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Reloading Bench Upgrades |
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My First upgrade to the bench was to put a MEC large capacity primer tray on the reloader. Of course, if you use a larger shot bottle and a higher capacity primer tray, you don’t want to be bothered with emptying the finished hull bin frequently. My solution? Cut a hole in the Sears Craftsman 3 Drawer workbench so that finished hulls drop into a target box below the bench top. A target box can hold 300 or 400 finished shells easily. You can remove the target box to take the finished shells somewhere else to put in shell boxes, or put another empty one in its place and just keep on reloadin’. This is a better option than having the hole dump into the top drawer, since you can’t remove the drawer as easily, and the drawer would not hold as many finished shells.
To start, mark a spot on the workbench where the finished hulls first hit the table top as they fall off the ramp. I cut a 2.5 inch hole, using a hole saw drill bit, and had the side of the hole closest to the ramp just a quarter inch closer to the MEC than the spot you marked on the bench. You don’t want the center of the hole on that spot, since the finished hulls continue to travel horizontally as they drop through the hole. If the spot where the hulls first contact the bench is in the center of the hole, the finished hulls will strike the far side of the hole as they travel though, sometimes bouncing out.
Using the same hole saw drill bit, I cut a half circle out of a piece of two by four to serve as a backstop to the hole. This prevents hulls from occasionally bouncing or rattling out of the hole before dropping through. Spread some wood glue on it, and use a 25 pound shot bag to press it down on the bench top overnight for a sturdy mount.
Put a clay target box under the hole, and you are ready to crank them out! |
