Gas Check seating

[44magLeo]

I have pan lubed bullets in the past.
I have tumble lubed with straight LLA and a LLA and liquid floor wax.
I only did this with non gas checked boolits.
I'm now starting to use a checked boolit in 7.62x54R. I use aluminum checks I got from a guy on here.
The checks are not easy to get on straight or tight.
I size with Lee push through dies.
I was wondering how others get them on.
I tried by just pushing the boolits in by hand. Not easy and bothers my arthritis.
I have the Lee App press. I took the shell holder from that and put the push rod from the .430 size kit in it and put it in the top of my Challenger, put the push rod from the .314 set in the ram.
Setting the check on the push rod, boolit on the check and held straight I then raised the ram to seat the check.
This worked. The handle of the press was in about the middle of the stroke and was hard to get consistent and it was easy to flatten the nose of the boolit.
I got to thinking about trying to build something with the right size hole and with a rounded nose punch.
Anything I thought of I don't have the tools to make.
I thought about what I do have. I have some Lyman 310 tool sets. I have an adapter to put these dies in a regular press.
I looked at what I had and the 30-30 set seating die had a round nose shaped seating screw. I put this and the adapter in the top of my APP with the .314 push rod in the bottom. With one of the boolits with a seated check on the push rod, moved the upper die station down to the bottom of the stroke. I then adjusted the die and seating screw down to touch the nose of the boolit.
I then tried seating a check with this set up. It worked much better. A bit of adjusting and when the press was at the end of the stoke the check was seated fully and straight without flattening the nose of the boolit.
I also found if I screwed the die in a bit farther I could bump the boolit diameter. Both the nose and body of the boolit could be made bigger.
I have heard that sizing boolit in a lubri-sizer does this a bit.
I have tried tumble lubing the boolits then checking as described then sizing to unsure there is no leading as well as the check is held on.
I then pan lubed the boolits with Ben's Red lube. This seemed to work well.
I tried pan lubing then seating the checks, then sizing. This was a bit more messy. the Ben's Red is a bit sticky and gets on my fingers then gets all over.
I'm experimenting with order of the steps to keep things cleaner.
Ben tumble lubes his after they go through the lubri-sizer so the boolits have the hard waxy coating to keep things neater. I think if I find the right combination of steps I can keep things a bit neater.
Leo

[slide]

I use NOE's gas check seater kit. The secret for me to get them on straight was to not put that much pressure on the handle of the press. Remember you are dealing with a tiny piece of aluminum. If I have one that doesn't go on straight I will put it back in and pull the handle,rotate,pull handle. Do this about five times. This generally straightens it up. I never had much luck with the Lee setup.

[KYCaster]

Go to your local wholesale plumbing supply emporium and ask for Channelock pliers with smooth jaws.
Easily adjustable for different length boolits, works great.

Jerry

[Winger Ed.]

Using a RCBS lubri-sizer, some designs I can just drop them in and they seat on the down stroke like you'd expect.

Others, I have to individually push them down on the table top and they sort of snap on.
That way, you can also tell when they're on straight.

[Bazoo]

Good idea using the seat die and a ram for seating GCs. I use my Lyman 450 with a homemade GC seater. I made a wooden plug that does the same thing in the same way as the Lyman GC seating accessory for the lubesizer.

I have tried other things; rapping them on the table, tapping them on with a hammer handle. But both left more to be desired by the way of ease and squareness.

[Winger Ed.]

I use my Lyman 450 with a homemade GC seater. I made a wooden plug that does the same thing in the same way as the Lyman GC seating accessory for the lubesizer..

For some of the problem children, I lay a piece of 1/8" steel strip across the top of mine and push the boolit on down with the ram.

I was going to buy the 'seater kit', but it was $12, and ya never could find a picture of one.
So I figured it must be something real simple that you could make yourself for close to nothing.

[Bazoo]

I tried using a disc on top of the die to seat the check. It worked but sometimes I'd get a crooked check. Crooked as in off center, then when I'd size the bullet would get swaged more on one side than the other. The GC seater stops the die plunger from moving down but the check and the bullet shank sit in the top of the die. This centers the check on the bullet base as well as seating it square to the vertical.

The GC seater is well worth either the price or the effort to make one.

