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Star History / Re: Early Star Loading Machines & (proto types) Photographs
« on: April 10, 2010, 11:22:32 pm »
Hi Friends,
This is my "Star Story," my father was once a member of "C. V. Rifle & Pistol Club" in Palm Springs, California, which went out of business about 1955. If I understand the story correctly, when the club went under the assets of the club were divided up amongst the various members and my father was given the Star Progressive Reloader and a gang mold that went with it, both the reloader and mold were thoroughly worn out. When I was in high school I hatched upon the idea to get the old reloader cleaned up and adjusted enough that it might work well enough to make ammunition (it's a 38 Special) and so I cleaned it up but later decided that it was more work that it was worth, I tried to use the gang mold (it makes 38 semi-wadcutters) too, but again it was in pretty bad shape.
About 1970 my brother was a student at San Diego State and so we decided that he might take it to Star Machine Works in old downtown San Diego and see if it could be made to work again. I was later told by the people at Star, that it was the oldest machine they had ever seen and so they wanted to completely rebuild it, and I think they charged me about $45.00 to make it new again. As I recall, they told us that the machine had been made in the early 1930's at the old shop that was down on the waterfront. I used the machine for a while and loaded several thousand rounds of ammo with it, but have not used it for many years, I had the gang mold resurfaced by a machinist friend and it works perfectly too. I was told by a collector that it was made by a man in Los Angeles named Fielding B. Hall.
Bob Tyler
This is my "Star Story," my father was once a member of "C. V. Rifle & Pistol Club" in Palm Springs, California, which went out of business about 1955. If I understand the story correctly, when the club went under the assets of the club were divided up amongst the various members and my father was given the Star Progressive Reloader and a gang mold that went with it, both the reloader and mold were thoroughly worn out. When I was in high school I hatched upon the idea to get the old reloader cleaned up and adjusted enough that it might work well enough to make ammunition (it's a 38 Special) and so I cleaned it up but later decided that it was more work that it was worth, I tried to use the gang mold (it makes 38 semi-wadcutters) too, but again it was in pretty bad shape.
About 1970 my brother was a student at San Diego State and so we decided that he might take it to Star Machine Works in old downtown San Diego and see if it could be made to work again. I was later told by the people at Star, that it was the oldest machine they had ever seen and so they wanted to completely rebuild it, and I think they charged me about $45.00 to make it new again. As I recall, they told us that the machine had been made in the early 1930's at the old shop that was down on the waterfront. I used the machine for a while and loaded several thousand rounds of ammo with it, but have not used it for many years, I had the gang mold resurfaced by a machinist friend and it works perfectly too. I was told by a collector that it was made by a man in Los Angeles named Fielding B. Hall.
Bob Tyler