All my lube goes uder the bullet

[tackstrp]

After saying I am trashing my Lee lubicator/sizer and going back to what i know best, my 30 year old lyman 450, I cant get it to work properly. All the lube winds up under the bullet and not in the gooves. I have moved the push rod down untill only the top of the 358 bullet is visable. I hold down the lever, tug on the lube rachet a tad and bingo lube under the bullet. No a thing in the grooves.

Any suggetions what i am doing wrong???

This thing worked like a dream years ago when i was relaoding, now it seems tobe over my head.

[runfiverun]

holes in sizer plugged with old lube??

[MtGun44]

Not letting the boolit go deep enough. Adjust the bottom stop to let
it go deeper. You will occasionally get a slug of lube under a boolit, and I scrape
it out with a small screwdriver and size another.

Bill

[HammerMTB]

3 things to try-
1. as runfiverun says, make sure the holes in the die are clear of old lube, esp that has hardened over the years.
2. Push the boolit deeper.
3. Make sure the boolit has a good seat on the punch. If the base has a high sprue cut, it will let lube in there.

[captain-03]

holes in sizer plugged with old lube??


My first guess --- just like you, my unit sit up in the attic for about 20+ years before I decided it needed to go back into service. Took all the old sizing dies (each full of old lube) and cleaned them out good. I found that you can place them in some boiling water and they clean up very nicely ...

[montana_charlie]

I hold down the lever, tug on the lube rachet a tad and bingo lube under the bullet. No a thing in the grooves.
Is the lube ending up between the bullet base and the push pin, or going out the bottom of the frame?

You might have too small of a pin under the bullet. It needs to be quite snug in the sizing die.

May even need to boil the old lube out of the press...
CM

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

When I set up to lube a certain stayle boolit, I make sure it is going deep enough first. When The lube is being spirted in the grooves, you know you got the depth right. Once you have the depth right, make sure you return pin (the thing that pushes the boolit back out of the sizer) is bottoming out on the adjustment piece on the downstroke. If you have too much pressure built up on the lube and the sizer doesn't bottom out against the return pin on the downstroke, then sometimes the lube will squirt under the boolit and push the pin in the sizer die down further (from excessive pressure in the lube chamber) until it bottoms out on the depth adjustement piece.

I have also found that some top punches won't allow some boolit styles to go deep enough to get the lube in the grooves (I use some lyman top punches for lee molds....some work, some don't...but lyman top punches always work for lyman molds...of course!). Someone on here recommedned to use a bolt with a flat head as a top punch, and this works with vey little, if no marring of the boolit. This allows the head of the bolt to actually go down into the sizer a little bit to get the boolit down far enough to reach those lube grooves placed up high on a boolit (IE Lee wadcutters). I put a buffer in between the top of the boolit and the bolt head.

Mainly just watch your pressure. I like just enough pressure to lube 2-3 boolits. Small turns on the lubrisizerevery 3rd boolit or so seem to work best for me. Well, that is my 2 cents, take it or leave it. Good luck!

Almost forgot...bevel base boolits are the culprit 99% of the time.

[StarMetal]

Sounds like the bullet isn't going deep enough. After you get it sorted out there's a tune up tip in the NRA Cast Bullet Book about drilling a small hole all the way through the die's plunger (part that pushes the bullet back out of the die) then taking a counter sink (or even a larger drill bit) and tapering that opening until there a portion of the original flat face in a small ring around the circumference. On a .358 sizer I wouldn't make that ring any thinner then say 2/32 to 1/8 inch. What this does it few things. One the now much narrower ring seals against the bullet base much better, it leaves room so a high sprue doesn't tilt the base and lube, gets under it, and if lube does get under the base it goes down the hole. Now you also have to modify the rod face underneath the die that pushes the plunger up so that if any lube comes down that hole it has an esscape route. Myself, I cut a plus on the face of that rod with a triangular file. I've modified all my plungers like this many years ago. You also have to adjust the size of the hole through the plunger and that rim thickness according to caliber of the sizer too. In other words you wouldn't want the same side hole and rim thickness on a .224 die plunger as you would on say a .458 one. Sounds complicated, but it's really simple and if you have the book you can see that.

Joe

[montana_charlie]

I have moved the push rod down untill only the top of the 358 bullet is visable.
Sounds like the bullet isn't going deep enough.
Which part of the o/p makes it seem the bullet isn't deep enough?

If the bullet grooves go far enough to go past the top-most hole in the sizing die, that's all that is required.
That single hole will fill any groove which passes it on the way up...as long as there is some pressure in the system.

Holes further down in the die are immaterial because they are effectively blocked by the ejector pin.
(I can't understand why some feel it's necessary to plug them with shot.)

The important 'depth adjustment' is to make sure the bullet doesn't go so deep that it gets it's 'nose' lubed.

CM

[garandsrus]

tackstrp,

I think that the "ejection plunger" at the bottom of the die isn't high enough. This is the threaded rod with a flat on top that you can adjust up and down. It should firmly contact the boolit base and act as a stop when the handle is as far down as you want it to go. In other words, the boolit is tightly sandwiched between the top punch and the ejection plunger. In this case, lube cannot really get between the base of the boolit since there is no room to lift the boolit off the base. You may get some lube on the base when the top punch pressure is released and the boolit starts it way back out of the die.

With the sizer you are using, the lube should always be under some pressure. The lube grooves get filled as they pass a hole in the sizing die, on the way down or up.

John

[moses]

Don't turn the lube knob while the boolit is down in the sizer, I found that is what causes lube under the boolit.

Only turn the knob when the handle is all the way in the up position.

[44man]

All youse guys gots it backards, Mix dat powder wit da lub an lood em! :redneck:

[Char-Gar]

Do you have bevel based bullets. They are a bitch to lube in a regular machine.

[StarMetal]

Do you have bevel based bullets. They are a bitch to lube in a regular machine.


Charger, what do you lube your bevel bases in, an irregular machine?:kidding:

Joe

[tackstrp]

got it fixed. had to take machine apart . reomove all lube, clean as best that i could 12 gage brush do go, boil it, clean wash with hot water and dish soap. boil again.

On the dies had to take apart clean holes remove caked on grease . Had no idea how hard that grease can get after so many years. Took several hours .


Any way thanks to all for the help. Now the next steip is to cast some more 358 lee bullets C358-158-SWC and see if that also appear to be out of round. From what i have read it seems that i am not letting the lead cool enought before i drop the new bullets into a 5 gal bucket. (which only had a gallon or so of water). I could hear the bulllet hit the bottom. So maybe they got out of round. Read some where need to use full bucket.

[WHITETAIL]

tackstrp, The boys and girls here are great!
They will assist with any problem.[smilie=w:

[epj]

Does Lee still make a lubricator/sizer or is this some sort of vintage equipment?