack of knowledge that prompted me to post the question in the first place. 
 

Gracias amigo, via con Dios!

 

Order the tool head, it includes the powder hopper stem. This way you can move your dies from one tool head to the other. Order the powder funnel/expander. I bought my brass flask funnel from Track of the Wolf.

 

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4 hours ago, Snakebite said:

... I could not find even one actual event pertaining to ignition of BP in a loading machine....

 

I have found one.  But it was Pyrodex (in a Rockchucker).  It could have been the grain shearing.  Hodgdon says Pyrodex is not static sensitive. .

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