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Frankford Arsenal Vibra Prime

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38ExtraSpecial

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does anyone use one?

I had a bass pro gift card to blow so I decided to buy one online.
I've heard a ton of mixed reviews on this product so I was a little skeptical.

I tried to run it with winchester SPP and had nothing but issues. I did notice some burrs on the plastic tray that might have been holding things up, so I scraped the burr off and nothing changed at all.
I emailed the company the next morning and got a quick reply. The rep figured it was an inconsistency in production of the tray and mailed out a new one free.
A week later I got the tray in the mail and tried running some more Winchester SPP through it. The first tray full was a little catchy and hung up every 4th primer, but started back up with a couple knuckle knocks on the side. Every try after that was worse. I couldn't fill more than 1 or 2 primers before it jammed.
I tried every possible approach with no luck, shaking it, tapping it, different angles, swearing at it in different languages and nothing worked. I switched to CCI LPP and they fed pretty nice. I figured that was all I was going to get out of it and I will settle for a primer tube filler for one type of primer. After all the gift card was free.
I send feedback to the rep via email to let him know how I made out. He replied the next morning to tell me that he would be shipping out a whole new unit to replace the faulty one.
Not sure what's going to happen with the new one but I can say that Battenfeld Tech customer service is awesome and they stand behind their products. Like I said in the beginning, I have read a lot of mixed reviews on this product but most people didn't seem to bother following up with the company. I'll update this thread with results from the new unit as soon as i get it.
I would love to hear anyone else's experience with this tool.
 
I had one and sold it for a small fortune on ebay during the time period that Frankford Arsenal stopped making them.

I had to carefully deburr all of the tubes, toss out a couple of tubes that were out of spec, and found that it was really picky when it came to which primers it fed properly. It wouldn't work with the primers I use the most, so I got rid of it.
 
that's what i'm worried about.
I always use Winchester primers. If they don't feed well then I'll have to karma this thing or give it to a friend that uses a lot of CCI
 
Winchester primers are sloppily made, take a look at one. The sealant seems to always leak around and below the edge of the primer. I have had a vibraprime for a while and like it a lot. I didn't have to modify mine at all and it feeds CCI, Federal and Fiocchi primers perfectly. Winchester are a little more finicky, but I still seem to get them to feed just fine. The key is to tilt the unit back and forth maybe +- 20 degrees as you press the trigger. If you tilt too much a primer will get lodged sideways. If you don't keep tilting back and forth you will get a log jam of primers near the tube. I have been meaning to pick up a spare, if you want to sell yours, let me know.

Chris
 
*chris* said:
Winchester primers are sloppily made, take a look at one. The sealant seems to always leak around and below the edge of the primer. I have had a vibraprime for a while and like it a lot. I didn't have to modify mine at all and it feeds CCI, Federal and Fiocchi primers perfectly. Winchester are a little more finicky, but I still seem to get them to feed just fine. The key is to tilt the unit back and forth maybe +- 20 degrees as you press the trigger. If you tilt too much a primer will get lodged sideways. If you don't keep tilting back and forth you will get a log jam of primers near the tube. I have been meaning to pick up a spare, if you want to sell yours, let me know.

Chris
Click to expand...

I haven't tried the redesigned version.

Have you used it with Wolf primers?
 
once I debured the tray holes and the tube ends primers dropped slicker than whale crap. I bought a spare I liked it so much but they were on sale at Midway for $25 at the time
 
I had one and it was nothing but trouble, sold it. Interesting to hear that WW primers could have been the problem as that was the brand that caused so much trouble for me. I have been using WW primers forever and couldn't be happier with them so selling this little gizmo was the best decision I could have made.

Talk about bad primers. I bought 5k of Remington large pistol primers that had the legs of the anvil extending beyond the edge of the cup. Needless to say they would not feed in a primer tube so I put them in storage. A few years later when primers became scarce, I brought them back out in a last ditch effort to load some 45 ACP. I then discovered that the problem was limited to the first box of 1K and that the rest of the 5K was trouble free. To this day I still don't trust Remington primers, but then again I don't trust Wolf or Tula, but I do use them when I have to.
 
