Flat top punch per Handloader article

[218bee]

In the latest Handloader an article by Dave Scoville I believe he was talking about using a flat top punch when sizing or just lubing. Claims bullets go through size die straighter. Since most of my cast boolits are wadcutter or semiwadcutter or flat nose it sounds like a good idea. Anyone else do this?? Is there a place to buy either flat punches or punches that have not been reamed out yet? I guess you could grind down one already in stock but was thinking somewhere you could get a "blank". Just wondering if this makes sense to you all and how you go about doing it.

[MT Gianni]

Turn the flats off of a 1/4" bolt. My experience is that some boolits need the proper top punch. 311440 is one that needs all the help it can get to go straight and a flat punch won't work. It will certainly work on a FN or SWC but I don't believe it is necessarily better unless your lube sizer is seriously out of line.

[Dale53]

I have been using a flat top punch for years and years. I size nose first when using the Star luber/sizer. This is a BETTER way in my estimation. The bullet kind of "self centers" and the flat top punch keeps everything "square".

I mostly base size when using the RCBS or Lyman sizer because of their design.

Lee's "push through" sizers are actually a superior way to size. I use them for my large, BPCR bullets that are pan lubed, first, then sized. The soft BPCR bullets are easy to damage in a RCBS, Lyman, or Saeco sizer due to the possibility of distorting the soft nose or bending the bullet. Lee's Push Through Sizer as well as the Star does not distort the bullet when sizing. In my view, this is critical when using soft bullets (30/1 lead/tin). They both, as far as sizing is concerned, work on the same principle.

Dale53

[STP22]

I use 2 different flat top punches for any and all boolits that have what I consider a suitably large enough surface area. My lubesizers include the earlier Lyman 45, the later version(s) 450, and the RCBS LAM2. I tend to start the size/lube effort kinda slow, watching the boolits entry into the lube die and can generally figure out a reliable pace to do 50 or more at a time. I`ve been getting better results if I turn down the die`s locknut until snug on the lubesizers with that feature, then back it off a quarter turn or so and saw that the the stubborn offset sizing issue was greatly reduced. I don`t want to have my carefully cast boolits starting their journey down the bore crooked. Dr. Mann`s "X-Error" isn`t something I want to duplicate.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

They have worked well for me for many many years not only with WC's and SWC's, but with RN's as well. They may form a very small flat on the tips of the RN's, but that doesn't seem to change anything. If you don't have a flat faced one you can easily make one out of a little used or no longer used punch by filling the nose cavity with some filler type substance like spackling, epoxy, liquid nails, putty, jointing compound etc.....place the punch nose down on a piece of wax paper and let dry until hard. Depending on which filler you use, you can reclaim the original shape of the punch if you need it by removing the filler, but epoxy and liquid nails are a couple of stinkers to get back out. Hope that this helps. LLS

[beagle]

Yeah, most of us have been using flat TPs and flat seaters as well for years.

Dave's behind the power curve./beagle

[MT Gianni]

[QUOTE=beagle;474847
Dave's behind the power curve./beagle[/QUOTE]
That is the politest way to state that Beagle. Gianni

[Bret4207]

Yeah, most of us have been using flat TPs and flat seaters as well for years.

Dave's behind the power curve./beagle

Yeah, but he sure looks cool in the cowboy hat and with the bandana hiding his scrawny old chicken neck!

(Yes, I know that's unkind, but he took the best magazines on our hobby and turned them into advertising flyers. I'm still po'd!)

[Catshooter]

I'm sure that Buckshot will make a flat tipped punch for those who need one.

My experience is sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Just like most things in the casting world.


Cat

[Dixie Slugs]

Many of the folks here, including Dixie, will tell you the flat nose punch is not new idea indeed. I am surprised the Rag Writers took so long to read posts about the flat nose punch.
Also Dixie uses a flat seating punch on all bullets that have a flat meplat!
Regards, James

[Char-Gar]

I read that article with interest, as Scoville caught up with where this board was ten years ago. Flat top punches are the way to go for most handgun bullets. Wow..he discovered that sizing skinny rifle bullets base first in a lubesizer will bend them and nose first sizing is the way to go!! What a novel and creative idea!! Next thing you know he will stumble accross gas check annealing!

[Dixie Slugs]

I wonder if he has ever seen a full-blown Star...heater, air cylinder, bullet feed, etc....? ...James

[Bret4207]

I wonder if he has ever seen a full-blown Star...heater, air cylinder, bullet feed, etc....? ...James

Kinda hard to see anything else when you're looking in the mirror telling yourself how great you are.

[cajun shooter]

I agree 100% about the crap that's written by some of these magazine writers. The next article he writes will be that he found this new hobby called "CASTING" and y'all know that he even gets paid for writing. Damn near every member of this forum could be a writer and meet his standards. I'm thinking about submitting a article on nose first lube and how much better it is. "UNREAL"

[Dixie Slugs]

