Easy Way to Ream a Lee Bullet Sizing Die?

[Hanzy4200]

I have a stubborn Lee .358 sizing die. It consistently sizes to .3565. I have loaded and fired a good many bullets at this size through a GP100 and had acceptable results. Nothing spectacular, but decent. However, when I crank .357's up to full power I am getting some moderate leading. The bullet alloy and lube are fine, so size is the obvious culprit. I could send it back to Lee, but for a $20 product it doesn't seem worth it. Is there a simple/easy way to ream it out myself?

[flyingmonkey35]

Call Lee and ask em.

Take a before / after photo thell make good.

[jcren]

A little 400 grit emory in a split dowel or taped and wrapped loosely around a dowl dowl will quickly take off .001.

[country gent]

A piece of 5/16 wood dowel 5-6" long some various grits of sand paper ( wet dry works well) in grits from 220-800 or so. Cut a strip of 220 grit 4-5" wide. put a piece of masking tape (1"-2" wide ) 2" up from end 1 wrap leaving tail loose. slip sand paper under this tail and wrap till it is a tight fit in die. With a drill motor turn at a slower rpm and work die back and forth quickly, you want to see the polish lines cross over each other. Do this for a minute then add a few drops of light oil and another minute. Measure and go to finer grits repeating process until you get close .001-.0005 then a piece of flannel or cleaning patch and tooth paste, simichrome metal polish, flitz, or very fine lapping compound to size. Its sometimes time consuming but easy enough to do, Just go slow and check often its much easier to remove metal than put it back on.

[gloob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEa2jeV-BKs

[EDG]

This method is a little more expensive and sophisticated. It is also useful opening the neck of resizing dies too.



http://rickaverill.com/projects-past-and-present/lapping-reloading-dies/

[Rory McCanuck]

I used (basically) country gent's method.
Wrap a length of emory cloth around a dowel and spin the dowel with a drill.
Not much happened until I oiled the emory cloth, then it started cutting beautifully.
It didn't really take very long, either.

[bedbugbilly]

Not being nasty or knocking Lee stuff - I use quite a bit of their things and have a number of their push through sizers. I am just wondering though . . I've had several of their push through sizing dies that have been "off" in regards to what they are marked and what they are supposed to be . . . . I know and have read that others have had the same experiences with the Lee push through sizers. So . . I'm just wondering . . why is it that they have this problem? Are they not checked with some type of test gauge before they pass QC?

I don't have a "lube sizer" . . . probably will add one at some point. Do the same issues in terms of sizing dies being "off" apply to Lyman, RCBS, etc. or is their QC tighter?

[GhostHawk]

It seems to me for the last year (when I first bought my first lee sizer kit) that they have pretty consistently been dropping about a thousandth small.

I recently got the exception, a lee .452 for my .45acp and it is dropping right on .452.

My only explanation is it that it is easier to take material off than to add it.
I think they figure that those of us smart enough to check them, and find them a touch small are smart enough to correct them ourselves.

Or it could be something as simple as the way they are made, with the steel springing back a thousandth after a quality control check.

[9-toes]

Alloy could be a factor. I think I read somewhere that LEE tests with Lyman #2.

[country gent]

Manufacturers normall do check machinings with gages. For holes one side is go lower limit the other is no go which is upper limit of tolerences. If go dosnt or no go does then its scrapped or possibly made into next bigger size if possible. Material spring back and hardness become an issue if hole is burnished or swaged to size as does starting hole size. I would perfer them slightly undersized so I can bring them up to just what I want as to size and finish. One that is to size and rough is hard to fix. Once youve done a couple it goes pretty quick and easy. Its the first one that takes all the time.

[DougGuy]

The Acro lap is a wonderful invention! It is precise, you can use it in a lathe, hand drill or drill press, and costs less than $10 for most of them! Look on ebay, also Travers Tool Co. sells them.

http://www.acrolaps.com/index_003.htm

[Grendl]

+1 on the acro laps

[1_Ogre]

Perhaps it isn't the size that's the "OBVIOUS CULPRIT". I've been casting for a few days now also. You do not specify if the boolit is a gas check design or not. Bullet alloy plays a large part in leading, but to date when shooting lead at full power it's gonna lead some whether you are shooting pure linotype or not, full power loads with cast boolits have a tendency to do that.
What boolit are you shooting, with my 358156's I can hot rod em pretty good without leading but with the 358477's I have to tone it down some. I size through a Lyman 45 to 0.358". When I cast my lead alloy, when cooled for 5-7days, has a BHN of 12. This is what I've been casting with for decades.
No condemnations, just from what I've experienced.

[Motor]

My last 3 Lee push through size dies are pretty much right on. My last two moulds however drop boolits on the small side. All my other older Lee moulds drop big which I don't mind of course.

The last two are: 440gr .501" and 210gr .410" TL. Both drop boolits small. My .41 doesn't seem to mind but I wanted the .501s to be well, .501" at least. I ended up beagling it.

With the right tooling you probably could ream your size die. Personally I would probably try it but I have the right tooling. My second option would be to chuck up the die in a lathe and polish it to size. I'm just used to having access to the machinery and spinning the die while polishing it is far superior to spinning the polishing tool.

Motor

[Case Stuffer]

Some seem to have missed the fact that an undersized sizer is the issue of the OP.


I have a stubborn Lee .358 sizing die. It consistently sizes to .3565.

That is .0015 (one and one half thousands of an inch) which needs tom to lapped / honed / polished out which as others have posted is no big deal.

The alloy used will effect the size of the cast Boolits as will the temperature they are cast at but this has nothing to do with the finished size after sizing.


The bullet alloy and lube are fine, so size is the obvious culprit.