• Update – 12:30 PM EST
    Attachments are now working, and all members can once again upload files.
    We are currently testing URL redirects and other miscellaneous features across the site.
    Thank you for your continued patience and support during this migration.

    Prefer a darker look? You can switch between light and dark modes in your account settings:
    smith-wessonforum.com/account/preferences

Herter's Model 0 Super single stage reloading press

JSR III

JSR III

Well-known member
Gold Supporter
Joined
Jun 7, 2000
Messages
6,866
Reaction score
7,375
Location
Massachusetts USA
Wondering if anyone here can help me.

As I posted earlier I am getting back to reloading after quite a long hiatus. Cleaning up the room, building shelves for storage and separating all of the brass that I have range scrounged over the years. Bought a new wet tumbler that works great and started to deprime some of my cases.

So grabbed a box of just washed (no SS pins) .40 S&W brass, loaded the correct shell holder and began the process.

The press ram has a slot on one face that travels down a few inches and then turns to the right. There is a hole in the press frame that lines up with this slot and directs the spent primer into a metal collection box.

I finally get the die screwed in and set and begin the long one by one process. Much to my dismay, the primers are not following the slot in the ram and press body and landing in the metal collection box. As I lower the ram handle, they are merely falling forward from the slot and landing all over the floor.

This is not a game ender as they can be vacuumed up later but it is not how I recall this operation working when last used.

I seem to recall all of the spent primers landing in the collection box without any landing on the floor. I even took a brass cleaning brush and cleaned the slot in the ram thinking that maybe it had old oil or grease that was causing the primers to hang up and not follow the path to the box. This did not help. The only way that I can seem to get them where they are supposed to go is by slowing down the lowering process of the ram to a crawl and sometimes even jiggling the handle slightly when I feel that the slot and the hole in the press are lined up and allow the primer to go where intended.

Regardless it either slows down the process considerably or creates a second task of floor clean up if I just proceed.

Just hoping that someone has this press and can tell me what I may be doing wrong or maybe there is a piece missing that prevents them from falling forward.

Thoughts????
 
My RCBS Rock Chucker II has a straight slot that allows primers to maybe land in the spent primer cup. The length of the decapping pin adjustment seems to have bearing on how powerfully the spent primer runs this gauntlet. I find that a 3x5 index card makes a good deflector to keep spent primers where they belong or close enough to it.

Time to use the "Inner Inventor" within you to "adapt and overcome" pesky primers.

Ivan
 
MY first press in the mid-'60s was a Wells; looked identical to the Herter's. It was probably the same press. There was no receptacle or anything else to catch spent primers. Most presses were like this. You just swept them off the floor. Nowadays I put a large container under my RCBS Big Max to catch spent primers as the plastic jar that attached to the press wore out and RCBS has no more of them.
 
rockquarry said:
MY first press in the mid-'60s was a Wells; looked identical to the Herter's. It was probably the same press. There was no receptacle or anything else to catch spent primers. Most presses were like this. You just swept them off the floor. Nowadays I put a large container under my RCBS Big Max to catch spent primers as the plastic jar that attached to the press wore out and RCBS has no more of them.
Click to expand...

That's where my frustration stems from. This press does have a method for capturing the spent primers but for some reason it is not working. If the bottom of the die is not set to the underside of the press the cam action of the handle does not allow the case to fully enter the die easily. If I line up the ram slot with the exit hole in the press, so that as the primer drops it follows this channel to the container the top of the shell holder is about a case length from the underside of the press. Lowering the die in the press to match this position makes it very hard to get the case fully inserted into the die. Very frustrating.
 
My Lee Classic Cast does a good job with primers *if* you have the priming arm installed in the ram. If you don’t, primers frequently fall out to the side thru the now-exposed slot.

My solve: Try to remember to always install the priming arm, even if I’m only bulk decapping. <sigh>
 
Last edited:
I set a cardboard box on the floor , about 16" square , watched where the primers landed and positioned box to catch them ... only a very few get out the box.
Cost : $0.00
I'm all for cheap and easy fixes ... and this is one .
Empty box every year or two and doubles as trash receptacle for small items like primer trays and primer boxes !
Gary
 
I have 2 Herter's model 3 and 2 Herter's truant presses. None of these have a primer catch system! I put a 5 gal bucket on the floor under the press which catches about 80% of the primers! It sounds to me like your dies are not the proper length, when installed correctly spaced to the die bottom, for the holes in the ram to align properly! Everything was probably made for Herter's dies! Just a thought!
jcelect
 
mikerjf said:
My Lee Classic Cast does a good job with primers *if* you have the priming arm installed in the ram. If you don’t, primers frequently fall out to the side thru the now-exposed slot.

My solve: Try to remember to always install the priming arm, even if I’m only bulk decamping. <sigh>
Click to expand...

Priming arm is installed but thanks for the heads up.
 
gwpercle said:
I set a cardboard box on the floor , about 16" square , watched where the primers landed and positioned box to catch them ... only a very few get out the box.
Cost : $0.00
I'm all for cheap and easy fixes ... and this is one .
Empty box every year or two and doubles as trash receptacle for small items like primer trays and primer boxes !
Gary
Click to expand...

That will be my last resort if I can't figure this out. It just frosts my butt that it used to work so I must be doing something wrong
 
jcelect said:
I have 2 Herter's model 3 and 2 Herter's truant presses. None of these have a primer catch system! I put a 5 gal bucket on the floor under the press which catches about 80% of the primers! It sounds to me like your dies are not the proper length, when installed correctly spaced to the die bottom, for the holes in the ram to align properly! Everything was probably made for Herter's dies! Just a thought!
jcelect
Click to expand...

Perhaps an improvement added to the Super O model. The spent primer drops through the center hole in the shell holder and drops down through the slot in the ram where the primer arm goes forward. Near the bottom of the ram there is an additional slot that runs down at an angle to the right and lines up with a hole in the right side of the press. That hole also slopes down to the right and dumps into a small metal box to catch the used primers. When last used, I really don't recall having this issue so I must be doing something wrong.

Although I do have a collection of Herter's shell holders, I never bought any Herter's dies. All of my dies are RCBS, Lyman or C&H so if it worked before without using Herter's dies, I just can't figure what is up now.

Obviously if I need to resort to a bucket or box on the floor I will but it is just killing me that the system is not working as it should.

Again, thank you all for your comments and suggestions. My BIL has the same press purchased together back in the 70's so I have emailed him to see if he can help.

He was the one that got me started collecting S&W's (and into reloading) and why I purchased a model 27-2 from Lew Horton's Gun Store in 1971. Back when it was just a store and not a distributorship.....ah the good old days
 
Last edited:
Well as they say "time heals all wounds". Perhaps not healed but improved. Since this issue arose while working on a couple thousand .40 S&W cases I have been doing a few at a time as my loading bench is still not set up completely. I noticed last night that more spent primers were going into the catch box mounted on the press than had been days earlier.

My new supposition is that the primers were still slightly wet from the wet tumbling process and this moisture was causing them to hang up in their downward fall to the catch box and causing them to fall forward out of the press when the handle was raised and the ram lowered.

Again merely a WAG on my part but it is the only condition that has changed over the last few days. As time has passed, I believe the water is drying up and the dry primers are finding their way correctly. ?????:confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top