Shotshell reloader

[John Barleycorn, SASS #76982]

1 hour ago, Sheriff Dill said:

Have you ever had to replace the retaining washer holding the metal bars from base to handle ?

 

I just noticed mine has ran away this morning when inspected it before reloading this morning 

Yes. I had to use a bread tie while I waited for the new washer. 

[Texas Maverick]

On 6/8/2025 at 1:20 AM, Dapper Dave said:

So, to jump in here, another newbie shotgun reloader with MEC jr questions. 

First, this happened today. Thank you, Kid Rich!

 

 

I am going to find a nice thick board to mount it on, but I have never used a MEC or reloaded shotgun other than tool-less black powder shell loading. I was kinda apprehensive until I saw the video above - this thing looks really easy to use!

You might want to buy a cookie sheet with the turned up edges. This is a trick most of us use to keep the powder and shot from spilling all over your bench. They are reasonably cheap and you just put it between the press and your loading bench. Just drill holes through the sheet and bolt it all down.

 

TM

Edited June 9 by Texas Maverick

[Blackwater 53393]

I made a discovery this morning on the MEC reloaders!!  They don’t offer an eight fold crimp starter for 10ga shells!!  I don’t know if they ever did, but the six point crimp is less than satisfactory for smaller shot.

 

Fortunately, Balistic Products sells one for the MEC presses.  Pretty nice that the aftermarket has such good coverage to fill the gaps in the different manufacturers’ designs.

[Sheriff Dill]

Picked the press up. Got a few pieces I’m not sure what they are assuming they go to a different press. Any help would be great. The circled items are the items I’m not sure about.  The silver tubes appear to be some type of primer picker as they have the pin at one end. 
 

[Eyesa Horg]

6 minutes ago, Sheriff Dill said:

Picked the press up. Got a few pieces I’m not sure what they are assuming they go to a different press. Any help would be great. The circled items are the items I’m not sure about.  The silver tubes appear to be some type of primer picker as they have the pin at one end. 
 

The piece on the right is the finger lever for moving the powder/shot bar. There should be a hex bolt with it as well.

[Sheriff Dill]

35 minutes ago, Eyesa Horg said:

The piece on the right is the finger lever for moving the powder/shot bar. There should be a hex bolt with it as well.

Does it attach even with the adjustable charge bar ? Only two screws with it. One with washer in orange bottle and bigger one behind bottle on manual 

[Sedalia Dave]

The silver tubes are primer tubes or primer pickup tubes for use with metallic cartridge reloading . What they actually fit I couldn't tell you with having them in hand.

[Sedalia Dave]

1 hour ago, Eyesa Horg said:

The piece on the right is the finger lever for moving the powder/shot bar. There should be a hex bolt with it as well.

 

How does that mount? I have never seen anything like that on a MEC Press

[Eyesa Horg]

59 minutes ago, Sheriff Dill said:

Does it attach even with the adjustable charge bar ? Only two screws with it. One with washer in orange bottle and bigger one behind bottle on manual 

It goes on the front and is used to slide the bar back and forth to drop powder or shot. It also holds the bar in there.

[Sheriff Dill]

30 minutes ago, Eyesa Horg said:

It goes on the front and is used to slide the bar back and forth to drop powder or shot. It also holds the bar in there.

I’ll look at it when later and see how it goes. It appears just like you said that bolt is missing. 
 

Did the older ones have this piece also?

[Sedalia Dave]

Still no idea what this part is

 

[Sedalia Dave]

2 hours ago, Eyesa Horg said:

It goes on the front and is used to slide the bar back and forth to drop powder or shot. It also holds the bar in there.

 

Part is held o by a 1/4" - 20 bolt. It does have a spacer that goes between it and the charge bar. It allows you to tighten the bolt without pinching the black part and causing problems.

 

I may have an extra. I'll look and let you know.

[J.S. Sooner, SASS #73526]

25 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

Still no idea what this part is

 

Could be an older primer drop to be. MEC did have priming systems that worked wire tubes instead of the tray type. Prior user may have changed it to a tray system. The tubes may fit if they are large enough for 209 primers. 
A friend had the tube style and said he used a longer proper size curtain rod that would hold more primers.  I sold a MEC 650 with tube feed. Turned a piece of aluminum tubing to fit.

