Gracey/Giraud/Jones blades on Dillon RT-1200

[kombayotch]

I've been pondering ways to get my sizing, trimming, de-burring and chamfering done all in one step. I looked at the Giraud blades, but there is no way to get them to fit in the Dillon die and I want to do as little modification as possible.

I'm pretty sure I can make this work with Gracey blades. As you can see from the pic below, the cutter shaft is removable from the motor shaft. What I'm wodering is if I can adapt a Gracey shaft to fit the Dillon or if I need to make a new cutter shaft from scratch. Cutter shaft diameter is about 1/2", from pictures it looks like the Gracey shaft is about the same.

Can someone with a Gracey trimmer please post some pics and dimensions?

Dillon trimmer shaft

Trimmed, chamfered and de-burred case in the Dillon die.

I've opened up the neck area to 0.336", which is ideal for Lapua brass.

 

[memilanuk]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

http://matchprep.com/trimmer-diag.pdf

(dunno why it's upside down...)

 

[kombayotch]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

Yeah, that's where I got the idea. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any dimensions.

 

[MR3GUN]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

I'm interested in hearing more about this post. Please keep the post active as you work through the install.

 

[kombayotch]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

Here is it with the shaft removed. The shaft is an exact 0.3750" dia. (measured with a micrometer). The cutter shaft is 0.470" OD.

I'm thinking that the Gracey/Bob Jones blades might be an easier option. It shouldn't be hard to cut one of these into 3 individual, smaller blades with a Dremel and a diamond cutting disk.

 

[kombayotch]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

Bit of progress today: started the new cutter shaft and ground a carbide blank into a Giraud/Jones style cutter. Just need to slot the shaft for the bit and add a set screw and I'm in business.

 

[CGM]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

Please, keep us posted, I am interested in this, as well.

 

[memilanuk]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

I'm interested as well... but I believe Doug Giraud decided it wasn't worth the effort, or something to that effect (fixing someone else's design). Perhaps not from a commercial point of view, but it'd still be neat to see...

 

[dhg2]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

Monte,

What I found was that the concentricty was a royal pain. Since the case doesn't rotate when held by the die, you have to position the trimmer motor centered perfectly or you don't get an even chamfer. Since the threads on the motor, die top, die bottom, and press all affect this, you can have it perfectly centered, then adjust up .005" for the length and it throws everything off and you got to start all over. There was a reason it only cut basically flat to begin with, no alignment issues.

Way too much trouble to facilitate somebody else's product.....

Doug Giraud

 

[kombayotch]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

Ok, I fit the blade to the trimmer and like Doug said, alignment is a nightmare. My cuts were pretty rough, but it was still apparent that the chamfer was not concentric. However, this is solely due to the interface between the motor and the die. The the interface between the die and the press don't factor into this since the case gets aligned by the die.

Due to the attachment point being so low along the shaft, any misalignment gets amplified by the length that goes up into the motor. Basically, its like trying to balance a kaber...

In order to solve this, the cutter shaft needs to be mounted in the die itself with the motor shaft de-coupled in some way (the Giraud trimmer uses a belt system). Its a solvable problem. But, since the Dillon die isn't long enough to accommodate this, the only part of the Dillon that could be re-used is the motor.

Oh well, back to the drawing board... If I get tired of playing with this, I'll probably just get the Giraud trimmer. In the meantime, I'll keep having fun.

 

[thehouseproduct]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

How tightly does the trimmer fit inside the die? Maybe we could make something like the Forster work. This could float.
3 Way Cutter

 

[kombayotch]

Re: Gracey blades on Dillon RT-1200... help me out!

I sold this and the RL550 a while back and went to the Giraud. It could probably be made to fit. Now that I have a lathe, I may play with it at some point, but from scratch.