Single-charge Powder Dropper

prusaprinters

<p>This makes it possible to use a progressive reloading press with a separate powder-measuring method, such as an auto-trickler. Hornady makes a "Powder Funnel Die" to solve this problem, but it's not case-activated: you have to pour in the powder while the press ram is at the top of the cycle.</p><p>I designed mine so that it is case-activated. You can do all the of the manual steps at once, while the press ram is down: insert an empty case, place a bullet, and put a measured powder charge in the dropper. Then cycle the press.</p><p>I've designed two "powder sleeves", one for longer, large-calibre cartridges, and one for shorter small-calibre cartridges (similar to Powder Sleeve #1 and #2 that come with Hornady's case-activated powder drop.)</p><h3>Printing Notes</h3><p>The "retaining clip" is pretty intricate. Your first layer has to be dialed in well for this part.</p><p>The plug can be printed on its pointy end, with supports, if you sand it smooth after printing. Or it can be printed right-side up, but it will need a decent-sized brim for bed-adhesion.</p><p>The plug needs to have a bit of weight to it, to ensure it closes after dropping a powder charge. I have two versions of the "plug" part. One is solid, and can be printed with 100% concentric infill. The other is hollow, and you can print it with a pause to add some ballast inside before the print finishes. I used sand, poured in with a small funnel.</p><h3>After Printing</h3><p>The powder sleeve will likely need to be wet-sanded a bit, until it can slide freely inside the die body.</p><p>Also, if there's any stringing inside the powder sleeve or die body, you'll want to clean that out so powder grains don't get snagged up.</p><p>The threads may give you trouble. I found the printed outside threads on the die body worked with Hornady's Lock'n'Load bushings with no difficulty. But with the printed lock nut, they jammed up hard. I found it necessary to wet-sand the threads on both parts pretty good before they would work smoothly.</p><figure class="media"><oembed url="https://youtu.be/Kt1w15ucDkk"></oembed></figure>