[Blackwater 53393]

41 minutes ago, J.S. Sooner, SASS #73526 said:

Could be an older primer drop to be. MEC did have priming systems that worked wire tubes instead of the tray type. Prior user may have changed it to a tray system. The tubes may fit if they are large enough for 209 primers. 
A friend had the tube style and said he used a longer proper size curtain rod that would hold more primers.  I sold a MEC 650 with tube feed. Turned a piece of aluminum tubing to fit.

Now that you mention it, I believe you are correct!!  The tapered end, (pointing toward the top of the photo) looks just like the primer seating tube on my 600 jr with the new style primer feed. 

[Sheriff Dill]

Found the screw it was screwed into one of the other charge bars. The adjustable charge bar has a different screw in it and it appears that the bracket will not work with the adjustable as the screw in the adjustable bar isn’t long enough. 
 

Think this is how the tubes go with the black piece. The black piece would replace the auto primer tube and tray allowing the operator to load one primer at a time manually until tube was empty 

 

Edited June 11 by Sheriff Dill

[Dapper Dave]

Due to some small issues Kid Rich was able to solve, I now have a new MEC 600jr, and tonight I loaded my first ever smokeless load. The load, per the recipe I found from Hodgdon, is 1 ox shot, a #30 bushing which dropped 19.5 grains of WST, (double checked with scale), a STS hull and a WAA12 wad. I also loaded the same into some Gun Club hulls. Can't get out to the range right now, but next weekend I will see how these pattern out of my Stoeger Coach Gun. I did have some odd-looking crimps with the used hulls, and the ones that were JUST wide enough to let shot out, I put a tiny dollop of hot glue over the hole, as I found described online at a different source. 

Needless to say, I am VERY stoked, moved into an aspect of reloading I never ever thought I would be doing, and this looks like plain fun!

To those of you I was donating my hulls to at the matches, sorry, I'm keeping them now! I only have maybe 100 hulls left, but I have factory ammo on the way to make more empties!

 

[Sedalia Dave]

Down load the manual and read up on how to adjust the crimp. 
 

 Be aware that the settings for STS and Gun Club hulls will be slightly different than the settings for AA hulls. This is because AA hulls are shorter in length than STS hulls. 
 

The quality control of SG hulls is not very good these days. So don’t expect every hull to have a perfect crimp. Strive to get crimps that don’t allow any shot leakage. 

Edited June 14 by Sedalia Dave

[Sheriff Dill]

7 hours ago, Dapper Dave said:

Due to some small issues Kid Rich was able to solve, I now have a new MEC 600jr, and tonight I loaded my first ever smokeless load. The load, per the recipe I found from Hodgdon, is 1 ox shot, a #30 bushing which dropped 19.5 grains of WST, (double checked with scale), a STS hull and a WAA12 wad. I also loaded the same into some Gun Club hulls. Can't get out to the range right now, but next weekend I will see how these pattern out of my Stoeger Coach Gun. I did have some odd-looking crimps with the used hulls, and the ones that were JUST wide enough to let shot out, I put a tiny dollop of hot glue over the hole, as I found described online at a different source. 

Needless to say, I am VERY stoked, moved into an aspect of reloading I never ever thought I would be doing, and this looks like plain fun!

To those of you I was donating my hulls to at the matches, sorry, I'm keeping them now! I only have maybe 100 hulls left, but I have factory ammo on the way to make more empties!

 

You can also make homemade shot cards out of thin boxes like cereal of beer boxes. Use a large punch or a paper cutter and make them. 
 

I made some and started putting one in each shell. 

[Edward R S Canby, SASS#59971]

37 minutes ago, Sheriff Dill said:

You can also make homemade shot cards out of thin boxes like cereal of beer boxes. Use a large punch or a paper cutter and make them. 
 

I made some and started putting one in each shell. 

I make mine 1/2-inch square.  They prevent shot from dribbling out of reloads in Gun Club hulls that don't always crimp perfectly.  STS and Nitro hulls really don't need these as they crimp more reliably.

