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omgb
08-15-2006, 03:21 AM
Well, I had an epiphany tonight of sorts. I had cast 500 or so 180 grain GC bullets from my spank'n brand new SAECO 357 mould and had sized and GC'd a bunch of them at .359. I decided to do up a bunch in .358 and see how they shot against the .359s and some .357s. These were cast from a mix of WW and Lyman #2, about 60/40 proportion.They were dropped into a 5 gal bucket of cold water directly from the mould. This was done last week so these bullets are good and hard. I am using an old Lachmiller Lube-A-Matic and Lyman and RCBS dies. I had had some difficulty with the top punch putting a ring on the noses so I filled the punch with JB Weld and then pressed the bullet nose into it. That created a custom nose punch that solved that problem. Now for the interesting part. I wanted to change out the lube so I got out my heat gun and got the press good and warm, actually, it was hot to the touch. Not enough to burn but enough that it was not comfortable to hold it. I drained out the old lube and replaced it with a new stick of LBT Soft Blue. I also changed the die to a .358. The first bullet in stuck so hard I had to take the die out and drive the bullet out with a drift. I thought maybe that die was rought so I swapped it out for a .358 die I new to be a good die. The bullet stuck there too. I then swapped back to the .359 and a bullet stuck in that one too. This was really getting my hair up. I put the .358 die into another RCBS press and sized three bullets without sticking. I put it back in the Lachmiller and the very first bullet stuck. OK, so I'm perplexed. :killingpc I decide to have dinner and get back to it. When I came back, I sized three bullets and no sticking. I swap dies and no sticking. Just then the light comes on It was the heat!!!!!!! When a die gets hot, the hole in the middle shrinks as the surrounding metal expands. :groner:

Geez, I can be lame. Once things cooled down everything fit and functioned as planned.

So, am I the only one to noctice this? Any way, I'm interested in you thoughts.

imashooter2
08-15-2006, 06:35 AM
The first couple of bullets in a dry die will stick too. A bit of lube wiped on the first few with the fingers (bullet lube, case sizing lube, etc.) will usually keep this from happening.

dragonrider
08-15-2006, 07:11 AM
Don't know why they were sticking but i would suspect a dry die as mentioned by imashooter, it was not because the hole shrunk from the heat, that doesn't happen, with heat the hole will get larger, this is true of any metal part that gets heated enough to change dimensions.

Char-Gar
08-15-2006, 07:30 AM
I have two thoughts on the isue at hand.

1) The poster that said, the first couple of bullets in a dry die will stick and lube applied by the fingers in needed until the die gets lubed up is dead correct.

2) There is no real world sixgun shooting senario that needs hard water droped bullets. YOur original un-jacked with alloy is plenty hard, even for magnum loads withi plain base bullets.

3) The shooting world has gone nuts, interpreting the word "hard" in hardcast. The notion originated with Elmer Keith and his understand of hard cast was 1-16 (tin to lead) which is softer than straight air cooled wheelweight. sixgun More shooters have problems from shooting bullets that are too hard, than bullets that are too soft.

BABore
08-15-2006, 07:54 AM
MY Saeco does that too if I get it too hot. I have it mounted on a heavy aluminum base and heat the base with the wife's iron. When heated everything on the press will expand, but not equally. The press is cast iron or steel and the die, die pin, and top punch are tool steel. Could be from different rates of expansion causing a bind. It's not your unlubricated die doing it, just the heat. It kind of makes a grating sound when you force it. That's not lead on steel, it's steel on steel. Irregardless, cooling it down solves the problem. I pull something out of the freezer and set it on my mount plate for faster cooling.

omgb
08-15-2006, 08:19 AM
A few points of claification:

1. I suspected a dry die too so I used Imperial Sizing Die lube on the bullets before I ran them into the die. No joy.

2. I needed them as hard as I can get because they are being used in a Marlin rifle in front of 15 grains of Lil Gun

3. The sizer in question was a Lachmiller/RCBS machine not a SAECO

omgb
08-15-2006, 08:21 AM
BABor is describing the symptoms and the sounds perfectly.

44man
08-15-2006, 11:04 AM
It sounds to me that it was the boolit ejector pin that swelled and stuck, not the boolit itself. It could have swelled more then the hole in the die did.

omgb
08-15-2006, 11:39 AM
That thought occured to me. However, I figured that the die would heat before the pin as the pin was surrounded by the die.

Buckshot
08-16-2006, 02:36 AM
............What Dragonrider said is true. The metal expands outward with heat. To assume the hole in a cylinder gets smaller (expanding inward) would suppose a zero boundry where expansion or contraction does not take place. I've had boolits stick in a die before, but it's always been lube related. Or at last I assume it to be since nothing had been heated, and after a couple it went away.

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

omgb
08-16-2006, 10:46 AM
Buckshot,Dragonslayer:

What you guys said about expansion is exactly the way I understand it too. So what happened? Well, you got me to thinking so I went back and put the mic to the stuck bullets. Imagine my surprise when they measured .3585 against the bullets run through a cold die at .358. So, clearly the die was expanding as you said. Since I had pre-lubed the bullets using Imperial Sizing Lube a dry bullet cannot be the culpret. These were gas checked bulloets. Is it possible that the copper gas check was reacting to the heated die and was expanding and that was what was dragging? Or, could it be the center ejection pin? I don't know. What I do know is now that things are cool the bullets do not stick.

I do appreciate the clarification, thank you.