excess lube on base of boolit

[KirkD]

I have a RCBS Lubrisizer (says 'LAM II' on the side). I'm relatively new at this, so I figure I must be doing something wrong. When I size and lube boolits, it is often the case that I can lube coming in between the base of the boolit and the seating face of the plunger. I have to scrape the lube off the base of each boolit after sizing and every few boolits, clean all the excess lube off the face of the plunger that the boolit sits on. What am I doing wrong? I do fool around with the adjustments until it pretty much stops and if I speed up the lever movement it also helps. Is the excess lube because I'm not pushing the boolit far enough down inside the sizing die? It seems to me that it stops when I adjust it to go further down into the die, but I figured I'd ask the question here anyway, just in case there is some special trick rule of thumb that will clarify things for me.

[454PB]

It's a common problem, and usually caused by the nose punch "sticking" to the boolit. When that happens, the boolit is pulled up by the nose punch and lube squirts between the boolit and the ejection rod. One solution I've read is to put a piece of styrofoam between the boolit base and ejection rod. It acts as a seal and reduces leakage. Personally, I'd alter the nose punch to fit the nose better.

[hithard]

Kudos to the guy who recommended taking a quarter in bolt and turning the had down to fit the dye, for use as a top punch. As all my boolits are FP this works for them all. Talk about cheap, and it won't hold on to the boolit and cause this problem.

But if you are using a beveled base boolit, to bad, your just going to have to live with it. Unless you alter the mold, by taking out that bevel. Which you can do pretty easy. But then you have to make sure you have a good flare on the mouth of your cases. Or you will shave lead.

[1hole]

"I have to scrape the lube off the base of each boolit after sizing and every few boolits, clean all the excess lube off the face of the plunger that the boolit sits on. What am I doing wrong?"

There are two things you're doing "wrong".

One, you aren't keeping enough pressure on the sizer handle to maintain a tight seal at the base of the bullet, hold down more.

Two, you're putting far too much pressure on the lube pump, back off on that. We need not fill every groove totally full if your lube choice is good. You will see it as excess lube that gets blown over the face of your muzzle, it's proof of more lube than is needed.

[atr]

Its a VERY common problem.......so what I do is spray some WD40 onto and rag or piece of carpet square sitting on my workbench,,,then drag the base across to clean it....only takes a second or two and it cleans the base.....any WD40 film left on the base will quickly dry off

[Patrick L]

I also keep a rag with kerosene to wipe the bases, but honestly since I switched to flatbase bullets I don't have much to wipe.

When I used to run BB bullets, I developed a kind of rhythm to the sizer operation, I had no pressure on the lube, I would run the bullet into the die, then a quick "push/pull" on the lube handle (oh, I also have an RCBS LAMII; it would be tough to do this with a ratchet handle) which would lube the bullet and then release pressure again. Then upstroke to eject the bullet. I didn't have a BB full of lube then. It really wasn't too hard once you got the rhythm down.

With the plainbase bullets you can keep constant lube pressure, but not TOO much.

[monadnock#5]

One solution I've read is to put a piece of styrofoam between the boolit base and ejection rod. It acts as a seal and reduces leakage. Personally, I'd alter the nose punch to fit the nose better.

+1. Use an empty case for a cookie cutter on a styrofoam meat packing tray. With the foam cookie, you can make even BB designs work.

You might need a heater for your sizer. With no heater, I put far too much pressure on the lube, which causes surges of lube rather than a nice even flow. A heater is what I use to make my luber a precision piece of equipment, rather than a hammer.

[KirkD]

Thanks, fellows, for all that good info. Sounds like some helpful advice. We'll see how the next lube session goes.

[hemiallen]

I have found if the sprue cutter leaves a dimple you will get this . I use a folded paper towel and just twist the base on it leaving "kisses" on the towel until I use all the fresh area and get a new one.

If it is real bad, my solution was to make a file die to drop the bullets into and file the sprue flat to the base. I assume this also makes a more accurate flying bullet. It pays to be a machinist. I used 1" square oil-hardening tool steel, made the die hole .750" and made brass bushings to fit each diameter bullet, and tapped the center opposite end and use a 1/4" plastic bolt to set the length of the bullet. You can even shorten a bullet if you have a good open file, like an old bodyworking lead file.....

I even tried to get RCBS to make them, but they said not many people would want them... 20 years ago.

Allen

[Dale53]

I have not done this to all of my base punches but to some and it works quite well:

Remove the base punch and using a lathe run a center drill into the end of the base punch leaving a "shoulder" or rim around the center drilled hole at least 1/16" in width. Then run a drill all the way the length of the base punch. This does two things:
1 - The rim of the base punch seals better against the base of the bullet.
2 - The excess grease is forced into the depression to the hole drilled through the base punch.

Note:
You WILL need to file a slot across the width of the base punch AT THE BOTTOM (on the other end from where the bullet sits) so that when the hole fills up the grease has a place to go.

Works pretty dern well and minimizes the problem. I don't have a lathe and have to depend on friends (they get a liquid reward:drinks:).

Dale53

[revolver junkie]

i posted a thread on this but i wonder about plugin the lower lube holes with lead shot like a star die i tried no6 earlier today but i think it might be to small

[badgeredd]

i posted a thread on this but i wonder about plugin the lower lube holes with lead shot like a star die i tried no6 earlier today but i think it might be to small

Buckshot recommended #4 shot and it does work well to eliminate excess lub holes.

+1 on the pressure thing. I found that about every 5 boolits I hit the lube pressure on my Lyman lubers to get the best results. BB boolits are indeed a problem.

Edd

[August]

One, you aren't keeping enough pressure on the sizer handle to maintain a tight seal at the base of the bullet, hold down more.

Two, you're putting far too much pressure on the lube pump, back off on that. We need not fill every groove totally full if your lube choice is good. You will see it as excess lube that gets blown over the face of your muzzle, it's proof of more lube than is needed.

+1 1hole's experience is exactly my own with the RCBS machine. Hold down, pressurize, wait, pop bullet out. I probably put in about an eighth to a quarter turn for each bullet. You'll kind of get a feeling for this in time. If the machine will lube more than one additional bullet without adding pressure, you're running too much pressure.

[sleeper1428]

If you happen to be lubing and sizing BB bullets, that may well be where you are getting lube between the base of your bullets and the punchout pin. What you might want to do is to find a friend who either has a metal lathe or has access to one. It's a fairly simple operation to turn down a piece of cold rolled to the appropriate size to match your sizing die and then contour the bullet base end of your new punchout pin to match the bevel angle on your BB bullet. Several years ago I bought a very old Sears lathe and since then I've had no problems with BB bullets - I just make up a punchout pin that matches the contour of the BB bullet and no more problems with lube getting between the bullet base and the pin face.