Found a nice Top Punch #395 for Lee C312-185-1R

[HangFireW8]

Digging through my collection I found that Ideal #395, intended for old 358-395 hollow base revolver slugs, works really well for the Lee C312-185-1R boolit.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=274&pictureid=2766

As with most Lyman top punch/Lee combinations, it does not perfectly preserve the Lee boolit's round nose profile. You can see it leaves a nice little meplat, and makes the nose profile a little conical, but not enough to leave a ring or transition point unless enough force is used to bump-up the bore riding shaft.

I was sizing .314" boolits down to .310" (don't ask) and had no problems with boolits sticking or pulling the top punch out of the LAMII (held by a little boolit lube not the set screw). It will probably work for similar Lee boolits as well.

I wouldn't mention this little victory except that castpics.net doesn't list any top punch for this mold.

-HF

[Clark]

If you could make a really good engineering sketch of a top punch, maybe you could get someone to make one for you.

[bruce drake]

I've got that mold and I think I'll be buying that top punch now based off your photo and write up! Thanks for posting the information!

Bruce

[HangFireW8]

Bruce,

I've got that mold and I think I'll be buying that top punch now based off your photo and write up! Thanks for posting the information!


You're welcome, I hope it works out for you.

My boolits were water dropped and I just measured them at 24BHN. If yours are softer you may need to break the outer sharp edge with a stone and spinning the punch in a hand drill.

-HF

[HangFireW8]

If you could make a really good engineering sketch of a top punch, maybe you could get someone to make one for you.

Thanks Clark, for this one I'm already there.

-HF

[Papa Jack]

Thanks for the info !

It's really too bad Lee doesn't manufacture matching top punches for their boolits to fit the Lyman and RCBS lubricators.
I would think that they could sell enough of those to make a few bucks.
Once they have the point tool ground, it's only a simple screw machine operation to turn out those top punches.
I'm playing with the idea of turning out "blank" nose punches and filling the drilled out cavity with epoxy putty and pushing a lee bullet into the lubricator and holding it until the epoxy sets up.
Well, it was just an idea....Someday if I can borrow a friends lathe ,I'll try it...."PJ"[smilie=s:

[Donor8x56r]

Blank,oversized top punch filled with JBweld to match the contour of the boolit works perfectly fine for me.