Modifying (ie. increasing the diameter) a Lee Bullet Sizer die-anyone have experience

[reedap1]

Greetings All,

Does anyone have experience in modifying one of the Lee Push Through Sizing dies to increase the diameter? I am looking at making a sizer for my 470 Nitro Express cast bullets that will be powder coated. I need to size them to 0.476 and was thinking I could use the Lee 0.452 sizer to enlarge the opening. I suspect the best way would be with a lathe but perhaps it could be opened from 0.452 to 0.476 or 0.024" with an appropriately sized mandrel and fine sandpaper or valve grinding compound on a drill press. I think the "push stem" might still work as supplied with the sizing kit but not sure until I try it.

Anyone have any thoughts on customizing one of these dies.
Thanks for any insight.
Paul

[frkelly74]

that is quite a bit of a change. i got a .243 enlarged to .268 by using a carbide drill bit and polishing the hole with emery cloth on a stick.. it was crude but it worked. i could not get any of my steel bits to cut the die but the solid carbide bit cut it pretty fast. probably cheaper and easier to get one made. There are some on here who can make a die I think .

[country gent]

That is a lot to remove with a mandrel and paper and still maintain roundness and center line. you are talking .012 on a side which will remove most of the sizing band lead in taper and relief on the back side. the added .012 in a side may allow fins and other issues with the original stem.

I think this will be more work than making a new one will be. If you have access to a lathe.

A 2"-4" allen head cap screw 7/8 14 makes a good start and saves hardening and threading.

cut to length and drill to 7/16 thru. use a small boring bar for cutting internal threads. preferably cemented carbide.

bore thru to .470, this leaves .002 to polish.

bore lead in to .472 .473 3/8" deep

cut the lead in angle around 5-10* leaving at least 1/8" straight section

Move in to leave 1/4" band and bore relief out .475-.480 This way when the next bullet pushes it thru there is no force on the nose.

Polish with a piece of flannel on a turned wood dowel to size and finish with diamond compound, this will finish and break sharp edges.

[Wheelguns 1961]

I bought a .476” lee sizer on ebay. I use it for my 480 ruger bullets. I don’t know if it was custom made, or they offered that size at one time. Have you tried to call lee? It might be worth a shot.

[Bazoo]

If you have no other means then go for it. Chuck the die in your drill press via a mandril in the top end , and use sandpaper on a dowel while the die spins. This will keep it round and centered. Make the mandril from a bolt. Find one that will just barely not fit, cut the head off and use that end to tap in the die about half an inch. Spin it in the drill press and sand it with a taper until it's a snug slip fit beginning into the die. Remove it from the drill press and give it a whack with a wooden mallet to seat it in the top of die. Spin the die and do what's needed. When it's time to remove the mandril to check the bullet fit, invert it, support on both sides and use a brass rod to loosen the mandril. Be easiest if you have a sample of something a bit undersized to test with before you work up to final size so you don't have to remove it a dozen times.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

[Minerat]

Check out the NOE, push thru's, there are 12 .476's in stock.

https://noebulletmolds.com/site/shop/sizing-tools/bushings/480cal-bushings/480cal-476-body-bushing-b476/

Good luck.

[Traffer]

Keep your eyes open for a .476" carbide hand reamer on eBay. I have found a lot of deals on reamers ...even carbide for cheap.

[DougGuy]

.476" reamer won't work. Lee dies are sized about .0005" under the diameter they are marked, to allow for springback.

Taking .024" out of it will definitely cut through the case hardened layer and you will be into relatively soft steel at that point.

I use a Sunnen precision automotive hone to resize dies, but that one would need to go in the lathe and the time it would take to carefully hone that in the lathe and keep checking it, keeping it round, parallel to center, you could buy two Lee dies for the time in the machine shop.

You would be a lot better off buying one, either a Lee or a NOE.

[sukivel]

Why not have Lee make the exact size you want?


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[reedap1]

Thank you everyone for the feedback, suggestions, and ideas. I followed up with Lee and their entire custom shop department is on hold due to a huge backlog of orders from the standard equipment. No custom sizing dies or factory crimp dies for the near future.

I was not aware of the NOE solutions but those look like my best choice. Some upfront expense but I'm sure the quality of their dies is excellent. That is probably the solution I will go with rather than attempting to modify a Lee.

I also did learn that the sizing dies are hardened so cutting that much material would remove the hardened section and accelerate wear as DougGuy suggests. I was willing to attempt the modification since they are relatively cheap but probably better to just buy the NOE dies.

