by Tiger650 » 18 Jul 2021, 1:18 pm
I got the tool working to my satisfaction but had frustration setting mandrel depth.
Hornady instructions show simply inserting the mandrel and locking this in place with the stationary spindle, damned if Mine would not rotate the mandrel outward during that process and bugger up my mandrel depth setting.
Very difficult to prevent that, or detect it happening by holding the little .224" mandrel tip.
Tried locking the mandrel by inserting an old case and locking case neck down onto to the mandrel with the tool tip, not satisfactory.
I bit the bullet [no pun intended] and drilled the mandrel housing block and tapped M5 for a set screw, call me a butcher but it works for me.
Requires very little tension on the M5 screw to hold adjustment so does not damage the mandrel thread.
Small difficulty caused by drill bit burring of the internal [female] thread in the mandrel block but managed to clear that by working one of the unused [calibre I do not use] mandrels back and forth, appears to have done no damage to that mandrel or the mandrel block bore.
If I had access to a lathe I would bore into the rear surface of the mandrels and maybe drive a small torx bit into the hole, that would make mandrel positioning much easier.
Repeatability when changing mandrels is now easy, previously it was near impossible to avoid a mandrel being slightly backed out of the block when removing the [fixed] non rotating spindle and with the mandrel block in place on the machine impossible to measure mandrel position [protrusion ?] with a vernier.
The above is easily measured with the mandrel locked by the set screw, my .223 case trim length is set at 44.33mm, consistency there is obviously important.
Shallow "donut" cut at end of case travel requires attention, with inside and outside chamfer it is easy to push too hard and partially press the case neck mouth back which gives a deeper donut cut.
Best to watch carefully and do by eye rather than feel as feel is inconsistent due to varying amounts of brass being removed case to case.
Hopefully the above is not too convoluted, maybe looking at Hornady tool setup vid on Youtube would help.
The set screw thing could possibly be avoided by modifying mandrels with torx bits and a touch of Loctite in the mandrel block bore, ever notice that you sometimes think of a better solution after creating the Mk 1 version ?