Adventures in Lubrisizer Diemaking

[SlippShodd]

There's a great old thread in Classics & Stickies that I recently resurrected:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?48453-Adventures-in-top-punch-making-(Long)
It was entertaining and informative, as well as inspiring for those of us dimwitted enough to play regularly with machining tools. Many thanks to JIMinPHX and Buckshot for all the technical info and experience they offered without charge. I had a question that I PMed Jim about and his response was (as usual) helpful, but he also thought it might make for good general discussion and suggested I start a thread, so here goes. As I said, JIM and Buckshot already provided the Quick-Start Manual, so I won't reinvent the wheel here.
I recently took on two new calibers to cast for: .30 and .22. I've cast a variety of pistol boolits for over 3 decades, forayed with borrowed moulds into 45-70, and finally took the plunge for these two rifle calibers, having been inspired by the many success stories on this board. Since most vendors are now perpetually out of stock and backordered on literally anything .223 or .308 based, I decided it was time to be as typically frugal and self-sufficient as we Cast Booliteers tend to be. That said, I needed to refresh and sharpen my machining skills a bit, and dove in to building dies for my RCBS LAM.
I started with the .30 because there's a bit more room to work comfortably inside of that die, determining from my little Ruger that it wanted a .311 boolit for proper fit. I botched the first die by overboring it, but the second one produces GCed .311 boolits that I just have to believe will work adequately if I ever get up the guts to mount them over powder.
Both of my ARs suggest that they want a .225 boolit for their upcoming plinker load... that's a very tight space to work in, but, undaunted, I plunged ahead. Now mind you, I've never seen a real, genuine commercially or otherwise made lubrisizer die in .225 and I had questions. One being, how many lube holes do you bore in one of these things? Do you really need 4? Will 2 suffice? The circumference of that hole is .707" and 4 holes at .125 should only eat up .500, but I can forsee my boring going a bit awry and those holes touching or overlapping and leaving me with some unwanted jaggedy edges. That and I think 2 holes (or 1 throughbored hole essentially) would give up enough lube to grease these little pills adequately.
Or maybe I'm just overthinking it as usual. Any thoughts and input you have on this project is appreciated. Let the discussion begin. I gotta run off to work...

mike

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

From another post of mine, this was my first attempt at sizer die.
Pretty easy, but I imagine the learning curve is broader with the smaller sizes.
Mount'em and shoot'em- nuthin' to be scared of
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/James64/PC053790.jpg

[JIMinPHX]

If you are worried about rough edges at the cross bores, then cross drill the lube holes first & then bore or ream the the center hole last. You can finish the bore with a hone or even a little 600 grit wet/dry paper if you need to clean up the finish better.

Another option (if you are boring) is to over bore the area around the cross holes by a few thousandths or more. That just about guarantees no rough edges will touch your boolits.

A gentle chamfer on the mouth of the die is pretty much mandatory. A little counter bore there sometimes helps to get the boolits started straight, but don't go too deep with the CB or else you will have upper portions of your boolits that end up not getting sized.

[SlippShodd]

Well, JimF, I gotta say, your first attempt is far prettier than mine. That's nice work right there. But, since I'm being lazy and not searching for the original posting, I gotta ask, right where that arrow is pointing in the picture -- what is the function of that groove? I see it as nothing more than an embellishment, but sometimes my keen sense of the obvious fails me. I made my .311 die without it and didn't notice any difference from using my commercial dies.
BTW, I worked on my second .225 die last night, dinking around with trying different things to simplify the build and stopped after I drilled out the hole to .210. I was feeling a little tired and rather than sacrifice another $30 boring bar to inattentiveness, opted to put off the final bore until another time. Talk about losing track of time! A little tired? I came in the house and the clock said 2:49. I was really hoping I'd misread it and there was a 1 in front of it, but no. So maybe tomorrow. I'm a little bushed from a full day of work on 4 hours of sleep. I used to do that all the time, but not so much these days... :)

mike

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

The arrow came from me asking exactly the same question!
I too did not know what the groove was for.
Apparently the early Lyman lubra-sizers retained the die with a set screw that hit that groove,
rather than the top nut on the later 45 & 450's
My next couple of dies didnt have that groove but have one below the lube ports
that sports another o-ring. I made a holder that holds the dies upside down in my rockchucker
then I can size nose first without slumping the boolit nose. The o ring keeps the die from falling out of the holder

I make mine by drilling the lube holes first, then the center hole to the nearest undersize drill bit,
then I have a Sunnen pin hone to hone the sizing diameter to whatever I want. The hone can hold tolerances to .0001"
these don't have to be anywhere near that accurate, because, if you change alloys, your dies produce a different size.