[Edward R S Canby, SASS#59971]

7 hours ago, Dapper Dave said:

Due to some small issues Kid Rich was able to solve, I now have a new MEC 600jr, and tonight I loaded my first ever smokeless load. The load, per the recipe I found from Hodgdon, is 1 ox shot, a #30 bushing which dropped 19.5 grains of WST, (double checked with scale), a STS hull and a WAA12 wad. I also loaded the same into some Gun Club hulls. Can't get out to the range right now, but next weekend I will see how these pattern out of my Stoeger Coach Gun. I did have some odd-looking crimps with the used hulls, and the ones that were JUST wide enough to let shot out, I put a tiny dollop of hot glue over the hole, as I found described online at a different source. 

Needless to say, I am VERY stoked, moved into an aspect of reloading I never ever thought I would be doing, and this looks like plain fun!

To those of you I was donating my hulls to at the matches, sorry, I'm keeping them now! I only have maybe 100 hulls left, but I have factory ammo on the way to make more empties!

 

 

 

You can use a wad designed for 7/8 oz or 3/4 of shot oz and get a load that is cheaper and more comfortable to shoot.  I load with CB 0178-12 grey wads.  Regarding hulls, Remington has a current rebate for STS shells.  It's a good way to get a supply of quality hulls.  You can pick up free once-fired Gun Club hulls at clays ranges.  They reload pretty good too.  BTW, you can load black powder shotgun shells on your Mec Jr too.

[Blackwater 53393]

My eight fold or eight point 10ga crimp starter die is “out for delivery” to me today!  As I said earlier, I don’t like the six fold crimp, particularly on new shells and this one from Ballistic Products is the only one I could find!

 

I will try it out and get it adjusted and report back with my findings a little later.

[Sheriff Dill]

10 hours ago, Dapper Dave said:

Due to some small issues Kid Rich was able to solve, I now have a new MEC 600jr, and tonight I loaded my first ever smokeless load. The load, per the recipe I found from Hodgdon, is 1 ox shot, a #30 bushing which dropped 19.5 grains of WST, (double checked with scale), a STS hull and a WAA12 wad. I also loaded the same into some Gun Club hulls. Can't get out to the range right now, but next weekend I will see how these pattern out of my Stoeger Coach Gun. I did have some odd-looking crimps with the used hulls, and the ones that were JUST wide enough to let shot out, I put a tiny dollop of hot glue over the hole, as I found described online at a different source. 

Needless to say, I am VERY stoked, moved into an aspect of reloading I never ever thought I would be doing, and this looks like plain fun!

To those of you I was donating my hulls to at the matches, sorry, I'm keeping them now! I only have maybe 100 hulls left, but I have factory ammo on the way to make more empties!

 

I bought a bunch of nice fired hulls from @Wild Hair Larry  very happy with purchase and quality of hulls. 

[Dapper Dave]

The bar is for 1 oz, might get another for 7/8 oz later. Thank you for the lead on once fired hulls. 

Yes, we actually loaded some black powder hulls on this exact machine before I left. The big things for me is the resize/de-prime/re-prime/crimp setups. I can do powder and shot differently with the black powder loads if I choose. 

Still having fun. 😎

Now, the dumbest of all dumb questions - 1 oz of shot means one oz of shot, regardless of what type of shot it is, so if I want to load 00 buck or #4 Buck just for grins and giggles, (not just for cowboy action, I like multipurpose devices), the same charge bar should work, correct? Of with larger shot should I measure that separately?

Just curious. 

 

[Blackwater 53393]

Dave! NO! 00 and such requires different loading techniques, usually counting shot. You’d find it very hard to fit those .32 caliber 00 balls through your MEC! The bigger buckshot loads are nothing like birdshot loading.

 

Let me suggest and recommend the Ballistic Products adjustable charge bar. It’s capable of handling different shot sizes and weights and will make fine adjustments to your powder charge that the various bars and bushings can’t match. It still won’t work very well for buckshot loads, but it’ll meter your powder charge and you don’t have to change bars or bushings to customize your load.

[Sedalia Dave]

52 minutes ago, Dapper Dave said:

The bar is for 1 oz, might get another for 7/8 oz later. Thank you for the lead on once fired hulls. 

Yes, we actually loaded some black powder hulls on this exact machine before I left. The big things for me is the resize/de-prime/re-prime/crimp setups. I can do powder and shot differently with the black powder loads if I choose. 

Still having fun. 😎

Now, the dumbest of all dumb questions - 1 oz of shot means one oz of shot, regardless of what type of shot it is, so if I want to load 00 buck or #4 Buck just for grins and giggles, (not just for cowboy action, I like multipurpose devices), the same charge bar should work, correct? Of with larger shot should I measure that separately?

