Lead shavings using Lyman 450

[swmass]

Hey all, finally got my old Lyman 450 cleaned up and started sizing. I’m sizing bullets down from about 361 to 358, and have been having an extremely difficult time getting bullets in and out of the sizing die. After really forcing them in and out, I’m getting shavings of lead stuck in the lube of the bullet. They are distinct circular lead shavings... I went on to size about 100 433 bullets down to 430 with no problems.... that was with a new RCBS sizing die... the 358 die is an old Lyman die that I pulled out of a Lyman 45 I was given... I have no clue how old it may be.. has anyone experience this or have any idea what could cause this?

Alloy is water quenched clip on wheel weights and I’m using carnauba red

Thanks

[Bazoo]

The very old dies did shave lead instead of swaging it into size.

[Winger Ed.]

I think the newer dies have more of a chamfer than the old ones that could slice some Lead off instead of squeezing it.

[Conditor22]

add some chamfer to the die. you can make a funnel with a piece of sandpaper with the sad side out. I use a cone-shaped bit from my Dremel set chucked into a drill.Make sure the die is clean of all lube then place the funnel in the mouth of the sizer, lately press in the cone-shaped bit and slowly spin the drill. after the edge is gone either work up with finer sandpaper or buff/polish it out with a Dremel

[StuBach]

I had the same issue with shaving in my old dies from a 45. Saw less with the newer dies. For me it was an issue of the lube holes having a slight bur to them. Small dremel polishing ball was able to clean the edges of the lube hole pretty easily.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I have a lot of Lyman dies, most of them are older (without the O-ring), and I have only seen one of these real real old dies with a square internal shoulder that would shave Lead. Anyway, I chamfered the square edge and then polished that area , and now it sizes like the newer dies.

I sure do wonder why Ideal/Lyman did that back in the day?

[swmass]

I’m not sure... it does have an o ring. I can barley get the bullets in and out. Feels like I’m about to rip the press right off of the bench. This is my first time using it so I’m not too experienced with any of it.
I’m only sizing down about .003 and I was able to do that with my 44 bullets without a problem..I’ve placed an order for a new 358 RCBS die and will try that and see if anything changes.

[trapper9260]

What I have seen for how it was with me on my Lyman that if I try to size a larger size boolit to a smaller one I step it down to the size I wanted to. Also I seen at one time when I had the alloy harder then I plan for the mix and had a hard time to size the boolits down. But got them done slow. For how it sounds for the OP is what could be all the things put together. When I size a boolit from .314 to .310 I step it down since I have the size dies already for what I do reload and do the same use of a boolit for 38/357 size down for some of my 9mm I at times step them down .

[gwpercle]

The hard water dropped boolits aren't helping things ... hard boolit = hard sizing .
Try tapering and polishing the opening more than what it is to cut down on the shaving .
Gary