Crusty Deary Ol'Coot
11-30-2014, 05:53 PM
Some months back, I bought a new Accurate Mold for possible use with 30/30, .308, 30/06, and 300s and to make sure I had the correct sized sizer/luber dies available, I bought a .309, .310, and .311 die.
I have and use both the Lyman and the RCBS tools, so that is not an issue one way or the other.
The Accurate mold cast fine, great products by the way, and to get started I decided to start with the .311 die which provided me with a "first".
I stuck the bullet in the die! Grrrrrrr!! it went in very hard and I couldn't get it back out on the sizer/luber tool. Hmmmmmm???????
This is strange, something that I have never had happen before, ever.
Well, I was in contact with Tom at Accurate molds and sending "E"s back and forth so he says to send the mold back along with sample bullets, the sizing die etc.
His thought was that I possibly had a bad alloy, which I doubted as I had also cast some .444 bullets at the same time/same alloy in another Accurate Mold and everything went fine with that bullet.
Well, Tom cast some bullet from the mold I returned and those along with the samples I returned were all OK. The mold was fine and casting the proper dia.
Something was wrong with the die, but nothing that was readily apparent.
I sat on the project for awhile, but this past week with a son home and with him the .308, I wanted to get some sample cartridges made for that rifle with the bullets I'd cast.
I tried the .310 die for the first time, lubing the bullet with some RCBS #2 case lube just to hopefully prevent another stuck bullet.
By the way, a day or so earlier I again stuck another bullet in the .311 die.
The bullet, although tight went into and out of the .310 die. No problem
So, again driving the bullet from the .311 die I started to look it over internally really close. the center pin seemed to move smoothly with only an occasional hint of some hang up, but up close to the top of the die there seemed to be some roughness left over from the manufacturing process.
I took some 600grit wet/dry paper and wrapping some around a screw drive shaft until it was tight, honed the inside of the die a bit, then also the outside of center pin.
Put it back together and everything was smoooooth. Put the die in the RCBS tool, and this time prelubed the bullet. Success, I got the bullet back out. So, time to get the adjustments finalized and put pressure on the lube reservoir.
It worked, and now the bullets are going in and out just like normal.
I know the honing smoothed things up just a tad, but still wonder if that tiny bit made the difference.
The die was not dry to begin with, containing the light coating of oil applied by the factory, something which has always worked just fine in the past, but there was some glitch that threw a monkey wrench into the works.
Glad that is taken care of, as I really didn't know what the problem was or where to look next.
Crusty Deary Ol'Coot
I have and use both the Lyman and the RCBS tools, so that is not an issue one way or the other.
The Accurate mold cast fine, great products by the way, and to get started I decided to start with the .311 die which provided me with a "first".
I stuck the bullet in the die! Grrrrrrr!! it went in very hard and I couldn't get it back out on the sizer/luber tool. Hmmmmmm???????
This is strange, something that I have never had happen before, ever.
Well, I was in contact with Tom at Accurate molds and sending "E"s back and forth so he says to send the mold back along with sample bullets, the sizing die etc.
His thought was that I possibly had a bad alloy, which I doubted as I had also cast some .444 bullets at the same time/same alloy in another Accurate Mold and everything went fine with that bullet.
Well, Tom cast some bullet from the mold I returned and those along with the samples I returned were all OK. The mold was fine and casting the proper dia.
Something was wrong with the die, but nothing that was readily apparent.
I sat on the project for awhile, but this past week with a son home and with him the .308, I wanted to get some sample cartridges made for that rifle with the bullets I'd cast.
I tried the .310 die for the first time, lubing the bullet with some RCBS #2 case lube just to hopefully prevent another stuck bullet.
By the way, a day or so earlier I again stuck another bullet in the .311 die.
The bullet, although tight went into and out of the .310 die. No problem
So, again driving the bullet from the .311 die I started to look it over internally really close. the center pin seemed to move smoothly with only an occasional hint of some hang up, but up close to the top of the die there seemed to be some roughness left over from the manufacturing process.
I took some 600grit wet/dry paper and wrapping some around a screw drive shaft until it was tight, honed the inside of the die a bit, then also the outside of center pin.
Put it back together and everything was smoooooth. Put the die in the RCBS tool, and this time prelubed the bullet. Success, I got the bullet back out. So, time to get the adjustments finalized and put pressure on the lube reservoir.
It worked, and now the bullets are going in and out just like normal.
I know the honing smoothed things up just a tad, but still wonder if that tiny bit made the difference.
The die was not dry to begin with, containing the light coating of oil applied by the factory, something which has always worked just fine in the past, but there was some glitch that threw a monkey wrench into the works.
Glad that is taken care of, as I really didn't know what the problem was or where to look next.
Crusty Deary Ol'Coot