In the past, I've found Winchester primers the easiest to seat whether by hardness or size I can't say. Federals, Remington and CCI, in that order, harder to seat. Wolf by far was the hardest I've ever tried but even they weren't truly difficult. David Tubbs, at least in the past, used them exclusively while shooting High Power rifle. He and Bo knows.
 
new vibra prime came in yesterday

with limited testing i have had the same results with winchester SPP.
i'll do some more testing before i give up.
 
How long does it take to fill a primer tube with a properly working vibra-prime? Is it as easy as drop the primers into a tray, wait a few seconds and they float down into the tube?
 
Make sure there are no burrs on the hole in the tray and at the tube plastic end. I find a little tilt forward and to the side works best along with letting it touch the bench. I use Fed primers and Win primers with no problems and as I said I bought a spare when they were on sale for 25
Dave
 
I too have been on the fence about buying one of these. As the OP stated, I also have seen very mixed reviews, it seems that folks either love it or hate it. The problem is that there seems to be an equal quantity of both.

I found this youtube vid and this guy's seems to work slicker than snot on a doorknob.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnmut3Giydg

I think that filling primer tubes is the biggest PITA in reloading and I would love to find a solution that actually works
 
I think I hit the lottery. Bought a vibra prime today. I was up in NH at Riley's. Decided to stop at Bass pro. I grabbed one just figuring Id be disappointed. I loaded 5 (spp) tubes. Not a single flipped primer or hangup. I think I'm the one guy to own a working one.
 
CCI. I haven't tried anything else yet. They ran thru it perfect! I'll try some winchesters tomorrow and report back.
 
I was using CCI 41s the other day and I normally run Federals both large and small Tried to do a video but didn't have enough hands to load the tray, run the primers and focus at the same time
Just make sure there are no burs or flashing left on the tray holes and tubes
Dave
 
Primer tube filling is not a problem for me. I do most of my loading on a 1050 which really cranks out the rounds. I actually enjoy manually filling the primer tube as it is a break from yanking in the 1050's handle.
 
Gammon said:
Primer tube filling is not a problem for me. I do most of my loading on a 1050 which really cranks out the rounds. I actually enjoy manually filling the primer tube as it is a break from yanking in the 1050's handle.
Click to expand...

1050 certainly cranks out the rounds. I have a 1050 and a 650....I despise loading tubes...I'll usually load all the tubes before I start so I don't have to slow down to much. I bought the Vibra hoping I wouldn't have to spend $300 on the Dillon loader....I'm not cheap by any means and I love having matching stuff...But the Dillon primer filler is a tough one to chew.
 
No dice on the Winchester sp primers.Got hung up every 3-4 primers. The CCI primers sailed thru.

The CCI and the Winchester have the same exact diameter but on the Winchester primer the anvil stands just a fraction higher. The CCI primer comes in at 3.2 grains, The WPP is 3.0.
 
KTech2316 said:
No dice on the Winchester sp primers.Got hung up every 3-4 primers. The CCI primers sailed thru.
Click to expand...

Don't be as rough and tilt the unit back and forth a little less with the Winchester primers. They primers are sloppily made, but I have loaded several thousand primers with the vibraprime. It works once you get the hang of it.

Chris
 
i tried for literally a couple hours varying it any way i could with 2 libra primes and 3 trays. no dice.
wish i could get it to work. i'll try it again no doubt
 
Has anybody tried one of these yet?

http://www.hornady.com/store/Lock-N-Load-1911-Auto-Primer-Filler-Tube

050098-auto-primer-filler-tube.jpg
 
I use the Frankford Arsenal one with Winchester small primers. I had to open up the mouth of the hole in the tray and smooth it out a bit. A few usually get stuck each time, but I give it a gentle tap with my bullet puller and that usually does the trick. Last night I had one get wedged in there sideways and I had to disassemble it and work the primer free. Despite this, it is still 1000 times better than manually filling primer tubes. Even with the hiccups it still usually only takes about 15-20 seconds to fill each primer tube.
 

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