View Full Version : Pending Charge on My Credit Card- my Star must be on the way!
Landshark9025
05-29-2015, 05:08 AM
Just saw that there was a pending charge from Magma Engineering on my credit card. When I ordered a Star, they said "It's going to be 2-3 weeks." That was about a week and a half ago so hopefully this means it is being shipped out. If so, they are ahead of schedule which is always nice. Dies and top punches are coming from Lathesmith.
Yes, I am excited to be moving away from pan lubing. Especially with over 2,000 boolits on the shelf waiting to be lubed and sized and dwindling supplies in my ammo cans.
PbHurler
05-29-2015, 07:01 AM
Your "2,000 on the shelf" will be finished in short order with your Star, you're gonna' love it!
Congrats'
Beagle333
05-29-2015, 07:31 AM
Making the move from pan lubing to a Star! You are going to jump to Warp Speed. :grin:
So after you lube your 2000 boolits that you have stored up.... what you gonna do for the rest of that hour? ;-)
Hickory
05-29-2015, 07:47 AM
Yes, I am excited to be moving away from pan lubing.
You'll find the change to be like from pulling a cart down the road to driving a BMW.
HATCH
05-29-2015, 07:50 AM
So after you lube your 2000 boolits that you have stored up.... what you gonna do for the rest of that hour? ;-)
My automated star does 1800 per hour. You got to have some massive arms to do more then that in a hr
Landshark9025
05-29-2015, 10:41 AM
My automated star does 1800 per hour. You got to have some massive arms to do more then that in a hr
I don't- so your record is safe. :) If I do upwards of 700/hour without feeling frantic, and they call come out round, well lubed and the right size I'll be happy.
I'll be starting off with 40/60 Lithi-Bee(in that order).
blikseme300
05-29-2015, 03:21 PM
Landshark, be careful as Star's can be addictive. Had as many as 7 at one point but have tapered off to 5. Then there is the boolit feeders & collators. The madness never ends, thankfully. :lovebooli
montanamike
05-29-2015, 05:11 PM
Your gonna love the star. I wanted one forever. A couple weeks ago my wife called and said there was a bunch of reloading stuff at a garage sale. There I found a star sizer with four sets of dies and top punches three of which I needed. Picked it up for 40 bucks. Ordered four more dies from lathesmith (which are great!) And now I'm set.
quasi
06-07-2015, 03:02 PM
once you go Star, you never go back. Or something like that.
Don Purcell
06-07-2015, 04:09 PM
I can do 1000 in 40 minutes without breaking a sweat. Welcome into the light. Or maybe it's the dark side because now you are going to have to buy bigger molds to feed it.
Pee Wee
06-07-2015, 09:38 PM
Do youself a favor and order a roller Handel and air feed from Kyle. Works perfect and is high quality.
Landshark9025
06-08-2015, 06:16 AM
Well, I have it in and set up, my initial observation is if you thought you had a square base before, wait until you see this. I can just about shave with the corner of the base now. I can def. see how production can be way up. I am having an issue where it is taking a lot more force than I would expect. My alloy is just straight COWW, aged about six weeks and it takes a lot of force to get them through the die. I diagnosed it as it is the second part of the pass. It goes in to the bottom section where it gets lubed fine, but pushing it out the bottom is very tough. If I pass a pre-lubed one through, that makes it better for 3-5 boolits. First one is great, but the second one sticks and they get progressively worse. I heated a bunch of boolits up to 450 degrees for an hour and that worked. Made them feel normal. Other than that, I can only run it for about 15 minutes at a time before my arm and elbow give out. No way I could operate it sitting on a stool. Would pull myself off! Tried using RCBS Case Lube, but that didn't help. My only frame of reference is the Lee Push Through sizers and this is an order of magnitude more effort. A longer shovel handle would likely help.
