Star sizer

[Denver]

FWIW

There's a Star luber/sizer on E-Bone with a couple of dies. If it's like most I've followed there, it will likely go for as much or more than a new one.

[jethrow strait]

Denver, share your pain. Have pretty much given up on eBay cept for occasional oddities. After all, the mountain west isn't exactly the money capitol of the world. At the very least, you're dealin with hordes of left and right coasters loaded with more dough and frustrations than most folks here abouts. One interesting lil tidbit on the Magma Star, that will only confirm your worst suspicions re: eBay is that Magma lists their dies there at full retail under the "Buy it Now" gambit, and with the shipping and postage you actually pay more than if you just called em up and order them at full retail!

I finally had some good luck getting a couple Star sizers, that's probably much of the reason why I'm blathering on, but hopefully my experience will be useful to you. Keep an eye out at local places---range offices, gun shops gun shows and the like. Some guy just walked into our range office a couple weeks ago, had four of em with dies, that had been used in a small commercial casting operation, wanting to sell em all, not one or two, for fifty bucks apiece. Well, heck, the dies alone cost $35 plus shipping, so I got two, one in 38 and one in 44. Nothin like a Star for lubsizing handgonne boolits! Course, I already had 3 lubesizers, two lymans old and new from local gunshops at seventeen and twenty four dollars respectively, and a fine Saeco with two dies for thirty dollars from a local gun show five or six years ago. So, from my experiece Denver, it's been more worthwhile to work the local veins.--------jethrow

[Denver]

Jethrow,

Yeah, I saw that ad that Magma had for their dies somewhere. They had them at full list, plus shipping, plus 3 or 4 bucks for "handling".
Actually I have 2 Star sizers myself that I thought I got a pretty good deal on. I got the two sizers plus seven different dies, a bunch of lube, a tool for removing the dies for $300, but don't think your deal will be topped.
I just ran across the one on E-Bone and thought I'd put it out here in case someone was lookin.

Take care,

[McLintock]

I watched them on E-Bay for a while and the ones that came up you couldn't tell how much they had been used and generally what condition they were in. Finally just went down to Magma and bought one over the counter in .44. With an automatic bullet feeder and the one sizing die it got me for about $400 out the door, but for volume loading like Cowboy Action Shooting it sure works nice. I'm thinking of getting the conversion stuff for 38-55 and .32's now. Doing them and 45-70's on a couple of Lymans and it sure is slow and boring to do.

[joed]

Is the auto bullet feeder a decent option? I've been thinking of getting it but it doesn't look like it holds very many bullets.

JoeD

[Willbird]

Well I gave an older street person an extra sandwich I got today (friend welshed on the deal) and he had a shiny new rcbs patch sewed on his grimy jacket. That prompted a question or two from me, and since I was so generaous he took me to his stash of reloading gear well preserved in cosmoline under the bridge.

I got 6 Star loaders, 30 carbine, 9mm, 357/38, 44 magnum, 45 acp and a 223 super star. (the pistol ones all have case feeders) A shopping cart full of Hensely and Gibbs multi cavity molds. 6 star sizers all setup for pistol bullets, couple rock chuckers.....big burlap bag of new redding comp seaters (he was a redding dealer before he went nuts)......and the best item was a mearck container full of primers he had stashed in a cool/dry old govt warehouse, the primers are all large pistol but I think I can do some trading on them. He says he has more stuff I can have too once I get this stuff cleaned up and ready to use.

The old man said a six pack of bud and the knowledge that his stuff would be well cared for was enough for him. I think what sealed the deal was that I knew that Colt made auto's and smith and wesson made revolvers .......he said it was kind of a trick question but a good half dozen guys hadnt got it right, I was the first :-). he said lots of guys were confused and thought colt made revolvers too, and smith made some good auto's.

See you can top ANYTHING if you try hehe...............

Bill

[felix]

Bill, stuff like that means work, real work. I remember the high school kids running those molds and presses for the pistol league when I was in CT. Good memories, but a bad omen that you now have possession of that stuff. I wonder why that guy went nuts? Probably smarter than the smartest around in disguise. ... felix

[McLintock]

JoeD,
The auto feeder takes long plastic tubes that take about 60 or so bullets each, plus 10 or so in the metal extension that's a part of the feeder. the tubes use a pin to hold the bullets in until you're ready to put them through the sizer. If you load up several tubes with what you intend to do that session, you just put a new one in when you run out, kind of like recharging primers. I only have one tube right now, but it still goes pretty fast. All you're doing is cranking the handle and putting the bullets whereever you normally put them while sizing. You buy different parts for the main frame if you want to change calibers. I once sized 200 bullets and then loaded them on a Dillon 550 in about 1 1/4 hour, but I didn't have any gliches at all that day, quite unlike some other days.

[KYCaster]

JoeD: You can put boolits into the sizing die just as fast as you can put them into the feed tube and then you have to put the feed tube into the sizer, then you have to raise the handle higher to move the feeder, so it makes the operation much slower. I tried it once and quickly gave it up. With a little practice you can size 2000 or so an hour. I couldn't come anywhere near that with the feeder.
YMMV

Jerry

[LAH]

See you can top ANYTHING if you try hehe...............Bill

I'll not try to top that.HEE HEE

[Springfield]

There's no way I can size 2000 bullets an hour. I don't think I could do that many if I had them all in tubes ready to go in the bullet feeder. I really love my bullet feeder. Maybe it makes a difference if yu are doing BP bullets. I just fill up the tubes while watching TV and then size them later. Much faster for me. Money well spent. I'd like to see someone do 2000 bullets in an hour. That's 33.3 bullets a minute. So a bullet every 2 seconds or less. Now that's impressive.

[BD]

I can easily size 50 .45 acps a minute through the star if I'm just letting them drop into a box. However, I could never keep up that kind of pace for an hour. I generally size them and set them on little plywood trays ready for loading so they stay cleaner. Doing this at a leisurely pace I can size about 500-600 an hour. BD