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Old May 6, 2005, 07:32 PM   #1
larry7
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Join Date: April 3, 2005
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Philips gunsight co. reloader?

Any info on this company/ this is a really solid prgressive reloader. A friend at our club died recently. trying to help his widow get values for his equipment.
Thanks

Last edited by larry7; May 6, 2005 at 07:33 PM. Reason: can't spell
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Old May 8, 2005, 12:20 AM   #2
ClarkEMyers
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Join Date: November 13, 2004
Location: PacWest
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Could that be Phelps?

Perhaps over simplifying - Phelps was a Star knockoff reverse engineered rather than made from good prints. Hard enough to get parts for a Star and harder to make a Phelps work.
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Old May 10, 2005, 12:16 PM   #3
klw
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Join Date: February 27, 2005
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Phelps Reloaders

The Star progressive was originally designed and patented by Winchester in the 1890's. Star copied that machine and scaled it down a bit. The Star was patented in the late 1920's. Except for the last year or so of Star's manufacturer, every single star ever made was hand assembled by Elord Mott, the man who designed the machine. The last year or so of production, after Elord died, saw some pretty horrible machines being shipped. Alas that REALLY hurt Star's reputation.

For decades Star could not keep up with demand. 500 machines a year for decades. Their dominance was only ended when Dillon brought out his second machine, the RL 300.

Star was in San Diego. Phelps was in New York state. Phelps was, however, never a "real" company. It was always sort of a hobby or retirement business. There were several owners. Some Phelps machines were ok. Some were not. Just depended.

Star Machine Works still exists, sort of. There is a guy who bought the firm and who sells reconditioned machines and parts. He has a web page. He is slow, disorganized but you can get parts. A Star part can be fitted to a Phelps by a machinest or someone with a lot of skill. Still it is a source for parts. The current owner of Star Machine Works is a twitt! Given his incompetitence he will kill Star and its reputation off. Sad really.

Phelps was one star copy. There were others: Berdon, CPM, Dillon. Also copies were made in Australia for a while and one U.S. machinest hand made three in 50 Browning.
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