Lyman 45 lubesizer

[Old 454]

I 'am new to casting and lubing, I bought a Lyman 45 lubesizer and what I need to know is how do I determine the size of the dies and top punches.

I will be lubing for these calibers dropped out of Lee molds.

These are the calibers and the mold numbers.

.454 Casull - C452-300-RF
45 Colt - 452-255 RF
.45ACP - 452-228-1R
357 Mag - 358-158-RF
9MM - 356-125-2R

I would like to order them as soon as possible so I will have them on hand when the Lyman 45 gets here.

I hope that I am not going to have to buy the 45 die as I hope the one die will be all that's needed unless its in bad shape and then I will have to order one any way, one die for all the 45 calibers.

Also some advice also should I or do I need to buy any parts kits ?

The 45 lubesizer will all ready have a 45 die in it and the guy is throwing a 9MM top punch but I don't know what the nose configuration is on the top punch.

I just want to make sure I order the proper dies and top punches so I don't waste time and money on things I don't need.

I have seen pics of the 45 Lubesizer I am buying and it looks to be in good shape, but I won't really know till it arrives.

thank you for any help that you all can give.

Old 454

[HATCH]

you should be able to do all of those with just 3 dies

.452 for the 45's
.358 for the 38sp/357 mag
.356 for the 9mm

can't help you on top punches as I don't deal with those.

[Unsub]

I spun up my own as finding the correct punch difficult. I use a flat with hand alignment.

PS, I live in Australia where top punches are non existent.

[fryboy]

depending upon who made your nine ( slug your barrel to know ) you may be able to get by with the .358 , many of the ones i encountered has .357 bore as opposed to .355

the 45's ... and your nick beg me to ask how old of a 454 ? 45 acp's usually .452 ditto the casull but the colt ,older ones were often .454 ... again you should slug your throats

[Sensai]

Good luck with getting sizing dies or top punches quickly nowadays! Cast pics has listings of top punches by mold number. The Lee listings are a little thin because Lee advocates their own sizing process that doesn't use top punches. As for the size of dies that you need, there are two methods, go by standard sizes or slug your barrels to get real world fit. I advocate the later, knowing that most people use the former. Nothing says that you can't try standard sizes and slug only if you get leading from a bad fit. It will just cost more in time and money if the standard sizes don't work for you. Best wishes, Gary

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The best answer is to "slug" all your gun's barrels (and cylinder throats for wheel guns), as a means to know the actual groove dia. of each barrel you plan to cast/load/shoot for. Boolits should be sized .001 to .002 larger than groove dia..

another factor in loading them is to have the correct size expander plug in your case expanding die, so when seating the boolits, the case doesn't swage the boolit smaller.

But, if you're not up to all that, HATCH has the answer if your guns barrels are all within spec. and fry shared some good things to know.

you should be able to do all of those with just 3 dies

.452 for the 45's
.358 for the 38sp/357 mag
.356 for the 9mm

can't help you on top punches as I don't deal with those.


with all that said, I tend to size large for use in several different guns in the same caliber, the main factor to that thinking is that the ammo much chamber reliably.
I size 45colt to .454
I size 38/357M to .359
I size 9mm to .357
but I do stick with .452 for 45acp
Good Luck,
Jon

[MtGun44]

.357 or .358 is much more likely to be correct for 9mm than .356, in my experience. Save your
money, don't buy a .356 sizer die.

For .357/.38 S&W or Rugers you should be fine with .357 or .358 diam, and "too small" is a problem
where "too large" is rarely a problem other than the possibility of difficulty chambering in very tight
chambers. There are some variations with other makers, but not nearly as much as with .45 Colts
and 9mms, especially.

The .45s are potentially problematic. While .452 diam has a good chance to fit all, it may not
suit some of the guns all that well. Starting with .452 and seeing what you get is a good strategy.

I recommend buy one .358 and one .452 and see how they do, these are reasonably likely to
cover all your needs.

Bill

[Old 454]

Thank you for all the good info. I have a friend that can slug my barrels, that's no problem as he is a black powder shooter and makes his own black powder rifles and has many sizes of round ball to slug barrels. My FA 454 was slugged and that had some really tight throats on the cylinder and I had to resize all my Cast Performance .325 GR. Heat treated solids to .451.

Mr. Fryboy, lol...my first .454 Casull was a 1989 Freedom Arms Premier that had a real nice trigger job on it, I have since traded that away as an offer was made I couldn't refuse.

My current .454 Casull is a Ruger Alaskan .454 Casull, and I really like it a lot, even with that 2.5" barrel its a lot easier on the hands then the Freedom Arms 454. I didn't care much for the grip on that FA, to small for my hands. The Alaskan will shoot the Hornady 240/300 grain XTP-Mags sized from the factory at .452 all day long. No throat problems with that. 45 Colts will also be loaded for the Alaskan, believe it or not the Alaskan will be my winter CC, I am having a custom holster made for it, and some nice .45 Colts loaded to about 1000 per sec for it.

Ok so now I have a good idea as to what to order for the dies. now I got to try to figure out what top punches I need.

These are my current hand guns.

Ruger Alaskan .454 Casull/45 Colt
Springfield Range Officer .45ACP
Ruger Talo edition Wily Clapp .357 Mag
Colt Lawman MK III .357 Mag
CZ P-07 Duty 9MM
Walther Pk.380ACP

I found this web sire for top punch conversion from Lee to Lyman.

http://castpics.net/

Go to references and then to top punches

[merlin101]

Easy way to get the EXACT top punch you need is to contact the PROFESSOR on this site and have him ship some of his "blank punches". Its very simple just slide the punch in place and a lightly oiled cast boolit and fill the punch cavity with 2-part epoxy lower the ram and let epoxy set. VOILA!! a custom fit to that boolit, if you choose not to shoot that anymore just heat the epoxy and pull it out and redo!

[Old 454]

now that's a good idea. I just may do that. thank you for the info.