[44magLeo]

I don't have a lube-size machine. Those ideas are good for those that do. I
I load on the cheap. On my pistol and the 44 Mag in my rifle I use plain base boolits with tumble lube. Works great. I seldom even size them.
On the 7.62x54R I'm using a checked boolit.
The checks I have are a very snug fit on the boolits shank. Most often they didn't go on fully and were easy to pop back off.
Now seating them the way I did the check goes on up to were it touches the shoulder ahead of the shank.
They don't pop off at all.
It works vey well but the 310 die in the adapter and in the press had a lot of extra play. I looked in my load manuals for a possible 7/8's die that I could use instead. I decided the 32ACP would work. It is short enough so it can be adjusted easily and with one less set of threads it should remove most of the play.
I shopped around and bought a Lee 32ACP seat die. This die has no crimp shoulder like a 32 S&W or Long/mag would have had.
This should guide the bullet up into the die fairly straight so the check seats straight.
Another thing I think is good about this is you can adjust the die to bump the boolit. If you have a boolit that casts a bit small and you don't think you can modify the mold or don't want to buy a custom mold you can bump the boolit up in size. I experimented with this. I can take the 185 gr Lee boolit from a .302 nose and a .314 body and bump it up to a .305 nose and a .317 body. I know this is more than I need. It didn't seem to effect the shape or anything on the boolit. No lube grooves collapsed or anything like that.
With the proper adjustment I can bump it up so the nose fits the bore better then size the body to match the throat.
I do have Lee mold that throws a 200 gr RFN for the 44-40. I bought it to use in my 44 Mag as a light plinking load. It shots like crap and leads fiercely. It comes out of the mold barley over .429, which is fine for the 44-40's .427 bore, but not for my Marlins .432+.
I tried several methods the increase the as cast size. Lee-menting, adding foil strips. Neither worked well.
I'll have to dig that mold out and cast up some and see how much I can bump them.
Leo

[Chris S]

This has been a real bugger for me as well. I've tried all kinds of gaschecks in all kinds of calibers and none are ever "just easy". One thing I did get that helps is NOE's little hand tool for taking the burr off the bottom of a slug. This helps a lot to get the check started.

I have also found that seating the checks with this little vice I have (I think its about 2" across the jaws) and a wood block with a couple holes to match bullet tips seems to work OK. Talk about time consuming though...I would sure like to find the right tool for this task.

And if I powder coat before checking on anything but the largest calibers...forget about getting a check on there at all. This leaves me to check first, then powder coat, which leaves an edge at the bottom of the check...what fun.

Chris

[JM7.7x58]

Here is how I seat stubborn gas checks. I use the bullet seating die. I disassemble the die, the seating stem is then screwed into the top of the die and then the die is thread into the press upside down. I then use the ram from a lee sizer to press the check onto the bullet. It is hard to explain. I have attached a link to a photo. The great thing about this method is that most of us already have everything already in our reloading rooms. For some nose styles a bit of hot glue molded into the stem would help.
JM

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/asset.php?fid=212785&uid=51721&d=1570385595

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I have two molds for 30 caliber boolits that use gas checks. Have used Hornady and Gator copper checks. The shanks on the boolits from the Lee mold are a bit harder to push the checks onto, the Accurate Molds boolits are easy. I spray the boolits with One Shot case lube, put the checks on and run them through my Lee sizer. No problems with crooked checks so far. I tumble lube after sizing.

[gwpercle]

Lyman 450 lube / sizer .
Place the check in the recess , boolit on top of check , pull down , tweek lube pressure handle ,
pull handle up and out pops a boolit complete and ready to load ... nice , neat and discrete ...
The absolute best money I ever spent was for that 450 .
It beats all the other ways of sizing , seating gas checks and lubricating boolits Seven Ways To Sunday .... I don't care what you say !
Gary

[gpidaho]

I'm going to second the recommendation to acquire a Noe gas check seating die. I made and bought several gas check expanders before I purchased the seating die now the expanders are not needed. 99% go on tight and square using the Noe die set and a proper top punch. Gp

[44magLeo]

JM7.7x58, I tried your link and it didn't work.
Leo

[Chris S]

I'm curious guys. Those of you using the NOE seating system or even the 450 sizer/luber, if you take a finished bullet and roll it, does the check run flat and true? This is my acid test and one I do on every checked bullet, sometimes I spend several minutes on and individual slug getting it to roll true.

Chris

[Bazoo]

If I have any doubt I check my bases squareness by standing the bullet next to a few others. Most of the time I look at the groove between the driving band and the top of the GC and if it's even it passes.