Just curious. 

 

 

As Blackwater stated loading buckshot is a whole different animal.

 

Because charge bars measure shot by volume, the actual weight of the shot charge will vary slightly depending on the size of the shot. So your bar will drop a heavier weight of #9 shot than #7.5. The slight variations are insignificant  

[Dapper Dave]

See, now this is why I ask stupid sounding questions.  Thankee kindly!

[Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L]

5 minutes ago, Dapper Dave said:

See, now this is why I ask stupid sounding questions.  Thankee kindly!

Never hesitate to ask questions no matter how you think they sound. That is how you learn. Glad your having fun with Cowboy Action Shooting.

[Blackwater 53393]

1 hour ago, Dapper Dave said:

See, now this is why I ask stupid sounding questions.  Thankee kindly!

The only stupid questions you ask are the ones you already know the answer to and the ones that you fail to ask ‘cause you might think they’re stupid.

[Dapper Dave]

I thought I knew all the answers, once. Then I got married, and realized I knew nothing.

[Blackwater 53393]

I got the eight fold crimp starter installed and rough adjusted this morning.  I want to try out my new 10ga smokeless load before I build up any more new shells, so fine adjustments and photos will follow once I fire off the half dozen I’d already assembled.

 

BUT!!  I discovered a minor issue, or rather exacerbated an issue that I’d noticed, when I installed the new die. 
 

Have any of you, dealing with the MEC 600s encountered a misalignment in the base? It’s not very much, but the drop/wad station, and the pre crimp and crimp stations were out of plumb slightly to the operator’s right when looking at the press. The stamped steel plate on my machine has the shell misaligned just enough that I would occasionally have to slightly lean the shell to my left for it to feed into the pre-crimp and crimp dies.

 

It isn’t enough to cause a problem with the factory pre-crimp die because that unit is mounted on a ball and can swivel a bit. But the new die is more solidly mounted and I would have to concentrate on making sure that I tilted every shell just right for it to make a good crimp start.

 

I fiddled around and removed the plate and examined it closely, reassembled it two or three times, and figured out that the plate needed to be moved slightly to the left. I carefully bent the tab that fits inside the main spring slightly. Better, but still not good enough! So I took it out again and bent the tab a little more and also bent the portion of the plate where it hooks unde the platform.  Now it is almost perfect! 
 

As soon as I can get out or get one of my young’uns to shoot the sample load, I’ll put it to work and do some fine adjustments.

[Eyesa Horg]

I don't use my 600 jr. much anymore, but can't say I ever noticed an alignment issue. Is it possible somebody before you dropped it? 

[Blackwater 53393]

4 minutes ago, Eyesa Horg said:

I don't use my 600 jr. much anymore, but can't say I ever noticed an alignment issue. Is it possible somebody before you dropped it? 

Doubtful! Possibly a mis-stamped shell plate.  The press is practically new and there’s no chips, scratches, or dents on it anywhere. It doesn’t even have the usual dust and dirt in those places where nobody thinks to clean!

 

I was considering giving MEC a call and talking to their technical support staff.  Like I said, I gently tweaked a couple of places on the stamped steel part and it’s working great now.  What it amounted to was a tiny shift in alignment to the left.

 

 

[Eyesa Horg]

Sounds like you did a slight technical adjustment. Fine job!

[Blackwater 53393]

9 minutes ago, Eyesa Horg said:

Sounds like you did a slight technical adjustment. Fine job!

It always pays to check a little deeper!

 

I went ahead and called MEC and got a technical advisor!  He explained that I could adjust the base plate of the press slightly.  Where the mast bolts to the platform, there’s a bolt that goes through the platform and the hole for it is slotted. 
 

I can handle that! Just another “fine adjustment”!! 😎

 

 

Edited Monday at 05:00 PM by Blackwater 53393

[Texas Maverick]

Yeah, I bought a MEC 9000GN at EOT that turned out not to be working correctly. After having it looked at by another shooter here and then the tech at MEC I decided to just send it in to them for a full refurbishment. So should get back a unit that is like new hopefully. I got it to load blackpowder since I already have a MEC 9000E for my smokeless shells. Great units when working.

 

TM