Dillon Precision Small Primer Pickup Tube 4-Pack

Product Details

Dillon Precision Small Primer Pickup Tube 4-Pack

60982420049

The secret of really punching out a lot of rounds in a hurry. Have these tubes filled and ready to go. These are for small diameter primers

Why You Need Multiple Primer Pickup Tubes
By Duane Thomas

The primer feed tube on a Dillon reloading machine holds approximately 100 primers, with a bit of space left over. During long reloading sessions, this is a problem. You’re going along, cranking out rounds, having a fine ol’ time. Screech! You’re out of primers. The necessity to recharge the machine with primers every hundred rounds makes handloading kind of like driving a car you have to stop and gas up every five miles. The solution is to begin the loading session with multiple primer pickup tubes already pre-loaded.

Let’s recap a bit how we got to the point of needing to reload primers to start with: Primers come in “flats” holding a hundred per. When they’re inside the machine’s primer feed tube, they all need to be anvil up, cup down. To get them into the feed tube, all oriented correctly, we use a primer flip tray, which comes in two pieces, one with a smooth interior, the other has a series of raised, concentric ridges. Slip the protective paper cover off the primer flat, lay the ridged cover over the flat, then, holding the two together so no primers fall out, flip them over so the flat is now on top, the tray on bottom. Remove the flat, some of the primers are now anvil-up, some cup-up, some on-edge. Shake the tray around, its concentric ridges make the primers turn anvil-up. Pick up the primers using, strangely enough, a device we have cleverly named a...wait for it...primer pickup tube. Flip the pickup tube over, remove the follower rod from the machine’s primer feed tube, mate the pickup tube to the opening at the top of the machine’s primer feed tube, pull out the cotter-pin to the pickup tube holding the primers inside it, Shooosh! all the primers sheet down into the feed tube, reinstall the follower rod, you’re ready to load.

Problem: Going through that entire process every 100 rounds is a bit of a pain.

So have multiple primer pickup tubes, and begin the session with them already pre-loaded. Let’s say your goal is to load 500 rounds. (The way I shoot, 500 rounds will do me for about two weeks.) Have five different primer pickup tubes on-hand. Fill all five before you begin the loading session. Have them all laid out in a row, awaiting their appointment with destiny. (I suppose you could have the machine already contain 100 primers, with just four primer pickup tubes pre-loaded, but work with me here.)

You’ve used your 100 primers. Instead of going through the whole drawn-out “grab a flat of primers, slip off its paper cover, grab your flip tray, etc., etc., etc.” process again, you simply grab another pre-loaded pickup tube, pull the follower rod out of the primer tube, position the pickup tube over the primer tube’s opening, yank the cotter pin, reinstall the follower rod, Boom! you’re ready to load another hundred rounds. Keep on doing that every hundred rounds, your 500 round reloading session just got a lot faster and easier.