[littlejack]

I figured out my own procedure by trial and error. This is for seating .410 plain base checks on the base of my 410459 slugs. I use an extra 45 Colt seater die I had. Years ago, when I had a lathe, I turned an extension with a flat top to fit into the shell holder slot. I put that extension in the ram, screw the 45 Colt die into the top of the rockchucker press. You can do your adjusting on the die for up and down with either the die body, and or both the seating stem in the die. I set the bullet in the check, and set it on the flat top extension. I adjust the die, so that the ram just goes over tdc with just enough pressure to seat the check squarely. The checks have the usual radius around the perimeter, and trying to seat and crimp at the same time in the Lyman 450, sometimes it gets crimped on before the bullet is fully seated on the square perimeter of the bullet. This procedure seats the square bullet base into the check and the bullet actually pushes out the radius with the bullet base. Also, when the bullet is seated, the sides of the check fold in against the bottom driving band, and holds them together for final crimping, sizing and lubing. I believe one could also use a small disc of flat metal to set on the shell holder to use as the base to set the check and bullet on.
Regards

[JM7.7x58]

JM7.7x58, I tried your link and it didn't work.
Leo
261845

Here you go. I think the photo uploaded sideways. But, you get the picture. No pun intended.

This does the same thing as the NOE tool. You are just using your bullet seating stem instead of a Lyman style top punch.

JM

[MT Chambers]

The NOE setup works very good but is slow and you do another step in the process, the Star seats all my gas checks except some sizes which I use the NOE setup.

[dimaprok]

You guys are very creative but what you really need is proper fitting gas check and lee sizer. No extra seating step required.

https://youtu.be/j0dXDFuGPrY

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

[Larry Gibson]

Your method is working for you so if happy with that method go for it......results are what counts.

Just another suggestion though; given the Aluminum GCs are most likely slip ons you might simply start the GC on and push the bullet through your Lee sizer GC first. I do that with various bullets when using a lot of tight fitting slip on GCs, my own and old Lyman's.

[Dapaki]

You guys are very creative but what you really need is proper fitting gas check and lee sizer. No extra seating step required.

https://youtu.be/j0dXDFuGPrY

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

I would have to say that there is often more to it than that.

Lyman, Gator, even the aluminum GC on my 7mm boolits "wash" the GC material down when sized through the LEE sizer no matter how well the GC fits. The sizer is polished and sizes correctly but I do have to size the boolits base first to keep the material from washing.

I believe it is the tapered heel of the LEE boolit that causes this and not the GC or die.

[JM7.7x58]

I would have to say that there is often more to it than that.

Lyman, Gator, even the aluminum GC on my 7mm boolits "wash" the GC material down when sized through the LEE sizer no matter how well the GC fits. The sizer is polished and sizes correctly but I do have to size the boolits base first to keep the material from washing.

I believe it is the tapered heel of the LEE boolit that causes this and not the GC or die.

I have to agree. The Lee shank on my 324-175-1R was so frustrating to work with. I finally gave up and drilled out the shank and made it a plain base mold (Thanks Ben for the tutorial thread on shank removal). Where as, I have a Lyman 323470 that is a dream to work with.

I size and install a gas check on these bullets in one step. I size from as cast to .318”. So they are being sized down .006” to .008” in one sizing. I’m asking a lot by sizing them down this much. The 323470 will size down just fine when cast out of air cooled #2 alloy. The checks start to wash off the shanks of this bullet if the #2 alloy is water dropped, it is just too hard(I bent the handle on my classic cast press sizing these water dropped bullets).

The tapered shank on the Lee bullet would smear off a check even with softer alloys, like 50/50 lead and WW with 2% tin. I also tried to seat and size in two steps with the Lee bullet, .323” and then .318”, they still failed. I think that the shank in too large on the Lee bullet and the taper doesn’t help anything.

I had not started to press on checks when I was fiddling with the Lee mold. I might have been able to make that mold/bullet work if I had pressed them on first. I started to use my seating stem press method on another bullet that has a large shank, that was made by NOE. The NOE shank is large but it has parallel sides and if the check is pressed on first it will pass through the Lee sizer just fine. This NOE is also a 8mm bullet that I size down to .318”.

Did I have to get creative? Yes, I did. Did it work? Yes it did!

JM

[JM7.7x58]

Your method is working for you so if happy with that method go for it......results are what counts.

Just another suggestion though; given the Aluminum GCs are most likely slip ons you might simply start the GC on and push the bullet through your Lee sizer GC first. I do that with various bullets when using a lot of tight fitting slip on GCs, my own and old Lyman's.

Larry,
I have tried the upside down method. I ended up with bent bullets. I just couldn’t get a long round nosed bullet to start straight enough in the die. They ended up looking like bananas.

