Tight gas check trick

[44Blam]

I cast some 45s yeserday and was GC/PCing today. I found an old stash of gas checks but they were very snug. They are Hornady GCs, but the oxidation must add just a tiny bit of thickness or maybe they made them a little smaller years ago. Note that the new GCs are much easier to seat. Either way, it was kind of making my fingers hurt trying to GC these guys.

Here you can see the oxidation of the old GCs vs a new (ish) one:
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I've done a lot of wood working and one thing you have if you work with wood is clamps. I took this Irwin clamp with the soft pads and it turns out, it levels and slips the GC on and very smoothly seats them. Made my pile go much faster and my fingers are thanking me:
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[StuBach]

Love that idea and those old quick grips.

[Uncle Grinch]

I use my Lyman Lubrisizer to press gas checks on before lubing them. I use an old house key and place the large end over the resizing die. Then I seat the GC on the flat surface of the key and place the cast bullet in the nose punch and lower the press handle. This drives the bullet into the aligned GC.

[TjB101]

Great idea, I will try this ... the other day putting on 224 GC’s after PC’ing some bullets I used a 3 tap method to slightly seat the check before pushing thru the sizing die.

[Bazoo]

Thanks for sharing.

I have some old ideal checks that are tighter. I've been thinking bout opening them up with a tapered punch because they shave lead when seated. I'm feard that bit of lead will cause leading or accuracy issues in the old 30-30.

[toallmy]

It looks like it's easier on the fingers , that's thinking outside of the box .

[nun2kute]

Just a FYI, NOE makes a gas check expander to go in a Lee universal expander, just for this purpose.

But you already knew that !

[MDC]

Haha, dang it. I just finished pushing about 200 or so on some 311359's that were PC'd. My index finger and thumb are both sore. Pointed little buggers

[Walks]

I use the gas check seater that Lyman makes to go on it's 450 Lube-Sizer.

Seats them straight every time.

[robg]

i use lee push through sizers .as i wanted to seat some 223 gas checks i used one sizer with the pusher in the sizer and used the pusher from another sizer to squeeze them on as they are in line they went on straight.

[GARD72977]

Great Idea. I'm going to try this

[charlie b]

If I have problems seating them I just use the Lee sizer.

Put GC on bullet as best I can. Run bullet and GC in sizer until it just starts to engage. Then use a 1/4" rod from the top and tap it until the GC is firmly seated. Then run it the rest of the way through the die.

One of my future tools will be a dedicated GC seater. Reamed hole custom fit to the bullet. Area at base to fit a GC. Will make sure the GC goes on perfectly square to the bore.

As an alternative to the clamps you can also use channel lock pliers. I'd get a cheap pair from HF and use some JB weld to make the jaws smooth and flat (or grind them flat).