MEC Issue
 

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?

What is it doing? Not getting them clear out?

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.

MEC Reloader
 

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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