This isn't quite as noticable sizing Lee 356-120TC as it is 358-140SWC. The SWC are really tough. Both drop about .002 - .003 larger than what I am sizing them to so it isn't like I am oversizing them. I am using 40/60 Lithium Grease to Beeswax so that should be fine. All that said, I'm still happy with it and know I'll get it sorted out. Have a call in on the dies now. When sizing the 356-120TC, I did try to get into a rhythm where I passed five through, then re-ran an already lubed one. So it was:
1
2
3
4
5
Rerun
1
2
3
4
5
Rerun
etc.
Set a timer and came up with 102 in five minutes.
cajun shooter
06-08-2015, 08:32 AM
If you are having to size your cast Boolits .004 or more, that is your problem. Your ideal mold/alloy mix should be designed to drop a bullet that is only .001 to .002 over your size needed. My molds drop my bullets at .430 and I size them to .429 Later David
youngmman
06-08-2015, 09:53 AM
When I started casting I had a SAECO lube sizer. I lubed one, literally one, bullet and sold it and bought a Star and love it. This was in the mid-1980's and I have never regretted it.
quasi
06-08-2015, 10:37 AM
die finish quality can make a difference in sizing effort. You can polish the inside of the die with 600 grit paper. Alternatively spray your bullets with an Alcohol-Lanolyn case lube before sizing, this makes a great difference. After your die has seen a few thousand boolits, it will work with much less effort.
blikseme300
06-08-2015, 10:08 PM
die finish quality can make a difference in sizing effort. You can polish the inside of the die with 600 grit paper. Alternatively spray your bullets with an Alcohol-Lanolyn case lube before sizing, this makes a great difference. After your die has seen a few thousand boolits, it will work with much less effort.
This is what I do and it works well. It takes a few minutes for the alcohol to evaporate and then the boolits will go through the die with little effort. Even it the die is mirror smooth the effort to lube/size is decreased a lot by giving a misting coat of lube and the added time to do so is minimal.
Landshark9025
06-09-2015, 04:58 AM
Thanks all for the comments. Here's what I did and it seems to work:
1. Took five prelubed and sized boolits and ran them through again.
2. Rolled them in Flitz and ran each through two more times
CAUTION!!! At the first sign of difficulty stop, wipe out the die and run a couple of clean, previously lubed and sized boolits and then push the last one out using the Star Tool. Clean the die and run some clean, previously lubed and sized ones through. They get really sticky really fast. Major risk of getting one stuck.
3. Cleaned the die and tried it with "raw" boolits. Better but not quite there.
4. Ran them through two more times.
Bingo. Inside of die now looks like a mirror and it is a smooth push all the way through. Does not take excessive force to get the bottom boolit to pop out. The bases of the boolits still come out with a slightly more square edge than when they went in (good), but no longer have a dimple the size of the punch with a very slight raised skirt on them(likely also good).
I can easily run through 20 before it feels like it is starting to bind. When I say "feels like it is starting to bind" it is more like "Is it getting a little harder? Not sure. Maybe? Feels like it." rather than "Holy **** I hope this doesn't get stuck." I buzzed through 200 or so of the AC COWW that were giving me fits in no time. Still might want the shovel handle. Will need it if I want to do it sitting down. Not due to effort anymore, but my bench is kind of high and the short handle makes it a bit awkward.
Now that I have this sorted out, this thing really is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
David2011
06-12-2015, 01:20 AM
Landshark,
My dies are all from Star and Magma. The Star dies were well used when I got the lubrisizer but I added some made by Magma. None of them had the issues you describe. My manual recommends running every 10th boolit back through but it doesn't get really hard to size until 15-20 have been sized without running one through again. The alloy and age of boolit do have some impact on this, though. Boolits that have sat for a while and age hardened are definitely harder to size than fresh boolits.
BTW- don't EVER lube a boolit with Kroil and try to run it through the Star. I did, ONCE; thought I was going to break something trying to get it out. I thought the Kroil would clean up the die. It's a penetrating oil but apparently not a lubricating oil.
Enjoy the Star!
David
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