"Hole-y Lyman H&I Die Batman!!" or How many holes should I have in my sizing Die?

[Ziptar]

Over the last couple weeks I bought a Lyman 45 and also a .452 H&I die on the For Sale Forum here and I'm finally getting around to setting it up.

This is my first foray into Lube Sizers, up to now I've been Pan Lubing and Lee Push through Sizing. I'll apologize if this is so obvious that only a total newbie could not know it, because I am. :o

Last night I printed out the instructions and set everything up and started getting it adjusted. Thus far I've just been playing with it to watch the parts move and see how things went. The press still has some old Lyman Black Gold lube in it so I used it, figured the black color would make things easy to spot and I could see if I was getting the crimp groove or not filling the lube grooves, etc.

After sizing about 10 bullets I had a great big gob of black lube hanging out the bottom of the die. Safe to say there was more lube in the gob than I'd put in the boolits up to that point.

The die has allot of holes in it, two sets of 4 and then another two sets of three opposing the set of four. Picture describes it better.

http://www.ziptar.com/reloading/Lyman_H_I_Die.jpg

I've seen H&I dies with as few as one so now I'm wondering. Should the holes in the die correspond somewhat to the number of lube grooves in my boolits? If thats the case, this die has got allot more places for the lube to go than just the lube grooves I think.

I was using Lee 452-255-RF bullets to experiment with, they've got two lube grooves. I'll also be using the lube sizer with the Mihec 270-SAA clone which has one lube groove.

Can / Should I plug holes on this dies with some soft lead or should I get a another with just one or two holes in it?

[462]

I have Lyman dies that have four rows of four holes, four rows of two holes, and two rows of four holes with two rows of two holes. . . there is no logic.

I adjust the depth according to the number of grooves that I want lubed.

The lube oozing out of the bottom is an indication of too much pressure, and the excess lube takes the path of least resistance.

[geargnasher]

What I do: Depending on number of lube grooves and the spacing of the grooves, I will take small bits of solid-core, 95-5 lead-free roll solder cut so they stick out about 1/8" of the holes with the ejector inside the die, then rivet them in there with a small hammer so that there is a mushroomed head remaining. Leaving a head will prevent the intrusion of the plugs into the bore should you drop the ejector below the plugs for any reason while there is still lube pressure on them. Make sure you peen or file the heads of the plugs enough so that the die will still enter the sizer without hanging up.

Now, as for how many to plug, I usually leave the top ones open unless the boolit doesn't get sized enough at that point and needs to go deeper. If the boolit has one lube groove, just line up the groove and plug all but the top four holes. If it has two lube grooves AND the land betwen them is narrower than the hole diameter, (they almost always are), then I center one row of holes on the band and let lube squeeze around it to fill both grooves. This requires getting the depth stop adjustment pretty close to fill both grooves evenly. Rarely, I'll leave two rows open if I have a Loverin style or multi-groove boolit.

As for pressure, I crank the lube screw until I feel it pressure-up slightly, put a boolit in the die, push it all the way to the bottom where I have the adjustment stop set, HOLD DOWN PRESSURE on the handle, pull on the pressure screw wrench about 5-10 degrees (not much, in other words), then eject the boolit. If it needs more lube, run it down again and give it another pull. You'll get the hang of how much pressure to put on the lube screw each cycle pretty quickly.

Some people try to pressure up the reservoir and lube 5-10 boolits without adjustment, but I find that always makes a mess of boolit bases where the lube leaks out between the I and the H part of the sizer. The best way I think is to only squeeze enough lube to fill the grooves of one boolit at a time.

Use a toothpick and pen or what ever makes sense to you to get the boolit groove(s) lined up with your die lube holes.

Gear

[Ziptar]

Thanks all of that makes sense. At least I know the die is good to go.

geargnasher, I may just try your tweaks.

[Walter Laich]

I converted both my Lyman 450s to use the ALF Automatic Lube Feeder

It allows you to put a bit of pressure on the lube column and lube several bullets before increasing pressure. Saves a bit of time. I use it with a heater as I'm using lube that requires heat to flow

It's about 2/3 down the page: http://www.castingstuff.com/cabinetree_loading_products.htm

[montana_charlie]

If you have no bullet pushed down into the die, the ejector pin is flush with the top of the die, and all of the lube holes are blocked.

If you push a short bullet just far enough into the die to get it's single lube groove aligned with the top hole in the die, lube will fill the groove ... while all of the other holes (down below) are STILL blocked by the ejector pin.

This, without a single piece of lead shot peened into a single lube hole.
It is for this reason that the ejector pin is such a tight fit in the die.

If you have an accumulation of lube between the bullet base and the ejector pin it comes from too little pressure on the bullet's nose from the press handle - during the time you are cranking on the piston screw. More handle pressure and less wrench pressure ... get it?

CM

[9.3X62AL]

Charlie nailed it.

