Super simple way to seat gas checks perfect every time

[338RemUltraMag]

I have experimented on how to seat gas checks to where they are straight, square, and fully seated.

The super easy way is like this, take an old push through seater and place the seating stem inside of it with a little spare lube. Screw it into your reloading press. Then use a second seater stem in the shell holder.



Now sit a boolit nose down on the seater stem as shown (NOE 311-165 and prototype copper checks pictured) and ram the press home... GENTLY!!!!!!



This seats the gas check perfectly square and allows you to feel it bottom out.

Now you say "But Josh! I have round nose and spire point boolits! That will damage the nose!"

Well I have an answer for you! I have em too and done figured it out.



I use a standard shell holder and place the appropriate top punch in the hole in the center, some shell holders need enlarged by about .002.

Seat the boolit in the top punch and gently ram home, this will not damage the boolit nose and self centers easily.



I hope this helps someone out there!

[Doc_Stihl]

Oh my!
I have a 30 cal mold that leave a bur and a seam on the gas check shank and I have to FORCE those little buggers on. Awesome idea.

I will have a NOE gas check seater when they are back in stock, but this will save my thumbs this weekend when I size up 200 of those flat nose pains in the digit.

[xacex]

I love the simple solutions, Thank you!

[Fishman]

Really cool idea. Thanks!

[HDS]

Thats the way I've been doing it for a while now, I have some pictures of my set up in this thread. I tried modifying it further by milling out the punch in order that it would support the bullet from the sides too but it did not work very well with the aluminum gas checks, I found this solution to be simple enough for me.

[pipehand]

Thanks, 333RUM. I have a .314 mold that is a tight gascheck fit, and your method has helped immensely. I use the top- punch that was shipped with the mold, and everything comes up square like it's supposed to.

[338RemUltraMag]

Long Point, that certianly would work as well but I think they are called "soft plugs"

Another great Idea for the cast boolit crowd!

[Lefty SRH]

I'll have to try this.

[shredder]

I am happy doing this now. Tried it and really liked it.

One thing I did different though. I mixed up a batch of brownells acra glas epoxy and made up custom nose profile boolit holders. I know, I know, too much time! Of course, I do not have near as many moulds as some here, so you may not want to do this for every boolit.

I had a machinist friend copy the seating plugs that come with the lee kits as described above. The diffence with these ones is that they are drilled out inside the long seating part perfectly concentric. Then I fill the cavity with the epoxy and place a boolit covered in release agent into the plug nose down. I use a really simple setup to hold the boolit square while things cure. I put it in the press exactly as the original poster has his setup, raise the ram and allow the weight of the handle to hold things perfectly in line. Next morning you pull it apart and clean it up a bit......Wa La!

[chsparkman]

When I was in the parts business they were called expansion plugs. That is a great idea.

[338RemUltraMag]

When I was in the parts business they were called expansion plugs. That is a great idea.

I was not trying to start a ruckus, I am a shade tree mechanic, your definition is the correct one!

[chsparkman]

Of course you weren't. Just trying to help people ask for the right thing. I'm going to use this idea.

[glw]

As a variation on this, I keep the Lee sizer push through stem in the ram, and I put a 7/8-14 bolt in the top of the press. Since I am using a Lee Turret press, I just have to rotate the turret to seat the check, then rotate back to size the boolit. Much easier on the thumbs than trying to push 30 cal checks on boolits.

Glenn

[Littlewolf]

if one was to have fabricated a sizer punch for their lee push through that was drilled as a conformal top punch could a person not use an old paring knife or such other hard flat metal cover over the size die to seat the check then send through to size everything together before pain lubing or tumble lubing? just a thought
Littlewolf

[leadman]

In Michigan they were called freeze plugs, even in the auto parts store I managed. Here in Arizona they are expansion plugs. Kinda like the difference between coolant and antifreeze depending on where you live.

If I use the RCBS luber I slip in the Lyman gas check seater and it works great. For easy to install checks they go thru the Lee push thru dies.

[338RemUltraMag]

Bump to the top, I needed to find this.

[Viper225]

I thought I had came up with something new.
I have been having a real headache seating some old Lyman 44 Gas Checks on my Lee 44 Mag 310 grain WFN-GC bullets.
I ended up doing as above, got a 7/8-14 Bolt, 2 Inches long at the auto parts store. Getting a 2-1/2" bolt might have been even better. I ran it down all the way in the old Classic Cast press. I then used the Lee Push Through Ram for the Lee Bullet Sizer in the shell holder. I put them on the Ram, nose down. Worked great. You can feel them seat. Problem solved.

Bob

[atr]

thank you for this post !!!

[detox]

If I use the RCBS luber I slip in the Lyman gas check seater and it works great. For easy to install checks they go thru the Lee push thru dies.

Some cast bullets have oversize or tapered shank and lead will be shaved when seated. To prevent shaving I made a tapered check flaring tool from one of my RCBS nose punches. Tool also has end ground flat with no cup to hold bullet...this works great for sizing bullets with wide flat nose.

Lyman sizers have a "concave" end on sizing pin...this will seat gas check perfectly square to bullet when using the seater. A square bullet base shoots more accurately. The concave sizing pin also works great with plain base bullets. Just keep pressing downward at very bottom during sizing to square up bullet base...you should see a slight taper or ring at base of bullet afterwards. This works best with wider flat nose bullets and softer alloys like 16-1.

[C. Latch]

I'm glad I found this thread. I have a new .311 mold and a new pack of checks and I just threw away a dozen checks and a couple of bullets with lopsided checks stuck to their bottoms. This information will come in very handy. Thank you!