Lap a Star sizing die?

[crabo]

I tried to do a search for this but couldn't find it. I know this has been covered before, but my Magna 452 dies sizes about 450.

What is the best way to lap it and how far can I go with it?

Thanks,

[EDK]

I work at a power plant. We have some ball hones in the tool room...chuck the die in a lathe; put the hone in a drill chuck in the tail stock; apply light cutting oil; and put the lathe at the highest speed you're comfortable with. I honed out both .430 and .452 with it for about .001.

An alternative is get a brass rod; slot the end; put a strip of emery cloth in; and follow the above procedure...use the largest diameter brass rod available. This really takes a lot of time. I used this to hone a .310 to .311 for my new 30/30 Cowboy rifle and the 311041 PB group buy mould. No leading with ACWW at .311 and miscellaneous plinking loads.

There's lots of room in the die walls. If I had to go over .002, I'd send LATHESMITH a money order and the diameter I wanted...he does nice work. I need to get a .360 or larger for my 357 Cowboy rifles and the RANCH DOG boolit.

:Fire::cbpour::redneck:

[cajun shooter]

Crabo, Get in touch with Lathesmith. He does this all the time. I had a Magma 454 that sized 452 and he opened it up for me. He said that the standard for such dies is that they will pass a 453 pin gauge but not a 454 It has to do with the spring back of the bullet after sizing. Later David

[crabo]

Cajun Shooter, I just thought about trying my pin gauges, and came and looked up my thread. Thanks for posting this, I was thinking about the springback but didn't know how much to allow for it.

Thanks,