Great forum and Web site with a wealth of experience. Thank you all for the help.
Paul

[Stephen Cohen]

If you must open an existing sizer, use the closest die to the size you need, in your case at least .458 or larger. I have made a .377 from a .357 and it was lap and slug often. Regards Stephen

[Super Sneaky Steve]

I've been looking to turn a Lee .452 die into a .453. I've got some pin gauges and I was surprised to find out the .452 die is much smaller than .452. Likewise my .501 die is smaller than .501. I wasn't able to get a pass through but the smallest pin I had was .5005 and it would not pass.

Does anyone know what actual size die makes what size boolit? I'm using pure lead for muzzleloading.

[GBertolet]

You should take into considerstion, that there is some springback, in a sized bullet. The diameter of the die is calculated by the manufacturer, to deliver the finished bullet the advertised diameter. The amount of springback depends on the bullet alloy, and how much the bullet is being sized. The only way to know for sure is to size your bullet in your chosen die, and measure it.

[Mal Paso]

My .431 boolits cast with wheel weights and 1+% Tin, air cooled are pretty much the size of the die, water dropped are .0005" bigger. YMMV

[DougGuy]

I have used ACRO brass barrel laps for Lee sizers before, they work really good, and actually are more precise than the Sunnen hone if you can imagine that! Chuck the die in the lathe, put the lap in the tailstock, adjust it for a bare minimum drag fit, put some fine valve grinding compound on it, turn the lathe on and push the lap into the die a time or two, then clean it and check it with a pin gage. You generally want the die .0005" below the targeted diameter to compensate for springback. If you are sizing pure lead, there won't be any springback so you size the die to whatever diameter you want. You could also do this in a drill press with a vise to hold the die.

303085

[Scrounge]

Greetings All,

Does anyone have experience in modifying one of the Lee Push Through Sizing dies to increase the diameter? I am looking at making a sizer for my 470 Nitro Express cast bullets that will be powder coated. I need to size them to 0.476 and was thinking I could use the Lee 0.452 sizer to enlarge the opening. I suspect the best way would be with a lathe but perhaps it could be opened from 0.452 to 0.476 or 0.024" with an appropriately sized mandrel and fine sandpaper or valve grinding compound on a drill press. I think the "push stem" might still work as supplied with the sizing kit but not sure until I try it.

Anyone have any thoughts on customizing one of these dies.
Thanks for any insight.
Paul

Best would probably be to drill it out close to size, ream closer still, and make a lead lap and polish it out. You can buy quite the variety of reamers on both Amazon and Ebay in some odd (standards-wise) sizes, and they also make expandable reamers, a set of which can be astonishingly cheap from one of the import suppliers. I have sets from 3/8" and up in the adjustable reamers, fractional inch and fractional over/under sets from 1/8" to 1/2", and .001+ and - from those sizes, also some metric sizes, as well. A 12mm reamer would be .4724" which would get you pretty close, and those reamers are relatively cheap. McMaster Carr has a carbide reamer in .475" for only $37 and change, plus shipping. I'm a cheap bastrich and wouldn't spend that much for myself, but it might be another option for you. I didn't even look at ebay since I really need to get off this thing and go to bed tonight, while it's still night. Good luck, and I hope this helps!

Bill

[mdi]

Removing .024" is a lot (IIRC Lee sizing dies are hardened) and a do-it-youselfer with the proper tooling could probably get the job done. The most I have opened up a die is .004" and that was with the rod/emery method. Try this https://leeprecision.com/custom-classic-bullet-sizing-kit.html

[DougGuy]

Best would probably be to drill it out close to size, ream closer still, and make a lead lap and polish it out. You can buy quite the variety of reamers on both Amazon and Ebay in some odd (standards-wise) sizes, and they also make expandable reamers, a set of which can be astonishingly cheap from one of the import suppliers. I have sets from 3/8" and up in the adjustable reamers, fractional inch and fractional over/under sets from 1/8" to 1/2", and .001+ and - from those sizes, also some metric sizes, as well. A 12mm reamer would be .4724" which would get you pretty close, and those reamers are relatively cheap. McMaster Carr has a carbide reamer in .475" for only $37 and change, plus shipping. I'm a cheap bastrich and wouldn't spend that much for myself, but it might be another option for you. I didn't even look at ebay since I really need to get off this thing and go to bed tonight, while it's still night. Good luck, and I hope this helps!

Bill

DRILL a case hardened die with a drill bit? LOL I suppose you likely haven't tried this.. Same with an adjustable reamer.

[mdi]

Yep, DougGuy is right. A plain old drill vs a case hardened piece of steel? Nope...