Home Forums Reloading Shotshells MEC loaders

A while back a buddy gifted me a MEC loader. It’s a 761r Grabber. He said he thought it was for 20ga but wasn’t sure.
It’s been sitting on a shelf for years.

Starting to shoot more shotgun and with the price of shells, thought I’d dig it out and clean it up. It’s pretty damn filthy!

Are the MEC loaders gauge specific or can you change gauges by way of loading bars and dies?

The Grabber is gauge specific as far as mine appear to be. I converted a basic 600 Jr to a different gauge and it was more work than it was worth - and I got the conversion unit for free! At full price, the conversion unit ran almost half the price for a new Jr. From what I learned, I would have sold the Jr I had and bought a new reloader for much less work and aggravation. To this day the converted unit does not put out as nice appearing shells as when original. Based on this, if the Grabber is convertible it would be a major pain and expense to change it.

I had a grabber several in fact, but upgraded to 9000H's.
The grabber is a great press and it is gauge specific.
You could do a lot worse than a grabber

Thanks gentlemen.

I found a video that ran through the set up and operation. Mine is a 20.

I think tomorrow I’ll give it a good scrubbing and see what’s what.
I’ve got a 25# sack of shot and primers. Need some wads and powder!

I have three 9000s, three Grabbers. They are good machines; weak point is the primer feed. Easy to accommodate with the right loading process.

The owners manuals on these are very helpful, and are available online for download.

I have the same model and gauge loader from MEC. If you get it cleaned up and find it needs parts, MEC has complete parts manual on their website. They also have decent prices for parts.

https://www.mecoutdoors.com/mec-reloaders

Good luck.

Wanna hear sad?
I have a 12 gauge 600 Jr and a 20 gauge 600 Jr.
...and I only shoot 16 gauge shotguns! 😜

....But I DID build a shot dripper to make my own #8 shot! 😉

You could scrounge up some Browning Li'l Skeeter 16-20 ga chamber inserts. I have 10 and they work well. The down side is one needs a dowel or something like it to punch out the fired rounds. I use a bullet starter from my black powder rifle as the ball on the end is easier to grasp and is not as hard on the hand.

It goes easier if one can use the long discontinued Winchester compression formed AA style hulls. The black Remington hulls and the current ones by Winchester and Fiocchi aren't too bad either. The Federal hulls are the hardest to push out but it isn't too bad. I have the number I do as I'll use them for sporting clays and I can get through a station without needing to mess with reusing an insert. Reloading them all after shooting or at the next station while waiting to shoot is fairly quick. I can keep up without hurrying with 4 others in the squad.