new saeco lubrisizer

[don45]

After 30 years of using a Lyman 45 I upgraded to a Saeco Lubrisizer with a Lyman heater. After all the great info from this site, and the desire to get my newly acquired Model 70 375 H&H to the range (in proper form) I cast up a bunch of 375449's and lubed them with Lar's Carnauba red.

Saturday I set up the sizer and started lubing. Although it's been a long time, I used to run 1000's through my old Lyman 45. I still remember problems, mainly a bunch of lube going on the bottom of the boolit, as I recall, mainly with gas-checks. I remember I always solved this somehow and everything worked great. My first run with the new saeco resulted in all kinds of problems. First, the top-punch doesn't fit the Lyman boolit. I still haven't figured out how to cross the top-punches to the saeco. Any references available? Back to the lubing problems. The issues were lube squirting out around top and bottom of sizer die and tons of lube filling on the bottom of the boolit. I gave up after about 30. Today I tried another session, and before I received an email about lube temp from lar's, which said to keep the temp and pressure down. I decided to kick up the heat by letting it warm up for 30 minutes or so and to keep the pressure way down from the other day. This gave me almost complete success. I still get a little amount of lube coming out around the top of the die, but not much. I still get a little lube on the bottom punch but nothing more than a smear remains on the boolit. I don't like the way the bottom punch sits 1/4 inch down in the die. On the 45 I always had it configured so that the bottom punch was flush with the top of the die when all the way up. This way I could easily wipe off any excess. It doesn't seem possible to do that with the saeco, but looks like this is not a problem after all. Today I lubed about 200 boolits with very little difficulty and perfect results. Still just a slight marking by the top-punch, but not too bad. I am still thinking about something to stop the die leaks. Any ideas about this? Do I have something wrong? What about adding some kind of thin gasket or o-ring?

Now to load these babies and on to the range with my ouch and ouch. I found the nice article about the 375 in CastPics.

What a great resource and comradery here!

[Dale53]

I have a great deal of affection for the .375 H&H Magnum (it REALLY rates the term, "Magnum", doesn't it).

I shot my only Bear with it (just an average size Black Bear from the vicinity of Iron Bridge, Ontario) and he was dead before he hit the ground. Trajectory wasn't really a problem (he was only 25 yards away). I used a full load of 4350 behind a "J" bullet of 270 grs weight (Winchester Power Point).

I shot some cast bullets with this rifle (a 1968 Model 70 Winchester) and the 375449 worked very well at 100 yards (about 1.5" groups as I remember).

I have done more than a bit of position big bore shooting but I could never work up enough nerve to shoot this feller prone with a sling. However, I shot a good bit sitting with a sling at 100 yards with full power loads and that rifle shoots VERY well. I never cleaned the 100 yard smallbore target but I did have several 96's with it.

My most favorite target was when I was preparing for the bear hunt and I was shooting offhand at fifty yards. Five shots had four in one ragged hole and one about 1" away. That may not impress many REAL riflemen but I was sure pleased with it

I hit my bear on the point of the shoulder and it had a fist sized hole just under the hide, pulverized the shoulder sending bone shards throughout the chest cavity (slicing the heart and lungs) and ended up just under the hide after thirty inches of penetration at the hip (bear was facing me at an angle and the bullet ran straight as a die at an angle the full length of the bear after smashing the shoulder).

Incidentally, the bear provided excellent meat for the table. We ate everything except the toenails(:>)). I still have the bullet and it looks like one of those adds - made perfect unbrella with plenty of shank left to push the bullet through lots of bone and meat.

Dale53

[Calamity Jake]

don45, welcome, The Saeco luber is on of the best, I've had one for many years. To help cure the leakage try removing the size die and look at the frame around the cavity where the die fits, make sure it is flat and clean, do the same thing for the bottom of the cavity, now reinstall the die and add a little extra torque to the lock nut, hand tight may not be enough.
Check for any up/down movement of the die, if there is any movement then the frame is eather short or there is not enough threads on the die to make for a tight fit then a washer or gasket will be needed to take up the slack.

As for top punches, you can modify a Saeco to fit with a little epoxy and some release agent on the boolet nose or if you have access to a lathe or know a machinist, you can use take an extra Saeco TP, have it shortened on the boolet seating end then drill and bore a hole for a .002/.004 slip fit for the Lyman/RCBS top punches then use a little boolet lube to hold the LY/RCBS top punch in place and vala you have a floating TP for the Saeco and no problems fitting TP's to boolets.

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Anybody wanting to fine tune the fit of a top punch, can use an abrasive compound, like valve grinding compound, to polish it.
Lead, being soft, will take a charge of abrasive, which embeds itself in it. It is regularly used this way as a lap, for barrels, and other machine shop applications. I use Lyman/RCBS style top punches, and when I have a problem with one "ringing" the nose of a bullet, or if I turn one myself, I chuck it in my lathe, and chuck the bullet in the tailstock, and with a dab of some medium grinding compound placed in the top punch cavity, run the bullet into it at about 600 RPM. The bullet takes up the abrasive, and grinds the top punch cavity to a perfect match. Takes longer to tell about it, than to do it.
I've also done the same thing on a drill press with the bullet held in the vise. I'd imagine one could chuck the top punch in a hand drill, and do the same thing with the bullet held in a vise, perhaps crimped in a cartridge case, and the case held in the vise.

Morgan