MEC Issue

[David Weber]

I just purchased a MEC progressive loader and I'm having a hellish time deprimming the Winchester AA hulls on my first reload attempt. Any suggestions?

[calvin humburg]

What is it doing? Not getting them clear out?

[Chuck Bishop]

Are you sure they are Winchester AA hulls and not the cheepie Winchester Super Target shells? Does the hull have AA on it or a W?

The Super Target shells have a steel base. If the hulls get wet, the primer rusts in the steel base and are very hard for the MEC to punch out. If you examine the primer once you get it out, is there evidence of rust?

I reload Federal Top Gun and Estates quite a bit. They also have steel bases. My MEC hydraulic will not always punch those primers out. The hulls jams in the collet and will not rotate on the turret. It's a real problem getting the hull out.

[Tom Carter]

Call MEC and talk to Dave. He has helped me a number of times. Cheers, Tom

[David Weber]

Thanks for the responses. After examining the hulls are AA hulls. About 4 out of 10 hulls, the primer will punch out very easy. The others, no way. As you stated they will partially punch out, then not rotate. I've applied enough pressure to distort the bottom of the hulls outward. Does anyone have just a de-primer and then you could let the MEC progressive do the rest of the work?

[Chuck Bishop]

I'm assuming this is a MEC 9000 or Grabber, not a hydraulic 9000H.

If your MEC fails on 4x10 hulls, try just depriming/resizing in the first station only. Don't let the turret fill up with hulls. Do each one at at time. Does it still fail to take out the primer? If it still fails, it's due to some problem with the depriming station and not the other stations. If it works find that way, then the problem could be caused by other shells further along in the turret.

Check to see that there is no shot wedged between the fingers of the collet and that the primer drop tube drops completely when being deprimed.

If all else fails, call MEC. Their customer service is great.

[Tom Carter]

MEC has a resizer/deprimer only that you can punch out the primer with a tool and hammer. It's good to have when you mess something up and need to fix or add a shell. Cheers, Tom

[David Weber]

Is it safe to say that punching out the primer is probably the hardest thing this machine has to do?

[Fred Preston]

Drill a 3/8-1/2" hole in a board, file the point of a good sized nail flat, place the primer over the hole, put the flat pointed nail inside the hull over the primer and whack it out.
I had that problem with purple Federal paper base wad 16s.

[David Weber]

Any suggestions down the road on a good hull/primer mix that you dont have to blast out?

[Pete Lester]

My first thought is you need to adjust the depriming station and lengthen the deprime pin so it goes completely through the primer socket. However you said you have exerted so much pressure on some that you have distorted the bottom of the hulls, this suggests the primers are somehow fused to the hulls beyond their normal friction fit. How old are the hulls, did they get wet? Perhaps they were fired with excessive chamber pressure. Does this happen with any other type of hull? If not I am guessing the problem is the particular group of AA hulls you have and if so I would pitch them and start with some fresh clean ones. There is nothing inherently wrong with AA's for reloading, I prefer the old one's and I think the Remington STS/Nitro 27 is superior but you should not be having any problem depriming them under normal circumstances.

[Chuck Bishop]

Are these hulls from AA's that you personally fired brand new and kept to reload or did you buy them from somebody else? What model MEC do you have and did you buy it new?

What Fred suggested will work on a hull on the bench if your only loading a few.It's a step that you shouldn't have to do. The reloader should do that properly for you. The problem is that if the primer is half out in the depriming station, you can't remove it from the reloader with that primer sticking partially down, there isn't enough clearance without bending something, probably the turret. What I do is cut the hull as close to the base as possible with a knife, then use something like a nail set or wooden dowl sharpened to a flat point and hammer the primer out. Problem with that is it drives the primer drop tube down into the fork below the base of the reloader. All in all, when this happens it's a real PITA.

You need to find the source of the problem and fix it. In my case reloading Top Guns and Estates I can look inside the hull and see evidence of rust before I put them in the reloader. I'm lazy and don't want to take the time to inspect hundreds of hulls while reloading. It's that 1 in a few hundreds that gets you.

[E Robert Fabian]

Dave I have had this same problem, it's something in the collect fingers or at the bottom of the pocket. I removed the chain link and removed and cleaned and all is well. Good luck

[David Weber]

Dave I have had this same problem, it's something in the collect fingers or at the bottom of the pocket. I removed the chain link and removed and cleaned and all is well. Good luck


Yes after I did this it statrted working....now to figure out the crimping proccess...:banghead::banghead:

[David Weber]

Buy an old MEC CASE CONDITIONER off of ebay or a MEC 600 jr and use one of those tools to decap and resize the hulls. After the hulls are decapped and resized they should reload just fine. Good Shooting To You, Jent ----- Make sure you get a 12 gauge case conditioner if 12 gauge is what we are talking about here.


I like this idea. :rotf:

[Paul Stafford]

I would call MEC, I have a grabber in every gauge available and have never had any problems with primers. That's an odd issue as most people have problems getting the crimp right.

[jimcaron]

The newer AA HS 12 gauge hull is most likely the root cause of this problem. I have only reloaded a few of the newer 12 gauge AA HS hulls and I had very similar primer pocket problems. I reload Remington Gun Club 12 gauge hulls mostly and Remington 12 ga STS the second most. I do not have any problems reloading the Remington hulls. The Remington hulls are constructed like the old original AA 12 gauge hulls. I would suggest that you try reloading some Remington STS hulls and see how your MEC tool works with those hulls. You might be pleasantly surprised !!! I would still resize and decap the Remington hulls on a MEC Case Conditioner before reloading them on a progressive reloading tool. Good Shooting To You, Jent

HI Jent,

I don't own a MEC but I had the worst time with the HS shells in my PW. Primer problems, crimping problems, cocked wads. I thought for sure My loader had turned to junk. Then I went to the STS's and I'm OK. I load 28 only, but it seems that the new HS hulls are alot harder to reload.

[John Campbell]

Dave:
At the risk of beating this long-distance problem to death, let me suggest that it may indeed be the hulls that are at fault. But not because they're the new AA HS. Instead, it may be because they've been fired in an other gun... most likely an autoloader with a sloppy chamber.

Such a chamber allows the rim of the brass head to expand too much. This wider rim balks at falling completely down into the sizer collet and resting in the collet recess cut there for the rim. It stops 1/2 or 2/3 of the way down. You pull the handle and the brass head is actually extruded by the force of the collet at times. At other times, the primer is not fully punched out.

Solution: follow/guide/push the hull down to full bottom in the collet with your fingers as you pull the handle for the "first reload" and you're good to go from then on.

I know this from experience. But... your problem may be elsewhere.


Best, Kensal

[David Weber]

After tinkering with this machine and talking to MEC, I am finally into full scale production. :rotf::rotf::rotf: I'm convinced that the primer issue was caused by shells that had been weathered, causing the primers to corrode, so from here on out I'm only using hulls that i know will not have that issue. Thanks again to all who provided me some very sound advice.