Something I have always wanted to do was reload for .410.
But cost has always been prohibitive for it for some reason. $100 bucks for a used Mec loader for just loading for .410, isn't going to happen.
So, I remembered a company making a hand loader for it, based on the old LEE loaders from years ago the best that I can tell.
But after finding them online and browsing their website, they're expensive too.
Why on earth does .410 reloading tooling cost so much?
So, the wheels start turning and I start looking around my "scrap pile". As soon as I started thinking about the "scrap pile", I am instantly reminded of my Dad when the thought came to mind.
I would always bug him about going through his "scrap pile" of wood growing up while looking for something to build a bike ramp with, or needing some rough lumber to finish a fort up on the mountain or something, I would ask him if I could go through his scrap pile to find what I was needing to finish my project.
He would always tell me that there is no such thing as scrap anything. It's all just waiting to be turned into something better.
You know what, he was sure right about that.
So, I look around in my shop and find a piece of steel that used to go to the cranking handle of my old 3" cast iron vise that the guts broke out about a year ago that has been sitting in the corner.
That looked like a great start for a depriming ram and a primer seater.
And made of stainless steel too.
I know I'll have to turn the sides down just a little to accommodate for when I use it to seat the wad on the powder later, but for now, I was concentrating on the "hard cuts".
I measure a 209 primer to find out how big of a diameter I need it to be. Then I proceed to start turning the stainless steel vise handle down.
After I finished, I made it longer than this cut in the picture and I'll explain why later, but here's the start of it.
This is the side that deprimes the shell.
Then I flip the vise handle around and make it so that it fits down inside the shell and seats the new primer into place. This was a little tricky due to the tight constraints of the .410 brass, but turned out well nonetheless.
The main reason for the recess in the part is so that none of the parts actually contacts the primer portion itself while you are seating the new primer. The last thing I want to do is blow myself up.
Again.
Once the ram arm is complete, I make the base from a large piece of 7075 aluminum rod that I had left over from another project.
On one side, the base is hollowed out deeper than it needs to be so when the old primer is pushed out, there is room for it to fall down out of the way into the base.
And on the other side, I had to counterbore so the entire brass rim would slide down into the base to help center the hull and the primer together.
Out of an abundance of caution, the bottom of the hole is almost all the way flat across the entire circumference but there is a slightly deeper recess in the center so the actual primer itself doesn't contact the base when you're seating it so I don't inadvertantly light off a primer while trying to press it in.
Now, the reason that I said I would explain why I made the depriming side of the stainless steel longer was because I made a handle for it to help assist in seating the primers and the wads later.
So, I started thinking about tapping out the old primers and how I could accomplish that if I didn't have a hammer at the cabin or wherever I was at when I was reloading these, so I made the handle so it would have a dual purpose because I wanted it to slide it over the enter stainless steel rod and use it as dead blow hammer to help get the spent primers popped out.
And when you're ready to reprime it, just flip it around and use the other end.
And when you're ready to put the new wad in:
And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is probably priceless.
But cost has always been prohibitive for it for some reason. $100 bucks for a used Mec loader for just loading for .410, isn't going to happen.
So, I remembered a company making a hand loader for it, based on the old LEE loaders from years ago the best that I can tell.
But after finding them online and browsing their website, they're expensive too.
Why on earth does .410 reloading tooling cost so much?
So, the wheels start turning and I start looking around my "scrap pile". As soon as I started thinking about the "scrap pile", I am instantly reminded of my Dad when the thought came to mind.
I would always bug him about going through his "scrap pile" of wood growing up while looking for something to build a bike ramp with, or needing some rough lumber to finish a fort up on the mountain or something, I would ask him if I could go through his scrap pile to find what I was needing to finish my project.
He would always tell me that there is no such thing as scrap anything. It's all just waiting to be turned into something better.
You know what, he was sure right about that.
So, I look around in my shop and find a piece of steel that used to go to the cranking handle of my old 3" cast iron vise that the guts broke out about a year ago that has been sitting in the corner.
That looked like a great start for a depriming ram and a primer seater.
And made of stainless steel too.
I know I'll have to turn the sides down just a little to accommodate for when I use it to seat the wad on the powder later, but for now, I was concentrating on the "hard cuts".
I measure a 209 primer to find out how big of a diameter I need it to be. Then I proceed to start turning the stainless steel vise handle down.
After I finished, I made it longer than this cut in the picture and I'll explain why later, but here's the start of it.
This is the side that deprimes the shell.
Then I flip the vise handle around and make it so that it fits down inside the shell and seats the new primer into place. This was a little tricky due to the tight constraints of the .410 brass, but turned out well nonetheless.
The main reason for the recess in the part is so that none of the parts actually contacts the primer portion itself while you are seating the new primer. The last thing I want to do is blow myself up.
Again.
Once the ram arm is complete, I make the base from a large piece of 7075 aluminum rod that I had left over from another project.
On one side, the base is hollowed out deeper than it needs to be so when the old primer is pushed out, there is room for it to fall down out of the way into the base.
And on the other side, I had to counterbore so the entire brass rim would slide down into the base to help center the hull and the primer together.
Out of an abundance of caution, the bottom of the hole is almost all the way flat across the entire circumference but there is a slightly deeper recess in the center so the actual primer itself doesn't contact the base when you're seating it so I don't inadvertantly light off a primer while trying to press it in.
Now, the reason that I said I would explain why I made the depriming side of the stainless steel longer was because I made a handle for it to help assist in seating the primers and the wads later.
So, I started thinking about tapping out the old primers and how I could accomplish that if I didn't have a hammer at the cabin or wherever I was at when I was reloading these, so I made the handle so it would have a dual purpose because I wanted it to slide it over the enter stainless steel rod and use it as dead blow hammer to help get the spent primers popped out.
And when you're ready to reprime it, just flip it around and use the other end.
And when you're ready to put the new wad in:
And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is probably priceless.
Perhaps you could share your measurements in a semi-crude engineering drawing unless you plan on patenting your creation... 
