Has anyone ever tried

[madcaster]

Making an insert for the Star lubrisizer that will accept the Lyman/RCBS sizing dies?
Did it work?
Jeff,who is out on a limb in his thinking tonight...

[Buckshot]

..............The body of a Lyman- RCBS lube-size die is (about) .702". The body of the Star die is .750" so the sleeve or sleeves would be right at .024" thick, and do-able.

Issues:

1) A Star die has a flange of about .875" OD (IIRC) that keeps the die form being pushed through. It butts against the press body. The Lyman-RCBS has a ring of ~.720" above the 'O' ring groove. Nothing to hold it in place and from being pushed through with the boolit. Remedy?

2) As I understand it, hole placement in the Star dies are critical for the correct lubing of various boolit designs? I'm not a Star press user so .............?

...............Buckshot

[dmftoy1]

I would think the sleeve could have a lip on it that would raise the lyman die up the thickness of the shim, and the shim would replace the lip on the star die. I'm not sure how the lubing would work . .for a single lube grove it'd be no problem and I don't think it'd be a problem for more than one assuming the lyman had the holes in the right place. (??) I guess the sleeve would have to have holes in it to allow the lube to flow through to the lyman die?

[Finn45]

I was thinking about this also... If anybody could make an adapter like this please figure out international shipping right away. Lube holes could be plugged with lead shot and the holes can be recessed if necessary, no?

[AnthonyB]

Buckshot, could you locate the retaining flange at the bottom of the sleeve so that the M die just drops inside and rests on the bottom of the sleeve? Alignment of the die wouldn't be critical because the nose first sizing should allow each bullet to center the die as it passes through. As for spacing the lube holes, how about making a series of parallel cuts the length of the sleeve body for lube to flow into the M die? The user might have to block lube holes as you do with Star dies, but I think it would work. Tony

[Buckshot]

.............Tony, I'm not getting the part about the M die?

The Lyman lube-sizer die does have a bit of a lip (.720"OD) above the O ring groove. Since the sleeve would have a bore of ~.703" for the die's body, the existing lip would stop against the sleeve. And if the sleeve ALSO had a lip GREATER in OD then the .750" hole the entire assembly fits into (in the Star press) then the die might be retained.

I say might because the the .720" lip of the die is only about .018" larger in OD then the ID of the sleeve it fits into. This translates into only a .009" bearing surface all the way around the lip. This is about the thickness of 2 sheets of 20 lb copy paper. Not a lot of confidence there.

Another approch might be to equip the sleeve with a lip exceeding the .750" hole (Star dies have a .875" flange, or lip) and then use an E clip in the O rings place to hold the Lyman die against the force of pushing a slug through.

Consider this in constructing the sleeve. You would start out with a piece of steel at .875" OD. Then, with the exception of the flange, or lip thickness, you have to turn it down to .750" OD. Finally you have to drill and then bore the sleeve accurately to a .702" ID to accept the Lyman die's body. Using the paper thickness example again as easy to visualize, the sleeve's .024" wall thickness is 6 sheets of the same 20 lb copy paper.

Sounds like a LOT of chips in the pan to me :-)

Without looking, I'll bet you might be able to find precision tube with a .750" OD and a '?' ID. Maybe a .030"/.040" wall? Then you could part it off, put it in a .750" collet and bore it out to .702". You might be able to buy an 'E' clip with the right OD to use on the Lyman die in the O ring groove. The sleeve would stay because nothing is pushing on it. The die would stay because of the 'E' clip.

Sounds better then converting 10 ounces of steel into 8.5 ounces of chips, plus turning ops, switching out collets, then drilling and finally boring.

...............Buckshot

[AnthonyB]

Buckshot, the M die reference was a miscommunication between the brain and typing finger; I meant the sizing die. Tony