lyman 45 sizer?

[stringstretcher]

I just purchase a lyman 45 sizer, and it has not instructions at all with it. There are 3 different sizers with it and one still in the sizer. There is a lot of really old hard blackish brown grease on the sizers and I would like to get everything cleaned up real good to use. Any suggestions on how to break things down and what to do? And would anyone have a copy of instructions they could copy and send me?

Thanks
Another newbe

[Scrounger]

What you have is dried lube, and there is likely some in the lube reservoir. A good heat source should melt it off, a hair drier or such.

[madcaster]

You could try a pot of water on a Coleman stove OUTSIDE to remove grime and old lube.
Lyman has a online parts diagram,check their site.

[HeavyMetal]

If you have a heat gun or an old blow dryer heat up the sizer on some wax paper and the lube will just run out all over the place. ( Hence the wax paper) or you can heat it up in some boiling water until all the lube comes out! Be aware this can be dangerous to your health if you wife catches you jackin' up her pots and pans!

Using the lyman is simple: loosen set screw in the base of the machine just below where you would start a boolit into the die then lift up and the die will come out. You may have to adjust the ram below the die to allow enough travel for the linkage to lift the old die out.

Replacement of the die is just the reverse of taking it out.

If your going to use a soft lube all you need to do is install the die of your choice, as well as the correct top punch ( see Lyman catalog for list of top punches it's with the mold descriptions) and be sure not to crank the snot out of the set screw! You can break dies!

Once that's all done pull the top off and install the lube you want, by the way you'll need sticks of lube with a hole in the center OR you can melt lube and pour it in and wait for it to cool.

Put the top back on and, if it came with the cool little ratchet wrench, turn the ratchet clock wise until you just fell pressure on the boolit lube! If no ratchet you'll need to find a box end wrench that fits the pressure ram.

Now your ready to go! Now is the time to make sure you have the ram , underneath the die, adjusted far enough down to just let the lube groove, or grooves, align with the holes in the die. You might have to make a couple of attempts at this but do not apply any more pressure to the lube ratchet until your sure the boolit is going to the correct depth.

Once you have this all set up it's simple: insert boolit, push handle down until it stops, give ratchet a bit of a turn to squeeze lube into the grooves, push handle back up and remove sized and lubed boolit!

Repeat until all boolits are done! Be aware that some guys crank the lube pressure down pretty good and can go 4 or 5 boolits before they have to readjust the pressure ratchet again. My experience is these are also the ones who talk about the sizer leaking lube! Apply pressure one each boolit and I don't think you'll have any issues with leaking.

If you decide to use a hard lube you will need a heater to mount under the sizer. this will allow you to use much harder lubes but will increase the probability that you will have leaking lube all over the place!

The Lyman 45 is a very old Lube Sizer design and I never thought it was made for hard lube usage.

Good luck and I hope this helps out.

[kodiak1]

Boil mine in a pot of water anytime I want it cleaned out.
Good Luck Ken.

[stringstretcher]

Thanks. that is just what I was looking for.