Totally stole your idea and made a replacement knuckle for my rock chucker. Used a center to center distance of 1.1". It's soooo much better. More than enough leverage to press my slugs now! Very happy I came across your post!
Ya, I’m giving that a try as well. Die making isn’t something I’ve done before so I’ve got some learning to do. I don’t have a cnc lathe so I’m doing it in the cnc mill which isn’t probably ideal but seems to be working out for the most part. Im rough milling to within 10-20 thou, heat treating, then I finish hard milling, and polish manually.
Nice work! It seems your press is doing good! I use A2 as well. I harden/tempered my first couple I made but just use them as machined/polished now and they seem to be holding up fine so far. I use a soft toothbrush on the ones that have a bit of leakage on them.
I think most any that have a built in primer to prime brass could be easily converted. Otherwise, the ram would need a little machine work.
Yes I adapted an ejection mechanism to mine. It was pretty easy. I removed the end of the shaft for the shell holder and threaded the OD to accept the dies. And put a slot in the shaft for the ejector. It bottoms out on a cross bolt in the casting. The Rebel is really strong and has no problems at all. I've thought about buying several and modifying them for guys that dont have the capability that I do in my shop. The only thing would be I would probably have to make the dies too.
Hmm, yeah the rebel press might be a better starting platform then the rock chucker 2. It looks like it might be a bit more stout.
Truth be told I still had to put the Rock Chucker's shaft on the mill to make it a bit larger to get it to work. I think you are right, the Rebel is a better starting platform.
This is what I wish to do something about !. So I think I can work on iterating multiple options for standardizing the application. I am open to ideas and collaborations.
