Lee Push Through Sizers

[Newtire]

You mean turpentine? I'll get some and give it a try. That 6.5mm bullet mold is giving me the fits.

[rhead]

Two problems are likely Have you slugged the resizing die. Do it the same way you would a barrel Also adjust the die so that the Boolit goes past the sizing ring as the handle on your press is camming over to give the Max leverage. There is a problem somewhere.

[steve4102]

I don't mean to insult, but do you have the die in the press upside down?

[richhodg66]

It's in there right. I can feel a rough spot in the die when I put the push through part into it all the way, but I can't really see anything wrong. I'll send it to Lee when I get around to it.

I have a couple of Lyman 450 dies coming in soon, so problems solved (probably). I like those Lee push though sizers for some applications though.

[leadman]

Does the pusher go into the die with no problems? I leave the die a little loose and run the pusher up so it centers the pusher in the die.
I got a new .430" die last week and it sized to .4295" and the finish was very rough. I bought this to open up to .432" so this wasn't a problem.
I also noticed there was not much taper going into the die so maybe if your boolits are way oversize and soft the pusher is expanding the base.
I would find a smaller boolit or sinker and slug it like was mentioned.

[popper]

If the alloy has aged/hardened a lot, they may get tough to push through. I've stuck a couple in a 310, then had to use a chore boy to clean the lea out. Yes, they were lubed. Alloy will make a difference.

[JIMinPHX]

Several years ago, I ordered a custom size push through die from Lee. They promised it in 4 weeks & delivered it much sooner than that.

When I pushed my first batch of boolits through it, they came out about 0.001" bigger than I had wanted. I was about ready to call them up & give them a piece of my mind, but fortunately, I decided to double check first. I checked that die with a ball gauge & found that it was right on the money, within less than 0.0001" of claimed size. I then had a few chats with a few people & came to find out that some alloys spring back a little after being sized. I ran some dead soft through that die & the size came out just what it should be.

That aside, I'm going to jump on the band wagon with a few things that have already been posted.

Take a look inside that die & see how gentle the taper is that leads up to the sizing area. It should be pretty slight.

Lube that thing up with grease & push through a short piece of dead soft lead, then measure what diameter it comes out at. Lead balls work best for this, as they have very little bearing surface. Long & hard boolits can be very difficult to push through, even if you are only trying to take off .001". Long soft boolits can be problematic too if you try to take off too much at once. It is possible to push a soft boolit so hard that it expands & gets fatter at the base & jams things up. I found that out the hard way. With very long boolits, I sometimes size them down in 2 steps.

If the short dead soft slug measures out of spec or if the die taper looks funny, call up Lee & ask them what they think. I have always found the people there to be friendly & helpful.

[JIMinPHX]

You mean turpentine? I'll get some and give it a try. That 6.5mm bullet mold is giving me the fits.

Mineral spirits is slightly different from turpentine. It is usually found in the paint section of places like Home Depot or Ace Hardware, right next to the turpentine. Mineral spirits comes in two flavors that I know of, odorless & regular. I usually get the odorless. Mineral spirits is what Lee recommends you use to thin LLA. I assume that it is what Lee uses to thin the LLA in the first place, but I don't know that for fact.

6.5mm boolits can be hard to size because most of them are very long & the length to diameter ratio seems to make a big difference in the amount of force needed to get the boolit through the hole. I have had some luck in custom made dies where I shortened the portion of the die that is at the actual finish diameter to less than 1/8" long. I used a long counterbore that was only a few thousandths larger in diameter before the final taper to finish size in order to keep things straight.

[zuke]

I've used Dawn dishwashing liquid many time's as a sizing lube

[singleshot]

I've used Dawn dishwashing liquid many time's as a sizing lube

Maybe if you shoot them with Dawn it will clean out a dirty bore?

[JIMinPHX]

Dawn works better if you add a little water to it than it does if you use it straight.

[375RUGER]

I keep one of those foaming pumps on the kitchen sink filled with 25% dawn 75% water. One pump of that foam is enough to run 100 boolits through a sizer.

[richhodg66]

Well, I finally got around to installing the .323 sizer in my Lyman 450 and sized some of those bullets. They are pretty oversized, it sized the nose down too. I may have to switch to a different bullet for the .32 Special. It did work as it should, so I still think there's something wrong with that Lee. I'll send it to them when I get around to it.