Want to start casting?

[carsonbm]

I understand most of what I have to buy to get started, except for the lube-sizer, will I have to buy from the same manufactor for molds used for casting? I am thing about the Star sizer.

[9.3X62AL]

Generally "no", although top punch selection might be affected to some degree. I run SAECO, NEI, Lyman, RCBS, Mountain Molds, and Lee castings through my Lyman 450. Sometimes--with top punches--"close enough" is "good enough".

If we didn't say so before, WELCOME TO THE ASYLUM.

[Jon K]

carsonbm,

Welcome,
Lyman and RCBS are good lube/sizers, easy to adjust, change sizing dies, sizing dies & top punches interchange. Like Al said close is good enough. Saeco sell same punch for several molds with the same size and shape nose. After a while you'll have a drawer full of top punches, and see how 1 punch fits several boolits.

Mold is a mold, except for the custom built.
Everyone has their personal favorite production mold, that subject alone will cause debates too ugly to describe.

Lot of good info and experience here, do searches & ask lots of questions.
Lots of opinions here too!

Jump in & get your feet wet,

Jon

[FISH4BUGS]

........although it is kinda costly. They size NOSE DOWN so the top punches are not an issue like the others. Just make sure you have the right diameter bullet punch,which is flat because you are pushing against the base of the bullet.
The Star is great for production. You can size and lube 1000 or more per hour once you get it set up. Unless you are going to plan on really putting out some bullets, any of the others are fine. The Star really is the best for sizing and lubing and for highest production in my humble opinion.

[44woody]

Carsonbm if I had it all over to do again I would not get all the stuff that I got over the years I would go straight to the star and a master caster I have spent enough money to buy the good equiptment 2 times I don't like lee equiptment I had some the first bullet press I ended up using as a canue anchor (junk) I have mostly all Magma equiptment now and like it better thaan all the rest that I have had except rcbs pro melt furance which I still have lee moulds work but not as good as what I have now this is only my opinion and others will have a different one's 44Woody

[xpshooter]

I am also leaning twoard the star sizer and I was wondering; How does one know which size of sizer die to order? Should one order a smaller one and then hone it out as needed, and if so how much bigger can one hone out the die before a new punch is needed?

[454PB]

I am also leaning twoard the star sizer and I was wondering; How does one know which size of sizer die to order? Should one order a smaller one and then hone it out as needed, and if so how much bigger can one hone out the die before a new punch is needed?

Assuming you own one gun of each caliber you were going to size, you need to slug the bores to know what size dies to order. I own multiple guns in the same calibers, so have different sizing dies for each. My Star came with four dies and punches, and I'm making my own sizing dies. The Star dies are very hard, but can be enlarged with time and patience, my home made ones are from mild steel and easy to enlarge. I've been making my own Lyman sizer dies for many years of mild steel, and none of them have ever worn to a larger diameter.

As to the punches, I use the same one for everything from .356" to .359" with no problems. Naturally to do this, the punch has to fit the SMALLEST one first. The worst case scenario I can see would be a slight ring pushed into the base of a boolit caused by a smaller than required punch.

[pjh421]

Once you slug the bores of your guns, you will have a better idea of what size boolits they will prefer. Cast boolits are commonly sized a thousandth of an inch larger than bore diameter. This is great if you are shooting an auto pistol.

However if you are shooting a revolver you need to know the sizes of the throats in the cylinder's chambers so slug those too and annotate your note book. Shooting cast boolits that you dutifully sized a thousandth of an inch larger than your bore through chamber throats that are larger still will not yield good results.

Therefore, I would size the castings to fit the throat(s) in question. This will prevent gas cutting of the boolit where the gas pressure is highest. Some revolvers reportedly have throats smaller than the bore! There's a recipe for failure. That's not such a bad problem though. A good gunsmith could make them all pretty close to the same (and appropriate) size.

If on the other hand, you had a revolver (maybe a victim of home-gunsmithing that you picked up for a song or even some factory examples) whose throats were excessively larger than the bore, say four or five thousandths, it could prove costly to correct.

When you drive undersized boolits through throats that are too large for them, they not only sustain gas cutting, they wobble and hit the forcing cone too much on one side which further deforms them. In the case of the hollow-based .38 wad cutters I guess this condition is somewhat relieved by the extreme ductility of the swaged lead boolit but the ones like you want to make are somewhat harder and aren't as forgiving when it comes to obturation. You need an optimum sizing relationship between your sized castings, your throats and your bore. I believe a general rule of thumb is that you shouldn't size your cast boolits more than two thousandths, preferably not at all if you heat treat them first (since they will "work soften"). Again, the problem is that they don't even enter the sizing die straight in some cases.

When I bought my Star lubrisizer it came in .45 caliber. I believe it sized to about .451". Eventually I wanted a .38 caliber die. The Star literature wasn't too reassuring about the availability of exact die diameters. A friend of mine owned several made by Robert Stillwell, 421 Judith Ann Dr., Schertz, TX 78154, Ph: (210) 658-0112 and recommended him highly.

I wrote to him, asking if he could make one measuring exactly .3580" because that's what the throats on a particular S&W 686 I was shooting slugged at (or pretty darn close). He sent me the die and when I sized some H&G 51's I measured them at three spots around their circumferences with a micrometer that indicates ten-thousandths of an inch. They were all dead on as far as I could tell. Nice and round, .3580".

Paul