Star heating base

[daddyrucker]

Can someone give me the dimensions for the star heating base?

[chloe123]

4"*7.5" , that's the whole unit though. That is including the heater portion..

...

otherwise length pretty close to 5.75" . I gotta picture of mine somewhere in this forum but if you simply view a pic you'll be able to visualize the relevance of the 2 diff measurements

[daddyrucker]

Thank you

[6bg6ga]

Why don't you purchase some scrap aluminum and a heating element and save yourself some money?

[daddyrucker]

I figured it would be challenging enough to tackle the learning curve of heat, pressure, and lube relationship. I didn't want to add another variable. I was right. I've been trying to get this magma green lube flowing for three days now. After about 6 hours of tinkering I have about 30 lubed boolits.

[6bg6ga]

its not hard. Are you getting lube in the grooves? Partial fill? Lube on the nose of the bullets? Describe your problem. Is Magma green a hard lube? Never used it myself.

[chloe123]

Flowing, or getting in the lube groove?

Disappointedly, I just just ran out of Magma green. But here's a pic of the setting on my magma heater. Whether you're using air or manual compression on the lube, it should be a close approximate. You probably already knew but the magma varieties are hard to work along with their heaters

Once you have the heat setting, if you're struggling with location of lube , go through the measurement steps. Hatch referenced them on a recent thread or ck out magmas site. Basically, it involves lining up a bullet in the die along side your die's lube hole. You then place the punch in the unit and lower until it meets the base. Pretty sure it's the measurement that is used as a guideline for the bullet punch length that you want for that particular bullet. Fwiw, setting the punch for a new bullet takes me a while, especially with the bullet feeder attachment complicating things

[6bg6ga]

Probably the easiest way of getting your depth correct is to push an already sized but clean bullet into the die with the die out of the machine. Push the bullet thru and at the same time put a pin into one of the lube holes. Push the bullet into the die until the pin rests in the lube groove. Re-install the die into the machine with the punch screwed in so that it will not touch the bullet at the low part of the stroke. Lower the ram slowly to the bottom of the stroke and hold the position and lower the punch until it just touches the base of the bullet and then lock it down. Record the open height measurement from the bottom of the punch to the top of the sizing die with the ram at its furthest open height. Providing that it works and it will this is your measurement for this particular bullet and sizing die that can be used over and over again. Now get the lube flowing and adjust the pressure so that the lube grooves fill completely and do not screw with the height setting because it is correct.

[daddyrucker]

Magma green lube seems to be a hard lube. Sometimes I'm getting lube in the grooves but mostly I'm getting no lube or partial lube in the groove and partial lube just above the lube groove in the direction of the nose. When I adjust the pressure up on the air feed not much happens. When I increase the heat slightly I get good groove fill but also get a lot excess lube in the die, bullet nose, base and punch. My air pressure has ranged from 30 to 80 psi.

[fast ronnie]

There is a pretty good thread dedicated to the star sizer. I just got a used star, and following directions in the thread, i was successful the first ime using it. If you are getting lube at the nose end, you might check two things; there are normally three rows of holes on a star/magma die. If you have a boolit with only 1 or 2 grooves, the other row can be plugged with #7 or 8 shot. Also, are you sizing nose first or base first? the star can be used either way, but I like to use mine nose down. This allows me to use a rn or a swc without changing any settings as both have a flat base and the lube grooves are the same distance from the bottom. You might have to adjust the punch up or down to line up the lube holes with the lube groove.

[6bg6ga]

Read and follow my post #8Take a sized bullet and clean it up and with the die out of the press manually push the bullet thru the die and use a pin or something that will fit thru the lube hole into the correct lube groove. Continue as my post says.When you have the die re-installed into the press and the ram set run the pressure up to around 70 or 80 psi and size a few bullets and see what happens. From there you will adjust the pressure and temp in order for a complete lube groove fill. You will NOT however need to adjust the depth because if you have followed directions correctly you have done it.

[daddyrucker]

Read and follow my post #8Take a sized bullet and clean it up and with the die out of the press manually push the bullet thru the die and use a pin or something that will fit thru the lube hole into the correct lube groove. Continue as my post says.When you have the die re-installed into the press and the ram set run the pressure up to around 70 or 80 psi and size a few bullets and see what happens. From there you will adjust the pressure and temp in order for a complete lube groove fill. You will NOT however need to adjust the depth because if you have followed directions correctly you have done it.

Okay I will try this when I get home. It may be obvious once I try this, but how will I know when the pin is in the groove?

[Beagle333]

Press the pin lightly against the side of the boolit as you push the boolit through the die and the pin will go farther into the hole when aligned with the groove. :cool:

[daddyrucker]

Thanks guys. I'm finally up and running. You were absolutely right. Once I got the punch setting right using the safety pin, everthing else fell into place. I sized and lubed about 400 boolits tonight and all are ready to load. Thank you again for your support and advice.