It is sad, but true...that the Rags have turned to syndicated writers pushing the products of those that buy the most ad space! I have seen this change over the past years indeed. The hunter/shooter is being Fprce Fed Hype on a daily basis!
Therefore, it remains for forums made up of the good folks here to try to answer the questions of the new crowd coming on.
Many of the new crowd do not know how to separate Hype from good facts though!
Dixie gets an average of 10 emails a day asking very basic questions about hard cast slug/bullets, most about full bore ammo, that they should be using for wild hogs (as an example). I have mentioned many times that a new market for rifled shotgun barrels is opening up and not just in Shotgun-Only-States. There seems to be a natural progression from hardcast in hanguns/rifles to rifled shotgun bores, for both factory and reloaded ammo.
I met with the Pederoli friends at the Shot Show to discuss this very subject. In Europe, there has not been the years of hunting with hard cast that has been done here at the uSA. They were very interested in subjects like the importance of Meplat Area, etc.......subjects that are now old facts for us over here. They took back a flash drive with 2 Gigs of tests, etc. that I have done over the years.
So....let me remind everybody to be caredful about the loads we post! There are some loads floating around the web that are dangerous in standard firearms being used in the field......and reat assured that the work all of you are doing os being read and is very omportant to the new shooters!
Regards, James

[Dale53]

I have not met Dave Scoville but you guys are sure being hard on him.

He may have known about flat punches for years. However, it is a MUST to recycle old ideas from time to time to get the attention of new shooters. They weren't in the sport to read it years ago. So, from time to time it is NECESSARY to repeat things that have been said in the past.

We have a new generation of shooters who were apparently not trained to read books. Most of them get their education from the TV (and we KNOW how good that is). If they are REAL lucky they will find this forum and a couple of others that have good information. If not, then the gun magazines are their only source of information.

The American Rifleman (I am a Benefactor Member) has degenerated to almost strictly a political magazine and/or an industry "spokesman" and has little of value compared with its glorious past. There is enough good information in Handloader and Rifle that I do an electronic subscription and find value in them (somewhat less than the past but still useful).

It is easy to criticize someone else and it seems great sport to hammer the gun scribes but it serves little use, in my opinion. I still believe a number of them do good work.

FWIW
Dale53

[azrednek]

However, it is a MUST to recycle old ideas from time to time to get the attention of new shooters. They weren't in the sport to read it years ago. So, from time to time it is NECESSARY to repeat things that have been said in the past. FWIW Dale53

I'm in 100% agreement with that statement. I think back to when I first started reloading and the internet was science fiction. There wasn't a way for a rookie to benefit from other's experience unless old ideas were recycled through the gun magazines. The best example I can recall personally was a rag article about reloading 38 and 357. Who would have ever thought one could use a 38 Special die set to load both!! If I hadn't read it in the gun rag article I likely would have purchased both. I would have eventually learned it on my own but likely after spending the unnecessary bucks. Some of you might recall RCBS at one time listing a different shell holder number for 243/308 than the standard shell holder for 45ACP/30-06. To an unsusecting rookie reloader he may have bought both. Fortunatley for me the gun shop I bought my original RCBS kit from advised me to use the 06 shell holder for 243.

Back in the 70's before Richard Lee upset the good ol' boy network you didn't see anything in the catalogs saying 38 special dies could be used to load 357. Die sets like nose punches the manufactures want you to buy as many as possible. They are not willingly going to pass helpful tips along like using one flat punch. They want you to buy one for every mould and many will untill they discover it on their own or read it in the gun rags or interent about flat nosed punches.

[Bret4207]

Uncle Dale, don't be too hard on us. You remember the old Handloader and Rifle under Dave Wolfe and Ken Howell, much different and better over all. I recall articles by a much younger Jim Carmichael, Dave Scoville, Mike Venturino and the rest of the crew. It was different, less fluff and "dead trophy" pics. For Gods sake, they gave that idiot Boddington over at G+A Elmers old "Gun Notes" column!!! Some things you just don't do. Look whats happened to The Rifleman! Sad, sad.

Truth is some of the gun writers out there are probably eons ahead of us, but they aren't writing about it are they? They write about the latest gizmo from the manufacturers and how great it is. Jon "I got a Cowboy Hat just like Elmer" Sundra is an old pro at this. If the EDITORS would let them maybe those that are capable could start turning out some good articles in the style of Al Miller, Ken Waters, John Zameneck, Elmer, Jack, Pete Brown, etc. Oh for the days when Merril Martin was writing.

These days we got hopefuls like Brian Pearce- we're hopeful he'll continue to write decent stuff like he is now. Mike Venturino has discovered surplus arms and is writing them up. Good on ya Mike, now start letting the guys know you can do it with WW and not just linotype, it ain't gotta be HARD!!!

So there's hope, but we don't have to like what the editors want them to write about. BTW- You keep writing the way you do. I'm not subscribing to SSE or ASSRA right now, but your articles are just fine.

[Dixie Slugs]

I will not apologize for anything I have said about the writers on the Gun Rags indeed! All you have to do is go to one "Outdoors Writers Seminar" and see what goes on...or, like myself, been in the industry all my life. The entire situation as become a closed cabel of syndicated writers tied to advertising...period!
I have seen work done even here on Cast Boolits, turn up written as someone else's work.
The only place left where the new shooter/hunter can find real answers is on forums like this indde!
You need to talk to people like John Linebaugh, Todd Corder, and the rest to get a better picture of what is happening.
Sometimes I pull out copies of the Handloader/Rifle and re-read what greats like Don zutz and other wrote...real how-to-articles.
One magizine is so full of hype about dolling up 1911's, I get sick.
It's the Name of the Game these days, not only in the Gun Rags, but TV and everywhere.
Regards, James

[Bret4207]

Donny Zutz...good guy. Thanks for the memory.