On Mon, 17 May 2010 22:22:24 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 03:37:56 -0400, "Buerste"
wrote:
The thing that scares me the most in my reloading endeavors is a squib. To
visually check every case for the proper amount of powder is inconvenient
and slow. (but better than two in the tube or a hand grenade) I load
/shoot about 1k/month. So, I'm going to mount a small camera that will
display a real-time video that is easy to see from my position operating the
press. I have a five station progressive press and there are a few
powder-check dies available that work very well, but I don't have a station
to spare between the powder dump and the bullet seating. I use a separate
crimp die after the bullet seating. (I did start to design an eight station
press but how obsessive CAN I get?) Get just ONE squib and you'll never
shoot the same, it'll always be in the back of your mind. Thankfully, I've
never had a double-charge!
I can mount the camera on the ram so it's focus it constant or I can mount
it to the press if the camera will auto focus fast enough to be useful.
Ideally, the camera would have it's own LED lighting source.
Any recommendations on a camera or refinement of my idea?
Imagine if the camera took a still at the bottom of the stroke and instantly
compared the image to a "standard" then sounded an alarm if the image was
too far from the standard and locked the press? Again, a powder-check die
would do just that but I would not be able to use my bullet feeder or my
separate crimp die.
Assuming that you use "squib" to mean a load with less then the
correct amount of powder, this was common when loading shotgun
shells. Probably because many people had progressive machines for
shotgun shells but used a single station press for anything else.
The "problem" was so common that I have shot on Skeet ranges that had
a ramrod hanging on both the high and low house.
But being less facetious, the problem was almost always that the
powder ran out and a few primed cases were loaded without powder and
firing them would blow the wad and shot about half way up the barrel.
If you shot a second round you had an instant short barrel gun :-)
In reference to your camera idea I have seen an article about how to
rig a security camera and compare each frame with the previous to
detect entry. the same sort of thing would certainly work for checking
powder levels.
I'll look around tomorrow and see whether I can locate the article and
perhaps I can give you a reference to how it was done.
John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)
Further to the above. Have a look at
http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/vi...ionGuide3x1x20
for information on a system that compares one frame to another and can
detect a difference. It seems mainly concerned with motion g but
there is no reason that it cannot detect difference between any two
frames.
What I looked at is Linux software but if you are setting up a
dedicated system that shouldn't cause problems.
John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)