JM

[avogunner]

I use a Lyman 450 to seat my checks and have no problem for all my 30 cal rifle molds but ... I have a Lyman 358156 that drops beautiful boolits at .360-361 but because of that, the gas check shank is almost too big for the Hornady checks I use. Very difficult to get them started on the boolit and a good number would even shave lead from the boolit when seating. What I needed was a way to flare out the checks to ease the seating and in a thread on this good forum, someone mentioned such a tool offered by NOE. It fixed me right up so keep it in mind if you encounter a similar situation with any of your molds.
Semper Fi.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I have a Lee 309-180R that the heels are a bit large on. I do them nose first and once I meet resistance I give the base a small rap with the press lever and then push it through. I have closely inspected the seated and sized checks and not found any cockeyed. I do have a Lyman 467 top punch coming along with a NOE seating gizmo but the rap method seems to have worked in the mean time.

[fcvan]

I have read on here that a guy was using a steel ball bearing to flare checks for a fat shank boolit he loaded. I make my own checks and for my 1 fat shank I use slightly thinner aluminum. I also anneal the aluminum strips before making the disks for the checks. I seat using Lee push-through dies by pushing the boolit onto the check before putting into the die. Using light pressure with the ram the check 'trues' itself before pushing the boolit all the way through the die. Annealing really improved this process.

[NMBill]

I use the RCBS Lube / Sizer and Hornady gas checks with Accurate molds / bullets and the checks usually snap on. However, I saw that if I ran the bullet into the die base down, 10% of the gas checks would be crimped on crooked. I thought that was weird. To solve this, I took the lube pressure off of the resizer and ran the bullets into the die nose down to crimp the checks. That works but created an extra step as the bullets had to be run again base down to be lubed, but it saved buying the NOE seater.

For the Newbies that don't know, you can put a finished bullet into your calipers base down and hold it up to the light and if you have a crooked check, it will be revealed.

[dimaprok]

I use the RCBS Lube / Sizer and Hornady gas checks with Accurate molds / bullets and the checks usually snap on. However, I saw that if I ran the bullet into the die base down, 10% of the gas checks would be crimped on crooked. I thought that was weird. To solve this, I took the lube pressure off of the resizer and ran the bullets into the die nose down to crimp the checks. That works but created an extra step as the bullets had to be run again base down to be lubed, but it saved buying the NOE seater.

For the Newbies that don't know, you can put a finished bullet into your calipers base down and hold it up to the light and if you have a crooked check, it will be revealed.

Might be easier to run through lee push through sizer first, they are inexpensive and if you if you get a cheapy lee press and invert it it's a lot easier too not having to line up the bullet on the push through rod and while you're at it, you can ditch the star luber and powder coat :D

[trimar009]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxm-lQovp5U. Works for me with home made Alum GC's!

[Super Sneaky Steve]

You guys are very creative but what you really need is proper fitting gas check and lee sizer. No extra seating step required.

https://youtu.be/j0dXDFuGPrY

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

I've found that to be the case too. I was trying to seat Hornady 30cal checks on my 762x39 boolits. After the powdercoat none would seat flush by hand but after push through sizing they all came out perfect. My lead was soft so maybe that helped.

[hickfu]

I use an Arbor Press from harborfreight https://www.harborfreight.com/search?q=arbor%20press

Just do a little pressure on small bullets or you will bend them.
I GC'd 30-30 and 35 Rem bullets today using it, I like that I can see if the GC is on straight before putting in the push through sizer to crimp them.

[Larry Gibson]

Larry,
I have tried the upside down method. I ended up with bent bullets. I just couldn’t get a long round nosed bullet to start straight enough in the die. They ended up looking like bananas.

JM

I thought the objective was to seat the GC? Your seating /sizing together if you're bending the bullets. Use a push throught for as cast diameter of not more than .0005 to .001 sizing.

[Tripplebeards]

I tap mine on manually first to try and get them somewhat seated. I just push the GC on with my fingers and tap the base on my table till it looks flush. I end up scraping off part of the base when Doing so. I then scrape off the lead shaving that the GC cut when tapping on with my fingernail or it smears between the GC and base. I then run the boolit through my Lee sizer. PiTA but it works for me. I normally have blisters on my fingers after tapping on acouple hundred this way. If I dont tap them on flush manually first I'll get fliers. I install my GCs over PC so I always struggle with them.

[redneck1]

261845

Here you go. I think the photo uploaded sideways. But, you get the picture. No pun intended.

This does the same thing as the NOE tool. You are just using your bullet seating stem instead of a Lyman style top punch.

JM

God , I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who does this .
Luckily I only have two bullets that are difficult to seat checks on

[Tripplebeards]

I think out of all my molds I one have one lee that will allow me to snap on GCs very easily after PCing. All the rest of my molds are a struggle.

[Stephen Cohen]

If your lucky enough to be able to use the correct bullet seating stem for the cast your checking, this will make seating easy by just sitting cast base down on the Lee sizer rod and go for it. You will have to wind the stem down in the seating die to suit the operation. Regards Stephen