Should exist, but does it?

[curioushooter]

Has anyone made a seating/roll crimp die that takes a lube-sizer top punch instead of deforming your soft lead boolit?

[Pipefitter]

Hot-melt glue is your friend, degrease your seating stem, apply a dab of hot melt glue and form it with your projectile of choice. Allow to cool and trim off the excess.

[BigEyeBob]

Devcon liquid metal works ,as per Pipefitter's suggestion . need to put some relase agent on the projectile when pushing it into the metal filler.

[megasupermagnum]

Most of the time the concave seater works, and I've never had a problem with the hollow style for rifles that grabs the ogive. One handgun bullet was a soft hollow point that didn't like the concave seater. I cut it flat on the lathe to fix it. I also did a couple others, as I found it provides a more consistent seating depth. The big drawback to flat or fitted seating stems is that they are sensitive to any bullet lube getting in them. A concave style is very forgiving in that regard.

[Carrier]

This may be a stupid question but I’m trying to load a large soft lead pointed bullet with a concave seating plug. How do you keep everything square and centered when using hot glue or other material so bullet will seat properly after it drys?

[Bazoo]

You can normally get a seat plug for pointed bullets. I converted a round nose to flat for my 30-30 Lyman dies.

[Nueces]

Years ago, I pretty much solved my cast seating difficulties by using the Hornady sliding sleeve system. The moving parts, guide and seating stem are very simple lathe turning jobs, so specials are easy to make, such as for fat cast slugs.

[curioushooter]

So it appears no. Once I get my lathe set up again I will be making and probably selling this tool. Hot glue is too compressible...it will not provide the consistency I want. Epoxy would work but then I need a different stem for each boolit. Making it flat with a file (no lathe needed for that) is probably the best short term fix but it will deform round nosed boolits (which isn't a problem for me really, I have one round nosed boolit that I should just sell). My no work fix was to use my Hornady flare die, a flat fixed plug type, to seat. Worked great but I'm not a fan of the two step seat-then-crimp..I'll take seat-and-crimp.

[EDG]

Some companies including RCBS used to offer a service matching the seating punch to your bullet shapes.

You should try a hot melt nose punch before you dismiss it. I think you will find you are wrong when claiming the material is too compressible.

I cannot say that using a lubrisizer top punch is always better since they are often not an exact match either. Using the hot melt glue or epoxy trick is probably the best solution to getting and exact fit to a specific bullet nose from a specific bullet mold.



Has anyone made a seating/roll crimp die that takes a lube-sizer top punch instead of deforming your soft lead boolit?

[Bazoo]

I'd bet a person could make a killing here if they were doing lathe work making custom seat plugs, in trade for bullets/brass/lead.

[str8wal]

Send RCBS a few bullets and some $$$ and they will make you one.

[Carrier]

I talked to Lee on Friday and they are making one for me and should have it in a few weeks.
Didn’t have to send a bullet as it is from one of their molds.

[kywoodwrkr]

Years ago, I pretty much solved my cast seating difficulties by using the Hornady sliding sleeve system. The moving parts, guide and seating stem are very simple lathe turning jobs, so specials are easy to make, such as for fat cast slugs.

Hornady is improving but still seem to resign themselves to their bullet shapes.
I have been determining the nose shape of some of the bullets I use and am going to make my own seating plugs.
I do like the Hornady assembly methodology.
Their technical folks leave something to be desired however.
Before deciding to measure for my self I queried them as to if they had handy the dimensions for some given cartridges.
I have seating dies which do not have a caliber stamped on them anywhere. My latest 32 set does have 32 on it.
After a few turn arounds of e-mail, I just went my own way.
Next step is to drill and ream the seating stem with my homemade reamer(I hope).
Also going to try and make seating sleeve for calibers I need.
Getting free tuition at state schools(including vocational) sure is nice!(KY has 'over 65' continuing education program-no previous degrees needed)
I'm into my 11'th year of machining.(Actually 11 years of "Groundhog Day", relearning, relearning etc.)
curiousshooter, wish you well.
Someone needs to pick up the slack. But I can't talk myself into seat and crimp in one operation. Too many .001s come into play.
Tuesday I hope to try and determine hardness of the steel they use in stem and sleeve.
Thanks.

[country gent]

Using the seating stem from lube sizer might work but sizes may interfere with it. I have used epoxy ( JP weld and bisonite) to modify seating stems with good results. a simple tube bored to stem dia and bullet dia to hold in alignment and light clamping pressure does very good. Or coat inside of sizing die and loaded round with release agent several coats and run a round up in and let cure. After epoxy cures I lightly lapp the new seater to smooth and finish its form.

The thin coat of hot melt glue would limit the compression and a little compression would allow for a perfect match.

Using an epoxy works and is a very hard surface. Acraglass gel, micro bed, JB weld, and bisonite all work well and make a long lasting seater. Draw back is cure time and the risk of release agent not working. A light lap with auto rubbing compound, tooth paste. red rouge on a bullet will polish and give a very good finish.

The plus to a fitted seater is it helps align the bullet better than the flat seater. If you can find threaded rod in the right size it could be used to make seater stems that both fit the bullet and die with epoxy. Again if doing this make sure die is well coated in release agent ( and test it with your epoxy first tp be sure it works) 2-3 coats will ensure release and a small amount of clearance.

[robg]

I don't worry about the nose as long as the base is good that's all that matters .

[gwpercle]

Custom fit the nose punch and seating stem with a greased cast boolit and a small ball of JB Weld Epoxy Putty , degrease the nose punch cavity so it will stick there , actually any epoxy putty will work . I've been custom fitting them for years and none have ever come out , except for one I tried with hot glue...hot glue just doesn't stick .
The epoxy putty works better because excess doesn't run and drip into places .
Gary