[geargnasher]

Charlie sort of nailed it. In the real world, the fit can be sloppy or the die worn, and in such cases the lube will habitually leak past the ejector and accumulate on the boolit bases every dozen boolits or so even with great care in administering lube pressure. Also, depending on the boolit style, to get it to lube a single groove well, there are some holes partially exposed just at the base of the boolit, especially with the rows staggered like the one the OP has. It can be a real mess unless you plug some holes, other times it's just a simple matter of the user learning how to set depth and apply the right pressure to the lube and handle at the right time.

Gear

[JIMinPHX]

I sometimes drill extra holes in my dies to correspond to lube groove positions on particular boolits that I want to lube.

I also sometimes add O-rings on the center pin to avoid lube leaks that are caused by sloppy fits.

You can see one of my O-ring modifications in post #15 of this thread -
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=91340

[williamwaco]

What I do:

As for pressure, I crank the lube screw until I feel it pressure-up slightly, put a boolit in the die, push it all the way to the bottom where I have the adjustment stop set, HOLD DOWN PRESSURE on the handle, pull on the pressure screw wrench about 5-10 degrees (not much, in other words), then eject the boolit. If it needs more lube, run it down again and give it another pull. You'll get the hang of how much pressure to put on the lube screw each cycle pretty quickly.

Some people try to pressure up the reservoir and lube 5-10 boolits without adjustment, but I find that always makes a mess of boolit bases where the lube leaks out between the I and the H part of the sizer. The best way I think is to only squeeze enough lube to fill the grooves of one boolit at a time.

Gear

Don't know anything about plugging holes, but the rest of this is good advice. It is exactly what I would have told you.
( That gear is a genius. )

[bigted]

Over the last couple weeks I bought a Lyman 45 and also a .452 H&I die on the For Sale Forum here and I'm finally getting around to setting it up.

This is my first foray into Lube Sizers, up to now I've been Pan Lubing and Lee Push through Sizing. I'll apologize if this is so obvious that only a total newbie could not know it, because I am. :o

Last night I printed out the instructions and set everything up and started getting it adjusted. Thus far I've just been playing with it to watch the parts move and see how things went. The press still has some old Lyman Black Gold lube in it so I used it, figured the black color would make things easy to spot and I could see if I was getting the crimp groove or not filling the lube grooves, etc.

After sizing about 10 bullets I had a great big gob of black lube hanging out the bottom of the die. Safe to say there was more lube in the gob than I'd put in the boolits up to that point.

The die has allot of holes in it, two sets of 4 and then another two sets of three opposing the set of four. Picture describes it better.

http://www.ziptar.com/reloading/Lyman_H_I_Die.jpg

I've seen H&I dies with as few as one so now I'm wondering. Should the holes in the die correspond somewhat to the number of lube grooves in my boolits? If thats the case, this die has got allot more places for the lube to go than just the lube grooves I think.

I was using Lee 452-255-RF bullets to experiment with, they've got two lube grooves. I'll also be using the lube sizer with the Mihec 270-SAA clone which has one lube groove.

Can / Should I plug holes on this dies with some soft lead or should I get a another with just one or two holes in it?



wowwwww. thank-you for posting this thread. ive off n on fooled with my own lyman sizer/luber with little success...making a huge mess every-time i drag it out and bolt it to my bench.

yesterday was no exception...bolting it down and beginning to lube some 530gr rcbs boolits...[usually pan lube and then push em thru my lee sizer] ...the mess began all over again...in disgust i removed it from my bench and again put it away for the battle next time i yard it out.

being on here this am i decided to look over this area of the forum for some possible answers to my as yet UN-answered problem that ive been struggling with for around a year now...off n on.

for kicks i read your question n the answers and got a couple hints here...ran out to the loading room and set up the dang thing again and this time settled down and figured out where the lube grooves were in relationship with the dang lil holes in the sizer die.......next i turned the "wrench" just a few degree's this time instead of the full turn i previously had been doing.......WALLA......no mess under the boolit base....and the grooves were filled just rite.

A HUGE THANKS TO EVERYBODY WHO POSTED ON THIS AS THESE SMALL THINGS JUST HELPED ME TO GET USE AND ENJOYMENT OUT OF AN INVESTMENT THAT PREVIOUSLY JUST SET AROUND IN THE BOX AND FRUSTRATED ME NO END.

THANKS AGAIN ALL !!!

[geargnasher]

Well there ya go. Glad we could help!

Another tip, many of the RCBS dies that fit the Lyman 450 adn 4500 (NOT the old 45) have only one row of four holes, all on the same "plane" with no offset. They're about eight bucks more, but sometimes I buy these for my pistol boolits with one or two grooves so I don't have to mess with plugging any holes.

For two groove, center the hole on the driving band between the grooves.

For one-groove, line the groove up with the holes. Easy peasy.

The only thing I don't like about the RCBS dies is the ejector is flat on top rather than concave like the Lymans, so there is no place for air to go under the boolit. Sometimes boolits stick to the ejector and take extra effort to pull out of the die, which can be a pain with short boolits. It's all a trade-off.

Gear