I recently acquired a new (to me) 350 rigby. Current brass availability has me looking at options for removing belts from HH cases, and turning down heads.

Does anyone have experience with the manufacturers referenced here?

http://www.mini-lathe.com/

Apologies to the mods - as technically this is not a wildcat, but since I'm tweaking brass to this degree it seemed appropriate.

Nate

Since a gunsmith is really a machinist with an FFL and most community colleges have "Machine Tool Technology" training programs, I think I would stop there and ask around. I guess some of the Harbor freight stuff is JUNK... for any but one job, MAYBE... But there is good stuff too. Luck

I had an old yellow one from Cummins that worked fine when I was making cases for my oddballs.
sold it and other tools a few years back.
I bought it used and sold it for more than i bought it for and made many many cases in between.

The harbor freight, Grizzly, and others are all made from the same factories in china. With a little work, they do well for what your looking for. Check out Varmint Als minilathe page for ideas.

John

www.littlemachineshop.com or something close to that ....
remember, even a mini can KILL you

quote:

Originally posted by NRC:
I recently acquired a new (to me) 350 rigby. Current brass availability has me looking at options for removing belts from HH cases, and turning down heads.

Does anyone have experience with the manufacturers referenced here?

http://www.mini-lathe.com/

Apologies to the mods - as technically this is not a wildcat, but since I'm tweaking brass to this degree it seemed appropriate.

Nate

Prager is a better lathe, but more money. I use an old Unimat for case trimming.

Those lathes are all junk. I use an old Atlas (6" X 18") for case work.

I have this lathe. It is imperial and not metric thread, so everything is marked in inches. It is easier on my pea brain that way.

I have always been very intrigued by one of these. But I have a problem, most any tool I use I either break something, or bust the tool. They won't even let me have a bastard file because of the damage I can do with one! But I sneak one in once and awhile anyway. So what I am saying is that I have no talent when it comes to things like this, and I have never even seen one, would not know how to use one. But I can see where I might could do some things easy working with brass cases and such????

Are they idiot proof with good instructions? Or now knowing of my lack of competence with such things, should I stay away from them??

Michael

Michael,

from the moment you understand the "Basic´s", like what tool for what job to use, what is the right rpm for the job things like this it is easy....
As far as i know there are classes someone kan take from Highschools ?? Think thats the way to go for you.
I had to learn the job for 3 years..:-)
( incl. mill, grinder, emd, cnc, cad.......)

Best
2RECON

quote:

Originally posted by NRC:
I recently acquired a new (to me) 350 rigby. Current brass availability has me looking at options for removing belts from HH cases, and turning down heads.

Does anyone have experience with the manufacturers referenced here?

http://www.mini-lathe.com/

Apologies to the mods - as technically this is not a wildcat, but since I'm tweaking brass to this degree it seemed appropriate.

Nate

The lathe you mention can do what you want but......
You need a good way to hold the case.
Holding a tapered case in chuck jaws doe not work without a bushing or collet.
The only readily available bushings are those made by L E Wilson for their case trimmers. These case holder bushings are easily dinged up by the chuck jaws unless you are careful. A lathe big enough to use a 1" 5C collet would be much better but then you would have real lathe.

Most lathes are advertised with chucks which are fine for holding a piece of raw material to make a new part.
To hold a precision item for a second operation or for modification a collet is much better.

2Recon

Thanks, looks like I better just stay with a bastard file, vise grips and a hammer! Maybe that way I won't do too much damage!

Michael

Forster sells Brown & Sharpe type collets they use in their case trimmers. Put the case head in the collet, then the collet into a 3 jaw chuck. It works for me making ~7.62x38 Nagant out of .223 Rem cases.

I did quite a bit of research before I bought mine, principally for reloading and minor gun work. I've considered it money well spent. All of these are made in two plants, where else but China. Some are finished a good bit better than others, generally the lower priced ones requiring considerably more than the others but they all require some tweaking. They are all basically the same. The higher priced ones are spec'd to lower tolerances but all can be made to be quite accurate.

Varmint Al has quite a bit on his site as to his utilization. http://www.varmintal.com/alath.htm

I've used mine to make inserts for what Hot Core would call a "thingie", the Stoney Point tool,and for a bit of case work when necessary. In some cases it can be considered as a larger more useful RCBS case prep center and I considered it money well spent. I got mine from Micro Mark, the higher priced and better finished of the bunch. It still required some modifications, tune-up and in a sense became a hobby of its own.

Here's a photo of mine on bench adjacent to my reloading bench.


This little "candle holder" of which I made a couple, is filled with two grades of steel wool, used for polishing case neck mouths after trimming.


This is where I got mine, they have sales frequently and both the mini lathe and the mini mill can be bought on sale for about $100 less. http://www.micromark.com/MICRO...MINI-LATHE,8176.html

This is my apology for posting to this site. For personal reasons I opted many years ago not to participate but thought I could contribute a bit here.

quote:

remember, even a mini can KILL you

A lathe is an extremely dangerous device. So damn easy to make mistakes.

I have a cheapo Chinese lathe. It works but has a major design flaw - the power feed can (and does) go direct from long travel feed to cross travel feed and can easily be bumped into 'engage'! I removed the lever.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:
You need a good way to hold the case.
Holding a tapered case in chuck jaws doe not work without a bushing or collet.
The only readily available bushings are those made by L E Wilson for their case trimmers. These case holder bushings are easily dinged up by the chuck jaws unless you are careful. A lathe big enough to use a 1" 5C collet would be much better but then you would have real lathe.

Most lathes are advertised with chucks which are fine for holding a piece of raw material to make a new part.
To hold a precision item for a second operation or for modification a collet is much better.

Pretty good advice there. I am lucky enough to have both Brown & Sharpe and Jacobs collet chucks for my lathes, and several sets of rubber-flex collets for them. But then we are once again talking "real" lathes.


At the current price of lathes, even miniature ones, and the price of tooling (which can pretty quickly exceed the price of the lathe) you have to be pretty deep into wildcatting to buy a lathe and all the accompanying necessary stuff just to make cartridge cases.

You also have to have the time to learn to use any size lathe properly, make and sharpen cutting tools, and to develop sufficient operating skill to make things turn out at the quality level you would want.