[JIMinPHX]

Now that I think about it some more, when I made .225" size dies, I cheated. I used a reamer.

[oldtoolsniper]

I cheat too I send a check to this guy in Missouri and in a week or so I have what I need in the mail box. Thank-you Lathesmith. One top punch adventure gave me a college level education.

[SlippShodd]

I realized I'd let my own thread lag and maybe I should post some updates. The .225 die functions perfectly, having finally answered my own question:


That and I think 2 holes (or 1 throughbored hole essentially) would give up enough lube to grease these little pills adequately.

The answer turned out to be, "Umm, no." I tried it for a few boolits and unless the lube were to be runnier than R5R's Simple Lube, it just wouldn't quite fill the grooves all around. Almost, but not quite. Maybe if I used a lubrisizer heater, but I don't. Fortunately, the first bore left the boolits 1/2 a thou under my goal, so I drilled 2 more lube holes in it and removed the burrs with a light pass with the boring bar and honing to size.
In the intervening weeks I've fussed with loads and finally found one to cycle the AR and deliver minute-of-clay-pigeon accuracy at 100, which was my ultimate goal. Further testing is in order, but life gets in the way of that sometimes. I still haven't mounted any of the .311s, but the ground squirrels are out and I'm not likely to send the .308 after them. The 45-70 of course, but the .308 no.

mike

[454PB]

As I've mentioned before, I make all my own sizing dies......Lyman/RCBS, Star, and Saeco, and I don't machine the O-ring grooves for any of them. Yes, I did when I first started making them, then discovered they aren't needed if they are properly machined.

[Doc Highwall]

454PB, what is the size of the thread on the SAECO dies?

[454PB]

I'll have to measure it......but that's another shortcut I take. Those threads are just to keep the die from lifting, so instead of machining them, I made a metal ring with a set screw that holds the die in place, much like the one used on Star lubrisizers.

[454PB]

Here's a comparison of a Saeco die (on the left) and my home made die with a set screw retaining ring, rather than a threaded retaining ring.

The threads measure .621", and it appears that they are 5/8" fine threads.

6375163752

[Doc Highwall]

Thank You! 454PB.

[oldtoolsniper]

This thread needs to be deleted before I buy a new lathe and start trying to drive myself insane again!

[oldtoolsniper]

Just in case what would be a good sized hobbly lathe I could attempt to make lube sizer dies on. I have two of those old craftsman 109 lathes but the tooling is a real pain on those. I would like a modern tool holder set up.

[blikseme300]

This thread needs to be deleted before I buy a new lathe and start trying to drive myself insane again!

I know where you are coming from. The insanity is fun though as you get to enjoy life more. The best additional tools for casting and reloading are a lathe and milling machine as this allows you to make or customize to your hearts content. The cheapy units from Harbor Freight can be adapted and tightened up to enable you to create quite tight tolerance work. Good tooling is a must as those from HF are plain junk. I retrofitted my mini lathe with a proper quick change tool post and it is used more often than initially anticipated. A warning to those contemplating getting a lathe or mill the initial purchase cost is about half of what you will end up spending as good tooling is not cheap.

[SlippShodd]

A warning to those contemplating getting a lathe or mill the initial purchase cost is about half of what you will end up spending as good tooling is not cheap.

^^^ This! :rolleyes:

mike

[oldtoolsniper]

Well I am not much for fighting with junk tools. Any body use a grizzly lathe for this type of work? I am interested in doing this for myself not as a job.

[454PB]

Yes, I own a Grizzly lathe.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Well I am not much for fighting with junk tools. Any body use a grizzly lathe for this type of work? I am interested in doing this for myself not as a job.

Dad has lots of Grizzly wood working tools,. good stuff.
My lathe is a cheapo Chiwaneeze Smithy combo lathe / mill. It takes a bit to get a new on clean, lubed and adjusted properly, but once you get that,
and figure out just you can and cant do, they are workable.

[nhrifle]

I have one of the Chinese 7X12 lathes. When I first got it, cutting much of anything was a chore. I have heard these machine tools described as an assembled kit, and it pretty much describes mine. I have disassembled it, trued everything, lapped the ways and the gibs, and in the process gotten a nice education on lathe design and construction. After everything I have done, I can hold tolerances of .0002 to .0003". The only complaint I have is setting it up for threading. I would really, really, really like littlemachineshop.com to offer a quick change gear box for my lathe.

I have actually been thinking of making Lyman/RCBS sizing dies and offering them for sale to casters since they are so hard to come by lately.

[Gunor]

What steel do you use for die's

Hopefully free machining...

