Lyman #45 sizer/lube

[Joe Bob]

I've never cast a bullet in my life but I want to start, soon. I have been carrying an old Lyman #45 sizer around the world for a number of years and I got me a Lee lead melting pot and some lead and molds and stuff like that. The #45 sizer doesn't have a gas check seater on it. How can I put gas checks on bullets if it ain't got a seater? I've shot thousands of cast pistol and revolver bullets and never saw the need for gas checks at my velocities, but I'd still like to have the capability of putting them on my bullets if I got the notion to do so. Any ideas out there? Oh, by the way, this is the first time I've ever posted on one of these boards before. So, if I sound ignorant, it's because I am.
JB

[Buckshot]

.....................Joe Bob, welcome to the board and thanks for the post. The GC seater is merely a device for the press that sits under the flat head of the ejector pin punch and the lip the stop tube is threaded through :-) Down there on the bottom of the press. It is open on one side so it will go around the ejector pin punch and it's threaded stop rod.

All in the world it does is to stop the punch head from decending very far. In operation you snap a GC on the base of the boolit and set'er in the mouth of the die, then slip the GC seater in place. Lower the press handle and the slug & GC get pushed into the mouth of the die a short ways. This pretty much seats the slug fully into the GC,

You raise the lever, pull the GC seater out and then lower the press'es arm (this time fully) to run the slug into the size die, then back up to eject it.

You can buy a GC seater or you can make one. Easiest way to make one is to buy one of those long connecter nuts. Buy it of a large enough ID to fit over the ejector pin punch and it's threaded depth stop. When you get it home measure the distance under the punch's head to the ledge the threaded stop goes through. Be sure the punch is all the way up.

Cut the nut a bit shorter then that distance as we want to be able to have the boolit and it's fresh GC 'Just' go into the die, right?

So once it's cut to length you need to make 2 cuts in it lengthwise so you can remove a slice wide enough to have it sit around the body of the ejector pin's body and the threaded stop rod.

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

[Shepherd2]

I always wondered how a gc seater worked. I've never seen one and didn't know they were available until a few years ago. I don't believe they existed when I started using gas checks back in the late 60s.

I may have been doing it wrong all this time but with handgun ammo if the gc fit on the boolit shank is tight I will lay the gc on the bench, cup up, and snap the boolit in. Then lube and size. If the fit is loose I put the gc in the sizing die and set the bullet in the gc and lube and size.

With rifle boolits I'm a bit fussier and I fit the gc and make sure it it on square before it goes in the lubrisizer.

I've recovered many gc boolits on my range and I don't think I've ever found on missing the gc. I don't plan on buying a gas check seater unless someone can convince me that I absolutely have to have one. I don't have leading problems with handgun or rifles and accuracy sure isn't suffering.

[carpetman]

I too have been at this since the late 60's and have never seen a gas check seater. I just put the check in the die and bullet on top and size,lube and seat in one operation.

[454PB]

Or you can do as I do....I put that stamped, tinny flat wrench that came with the sizer on top of the die ring, put the boolit and gas check on the wrench , then push it down in the sizer. I thought that wrench WAS the gas check seater!