Press Parts?

[Paul Harm]

In a Mec 650 a coin can be put under the prime station to raise it . I have a penny under mine - it puts the primer a bit up, level with the bushing. I'm not sure without seeing a better photo, but the item next to it, if about an inch thick and made from plastic, looks like a crimp starter. I believe they were made for Lee hand Loaders.

[Roundsworth]

The crimp starter is made of an alloy and has a threaded hole on the side not shown in the photo. I recently bought some neat Val Scott 12 gauge dies, sans sizing die, and these items. I shoulda figured there was absolutely no correlation between them

[John Farrell, Charter Member #33]

Mark - is the shiny tube on the left threaded on the interior top? Inasmuch as it is not threaded on the exterior top it will not work in a MEC reloader.

There would be no way to hold it in the press after resizing and trying to eject the full length sized hull in stage one. It needs a little more study to determine its usage. The dark steel die is as identified here earlier, I believe. It might possibly be a base resizer using a plastic mallet to drive the hull into the resizing ring and then a wood mandrel to drive the hull out before or after decapping. As you know, the old hand reloader tubes had a flare at the top, they were not straight cut. The flare was necessary to retain the tube in the hand while hitting the wood mandrel inserted into the decapped hull to eject the hull.

[Roundsworth]

John, the nickeled tube is, indeed, threaded inside. The inside of the blued ring is just the right size, very smooth and shaped to facilitate forced insertion of the head on a 12 gauge shell. It is not constructed as robust as the other die.