Sorry if I missed that.

Geoff in Oregon

[nhrifle]

I've used O1 a couple of times with good results

[DonOhio39]

I've thought about doing this, and wouldn't really think that free machining steel(like 12L14) would be durable enough?

BTW, I call myself a "garage machinist" - no formal training or experience, just fooling around in the garage.

As far as boring the hole, I intend to use a milling bit as my boring tool. I've done this before and it gives a really nice finish. It'd be tricky with small calibers, I bet.

I'm thinking, turn the exterior details first. Put the blank into the DA collet chuck and drill/bore the hole to size. Use a pin gauge to confirm correct size and use the gauge as the center plunger.

Any REAL machinists care to critique my plan of action?

Don in Ohio

[454PB]

I've been in this discussion before. I use cold rolled steel for mine, and do no hardening. Yeah, I know some dies (especially Stars) are harder than woodpecker lips, but the dies I made over 20 years ago have not changed dimensions after sizing thousands of boolits.

I also use the "center plunger" as a pin gauge, but you can't count on it 100%. It naturally has to be smaller than the ID of the finished die, but that allows some inaccuracy. I usually size the center punch .002" under the desired ID, and once it fits, use a lead slug to measure progress.

[DonOhio39]

454PB
Thanks for that information! Saved me from buying drill rod just to make dies with. I've got a 5 gallon bucket half full of various rod ends from 1/4 in to 1.125 dia. Some of them will end up sizing bullets before I'm done.

Don in Ohio

[wool1]

I've thought about doing this, and wouldn't really think that free machining steel(like 12L14) would be durable enough?

BTW, I call myself a "garage machinist" - no formal training or experience, just fooling around in the garage.

As far as boring the hole, I intend to use a milling bit as my boring tool. I've done this before and it gives a really nice finish. It'd be tricky with small calibers, I bet.

I'm thinking, turn the exterior details first. Put the blank into the DA collet chuck and drill/bore the hole to size. Use a pin gauge to confirm correct size and use the gauge as the center plunger.

Any REAL machinists care to critique my plan of action?

Don in Ohio

I bore the hole first, as that is the measurement I am concerned with. Then do my final honing after exterior is finished. Just my personal choice.....seems logical when I'm doing it. Lol. Here is a thread I recorded some pictures of. Usually I get finished then go, I should have taken pictures.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?181153-Anyone-know-a-way-to-make-a-511-lube-sizer-die-for-a-Saeco

Have fun! I enjoy doing them as a break from what I should be working on.

[labradigger1]

Just when the whole world turned nuts after ct, i needed a .359 die for my 450 and 45's, broke out the old south bend 1918ish lathe and made one, not the prettiest but does the job, reamed to final ID.

[257]

why would i buy a die for 20.00 when i can buy materal drills reamers and lots of time making my own for me it's the challange i think

[rbuck351]

I too have been using my HF mini lathe to make sizing dies and gas check makers. I started with a returned 7x10 that I got for $235 then bought a 4 jaw chuck and a 7x14 bed extension kit from Little Machine Shop and realigned everything and now have a pretty fair little lathe. I too have been using cold roll for sizing dies and find it to be plenty hard for sizing lead bullets. For the gc makers, I have been using grade 8 bolts and 7x14 all thread, both of which seem to be plenty hard for working aluminum with no hardening. I was a little dissappointed to find my HF lathe doesn't cut 27 TPI to make the punches for the Star sizer but my old Craftsman 6x18 does so I'm good to go there as well. I bought 2 sets of adjustable hand reamers from Enco that cover from about 3/16" through 1/2" for less than $50 with freight. They are pretty slow going but leave a pretty good finish that slicks up nicely with just a little polishing with emery cloth. I keep telling myself I'm going to save money by making all this stuff myself but until then I guess the satisfaction of having the stuff I want when I want it is going to have to do.

[Doc Highwall]

It is not always about saving money, but making exactly what you need that works for your gun.

The big reward is out shooting guys at the range with their condom bullets at a much lower price with boolits you made that don't wear out your barrel like copper bullets will.

You can even brag that you don't have to clean your barrel as often as they do and still keep accuracy.

[USMC87]

Very informative thread, I think my friend who is a professional on a lathe will be busy making me some spare dies for my star.

[blikseme300]

It is not always about saving money, but making exactly what you need that works for your gun.

The big reward is out shooting guys at the range with their condom bullets at a much lower price with boolits you made that don't wear out your barrel like copper bullets will.

You can even brag that you don't have to clean your barrel as often as they do and still keep accuracy.

^^^^^------- As the man said.The satisfaction of making your own tools is priceless.