Bent Ramrod
11-18-2014, 11:16 PM
It is pretty obvious to most of us that the availability of many lubrisizer die diameters have disappeared from the factory offerings over the years. Those who want a special diameter to size their boolit must send an undersized factory die to a custom service to have it reamed or polished out.
To my mind, though, a truly "custom" sizing die should go beyond the hole diameter. The hole spacings and sizes for lubing the boolit grooves in the factory dies are a sort of compromise, set up to handle the "average" boolit being run through the die. Extra grooves, or fat grooves, or grooves with odd spacings will hopefully get the lube by passage past the nearest hole. Custom moulds often have such grooves, and boolits from them are poorly served by such dies.
Typically, the mismatch between the custom boolit and the standard lube die results in boolits which have gaps in the lube in one or some of the grooves. Sometimes, turning up the pressure solves this problem, but then again, increased pressure can squeeze lube out under the base or past the ogive rather than driving it farther around the boolit as was intended. Sometimes running the boolit through the die again, or taking it out, turning it a quarter turn and running it through again, is the only way to make sure all the lube grooves are completely filled. This, of course, prolongs a job that is already not one of the most entertaining and edifying operations in the reloading process. Also, a second pass through the sizing die increases the risk that the boolit might tilt or cock and be spoiled for shooting.
Now that Keith, the Perfessor, has started offering blank lube die bodies for all brands of lubrisizers, this extra handling and general irritation caused by the standard dies can be addressed by finishing them to exactly fit the boolit one wishes to use. If one has a lathe and a drill press, a die can be made for each mould in a given caliber at less than the cost of a single factory die meant to cover all of them.
I decided to devote my old Cramer lubrisizer to the lubrication of BPCR boolits and ordered five SAECO die blanks with pilot hole from the Perfessor. These fit my Cramer machine to perfection, as expected, since the Cramer was the predecessor to the SAECO and differs only in minor detail. I measured the distances between the grooves of several of my favorite moulds in .45, .40. .38, .32 and .25 calibers. The first two were Paul Jones Creedmoors, the rest were the Ideal 375166, the Ideal 319162, and the Ideal 25720. Drills were selected to be close to the width of the grooves in the individual boolits.
The first order of business was to spot and drill the holes.
122171 122172
I used my Enco spin index fixture set up on my Benchmaster milling machine, but the job can be done with a drill press and an X-Y table that has dials graduated in thousandths of an inch. I indexed the holes 90 degrees, giving four sets of holes spaced according to the grease grooves on the boolits. With only a quarter of the circumference to get to, and every groove matched to its own lube hole, I figured the lube would fill all the grooves in one pass through the die.
After the holes were drilled, I centered the die body in the lathe chuck, roughed the hole for the boolit out with drills and bored to final diameter. These dies were not going to size the boolits, just orient and hold them for lubrication. The smaller calibers can be done with a series of drills, "sneaking up" to the final diameter, with a polish afterwards with 320, 400 and 600 grit wet or dry paper.
122173
I took the old Cramer machine apart and boiled the old lube out of it.
122174
It's a pretty nice machine, and cleaned up with no trouble. I marked the dies with the diameters and made the "I" punches to fit them. I like to have the "I" punches a little shorter than the dies, so they never come completely up to the top. This slight dip in the surface allows the boolit to start itself into the die before pressure is applied, helping to keep it straight.
122176
Here are all the dies together. The extra one in the middle is the 38 pistol die that came with the machine. Keith's dies have the SAECO threads on the bottom. These are not needed on the Cramer lubrisizer, but don't interfere with the functioning.
I ran some Paul Jones Creedmore 45's through the .45 die, which was reamed and polished to .460" diameter, as checked with my set of hole gauges. A third of a turn on the lever and the boolit was lubed, with no gaps and only a minor amount of lube on the base. That quantity kept getting smaller as I learned the nuances of using the machine. And no lube on the nose or above the first groove. Lubing 50 boolits took about half the normal time and generated zero irritation. Little leakage out the bottom of the die and none around the top.
