Star Sizer No Drill Lube Hole Plugs

Magma Engineering owners manual for Star sizers says to plug un-needed lube holes in the die body with 71/2 or 8 size lead shot. When these holes are needed for a different boolit with more or differently spaced lube grooves, their owners manual says to drill the lead shot out of the lube holes that are needed with 2 different size small drill bits and a pin holder to hold them which Magms offers for sale.

What I do is use a #4,5,or 6 size shot, place them over the holes to be plugged and peen them slightly into and mushroom them around the hole using a 1/4" flat punch and hammer.That part of the shot that does not go into the hole should be peened to just below flush with the raised ends of the die body.

When I want to lube a boolit with more or differently spaced lube grooves, I lift the mushroomed lead pellets our of the lube holes with my thunbnail and save them to install again into the holes that are not needed at a later time.

This works good for me. Let me know how it does for you. Good luck and KISS.

Ken

Another option is to buy sizer dies from Lathesmith, much cheaper & better than magma's, that only have a single row of lube holes.

I lube no boolits with multiple grooves in my Star so dies with a specific location of lube holes has worked really well. So I will go out on a limb and say boolits with more than one groove could have a dedicated die with two rows of lube grooves if the buyer wanted to make the correct measurements for Lathesmith.

However if you luck onto a set of sizer dies for a Star, or already have them, this larger shot trick will certainly work well.

I for one will not waste my money by buying two dies of the same size, one with 1 row of holes and another with 2 rows of holes. That would be pretty silly.

Lathsmith offers dies with as many as 4 rows of holes. I have ordered dies from Lathsmith and they will have 3 rows of holes. I will plug those that are not need at the time.

Ken

I would rather have a die for each boolit. It's a PITA to clean the leakage from each one as it comes out of the sizer and I get value for my $ with Lathesmith.

Do you have one scope for all your rifles? I thought so. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for your 2 cents, but that does't go very far when buying un-need dies. This suggestion is not ment for some one who would rather only cast and shoot one lube groove boolits or who would rather buy several dies of the same size rather than plug a few holes. Many who use the star sizer plug holes that are not needed at the time and then remove them for a different boolit design with 2 or more lube grooves. I am only trying to save those casters some trouble by not using a #71/2 size shot and then having to drill it out to remove it. This information I offer here is for those who are intelligent enough to see the benefit of what I am suggesting rather than using a small shot and having to drill it out to remove it, or buying un-needed additional dies.


Our friend Lathsmith himself recommends plugging holes in dies to make the dies more versital.

Ken

Fixxah, lighten up, life is too short.