Old BP Shooter becoming a New BP Shooter

[hellgate]

I run 777 through my Dillon SDB (Square Deal B?) and it tends to eventually get gummy over time because powder gets kicked out of cases some times and sprinkles onto the shell plate (rotating thingamajig). I've never had a primer detonate but I think it is prudent to prime the cases ahead of time which I often do as my loader sometimes tosses out primers or fails to feed them so I tend to prime them separately anyway.

[Bunk Stagnerg]

Personally I use my 550B to full length size and de-prime/prime. The cases are dipper charged in a loading block then the the 550B seats and crimps the loaded round.
I am not afraid of Gun Powder but I have a great respect for it.
You would only have a hopper full of Gun Powder blow up in your face once and your next of kin would divide your property. Except for the press,of course, it would take too much time to clean after they finished picking you up with a stick and a spoon.
Or would the  Dillon No BS warranty cover something like this?
Yr Obt' Svt'
Bunk

[Blackpowder Burn]

I use my 650 for a full auto loading of BP ammo.  The only change is putting an aluminum powder hopper on the powder measure and grounding it.  I've been told by several folks that an alternative is to use the plastic hopper and clip a strip of anti-static dryer sheet down the inside of the hopper.

[hellgate]

It's friction & heat that sets off the BP. Static won't do it. I've seen the photos of huge arcs of static not setting off piles of BP. Sorry I can't find the pictures but it was impressive how much electricity went through the little piles. So I no longer ground anything but I don't slam the metal around.

[wildman1]

I use my 650 for a full auto loading of BP ammo.  The only change is putting an aluminum powder hopper on the powder measure and grounding it.  I've been told by several folks that an alternative is to use the plastic hopper and clip a strip of anti-static dryer sheet down the inside of the hopper.

One of the instances of primer detonation was with a 650. It happened with the primer tube full or nearly full of primers. Did a lot of damage to the primer tube and the plate. I saw the primer tube with the primers all detonated. Another was with a loadmaster. Pard had a blast shield installed. Said is was quite load. wM1

[Dave T]

One primer going off while being seated, with a powder reservoir of BP setting above it would scare me considerable. That's why I liked wm1's idea of pre-priming cases. Having a whole priming tube detonate next to a reservoir of BP would scare the (expletive deleted) out of me. I've seen the aftermath of that happening with smokeless in the powder measure and that wasn't pretty.

After all this discussion I've about decided to go back to what I was doing 25+ years ago and load my BP 45 Colt ammo on my ancient RCBS Rockchucker Jr., one step at a time. Deliberate, methodical and as carefully as my old & shaky hands, eyes and brain can manage. (smile)

Dave

[wildman1]

I do use a progressive for BP 45 Colt loads and some others, but I prime in a separate operation. wM1

[Dick Dastardly]

Ho the fire,

Don't shoot.  I'm comin' in peaceable like.

After the match, when I get around to it. I deprime my brass with my DD TOP Cylinder loading stand.  Only takes me Three minutes per hundred.

Then, I tumble for Three hours with wet SS pins, change the fluid and tumble Three more hours in DD Ceramic Porcelain media.  Then, I tumble the wet brass in my little Lyman shaker for 30 minutes in corn cob media to dry out the brass.

My brass comes out sparkling clean inside and out and inside the primer pockets.  Then, with all that clean shiny brass I head to the loading lab and make ammo I'm proud to show at the next match.

This method keeps me shooting good quality ammo and enjoying our sport.

DD-MDA

[will52100]

I won't tell you to load on a progressive, especially one I'm not familiar with, that's your responsibility to evaluate the risk.  That said, I've loaded thousands of black powder rounds on both a Lee pro-1000 and a Lee Loadmaster using the Lee powder auto disk powder hopper.  I do occasionally wipe the hoppers down with a dryer sheet, for either smokeless or black powder.

Here's the thing with black powder and static.  The static won't effect black powder as it's heavy on the carbon side and basically a semi conductor, but if your throwing an arc and it passes through the powder and heats something next to the powder you could get ignition that way.  Or to put it another way, I've seen electricity burn holes in paper without setting off black powder, but if you manage to get an ember with electricity it will set the black powder off.

The only real concern I'd have about a progressive is where it primes and drops the powder.  That's one reason I retired the Pro-1000, it primed rite below the powder hopper.  I never had a problem, but if I ever missed a primer I had a mess directly in the primer feed.  I like the Loadmaster as it primes on one station and drops powder on the next.  Also the Loadmaster is a lot easier to clean than the Pro-1000.  Your running cases nearly full of powder and you will get a few black powder grains knocked out and into the mechanism.  The smoother the press the less you will get, but with ones like heel based 38 long colt the powder is flush or a little above the mouth of the case.  And all it takes is bumping the case to jostle a little powder out.  In other words, you'll have to clean the press a little more often.

One possibility is to get a Lee 4 hole classic cast turret press, a little slower than a true progressive, but very stout and I use mine exclusively for rifle and odd ball rounds.

Also, when I first started with a progressive I didn't use any powder hopper, I weight each charge of smokeless and dropped by hand.  A loading funnel will sit perfect in a Lee powder through expander die.  For black powder loading I used to use a Lyman black powder measure(still do for rifle loading), charge an empty case and dump in the funnel sitting in the powder through expander.  A little slower than the press mounted hopper, but not bad.

One thing I should mention, I wet tumble with stainless steel media, I use ceramic for some cases, but before tumbling I hand de-prime each one.  Makes for clean primer pockets and no crud getting down in the press's guts.  Or a repeat of moister trapped in the primer pocket and the round not going "bang".