122177
C'est si bon!
To my mind, though, a truly "custom" sizing die should go beyond the hole diameter. The hole spacings and sizes for lubing the boolit grooves in the factory dies are a sort of compromise, set up to handle the "average" boolit being run through the die. Extra grooves, or fat grooves, or grooves with odd spacings will hopefully get the lube by passage past the nearest hole. Custom moulds often have such grooves, and boolits from them are poorly served by such dies.
Typically, the mismatch between the custom boolit and the standard lube die results in boolits which have gaps in the lube in one or some of the grooves. Sometimes, turning up the pressure solves this problem, but then again, increased pressure can squeeze lube out under the base or past the ogive rather than driving it farther around the boolit as was intended. Sometimes running the boolit through the die again, or taking it out, turning it a quarter turn and running it through again, is the only way to make sure all the lube grooves are completely filled. This, of course, prolongs a job that is already not one of the most entertaining and edifying operations in the reloading process. Also, a second pass through the sizing die increases the risk that the boolit might tilt or cock and be spoiled for shooting.
Now that Keith, the Perfessor, has started offering blank lube die bodies for all brands of lubrisizers, this extra handling and general irritation caused by the standard dies can be addressed by finishing them to exactly fit the boolit one wishes to use. If one has a lathe and a drill press, a die can be made for each mould in a given caliber at less than the cost of a single factory die meant to cover all of them.
I decided to devote my old Cramer lubrisizer to the lubrication of BPCR boolits and ordered five SAECO die blanks with pilot hole from the Perfessor. These fit my Cramer machine to perfection, as expected, since the Cramer was the predecessor to the SAECO and differs only in minor detail. I measured the distances between the grooves of several of my favorite moulds in .45, .40. .38, .32 and .25 calibers. The first two were Paul Jones Creedmoors, the rest were the Ideal 375166, the Ideal 319162, and the Ideal 25720. Drills were selected to be close to the width of the grooves in the individual boolits.
The first order of business was to spot and drill the holes.
122171 122172
I used my Enco spin index fixture set up on my Benchmaster milling machine, but the job can be done with a drill press and an X-Y table that has dials graduated in thousandths of an inch. I indexed the holes 90 degrees, giving four sets of holes spaced according to the grease grooves on the boolits. With only a quarter of the circumference to get to, and every groove matched to its own lube hole, I figured the lube would fill all the grooves in one pass through the die.
After the holes were drilled, I centered the die body in the lathe chuck, roughed the hole for the boolit out with drills and bored to final diameter. These dies were not going to size the boolits, just orient and hold them for lubrication. The smaller calibers can be done with a series of drills, "sneaking up" to the final diameter, with a polish afterwards with 320, 400 and 600 grit wet or dry paper.
122173
I took the old Cramer machine apart and boiled the old lube out of it.
122174
It's a pretty nice machine, and cleaned up with no trouble. I marked the dies with the diameters and made the "I" punches to fit them. I like to have the "I" punches a little shorter than the dies, so they never come completely up to the top. This slight dip in the surface allows the boolit to start itself into the die before pressure is applied, helping to keep it straight.
122176
Here are all the dies together. The extra one in the middle is the 38 pistol die that came with the machine. Keith's dies have the SAECO threads on the bottom. These are not needed on the Cramer lubrisizer, but don't interfere with the functioning.
I ran some Paul Jones Creedmore 45's through the .45 die, which was reamed and polished to .460" diameter, as checked with my set of hole gauges. A third of a turn on the lever and the boolit was lubed, with no gaps and only a minor amount of lube on the base. That quantity kept getting smaller as I learned the nuances of using the machine. And no lube on the nose or above the first groove. Lubing 50 boolits took about half the normal time and generated zero irritation. Little leakage out the bottom of the die and none around the top.
122177
C'est si bon!