Why the Star?

[*Paladin*]

Ok, still fairly new to the casting world. I am currently using Lee sizers and LLA for lube. I'd like to get a Lube-sizer, but I need an education. I prefer to buy once and cry once, so from what I am reading around here the Star is the way to go, but I haven't seen anything as far as WHY the Star is better than a Lyman, RCBS, Saeco, etc.

What makes the Star worth the higher price? What does it do that the Lymans or RCBS doesn't do?

Thanks!

[cheese1566]

Speed.

(And no lube on bevel based bullets.)

[dragonrider]

It sizes and lubes boolits better and faster than a Lyman will ever do. Gas checks come out of a Star flat and square. A Star does not deform the nose of a boolit because it never touches the nose. Changing dies in a Star takes one minute or less, not so in a Lyman. A Star only has lube pressure when it is lubing a boolit, not when a boolit is not present in the die. If you only want to buy one, buy a Star. A learning curve it has but once achieved you won't want to use anything else.

[gmsharps]

I have used a Lyman fro many years and it's a good machine. It's drawback compared to the
Star is it's slower. You need to have a nose punch for each different style of boolit and you pretty much have to crank the lube wrench for each bullet. The Lyman seems to seat the gas checks better but hand seating on the bullet and then through the Star rrealy is not problem. The Star has an internel spring to put pressure on the lube which lasts for several boolits before having to reapply pressure. You can also get a air pressure device to apply the lube pressure and I belive there is a boolit feeder acessory available also. If you get a a flat bullet punch and push your boolits nose down you can cut the nose punch expense down to only 3 or 4 nose punches. Lathsmith fthat resides on this site makes these puhches and the sizer dies at very competive prices. It takes a bit of getting used to how to adjust the nose punch and filling the lube die with 7.5 shot to regulate the amount of lube for your bollits but by writing down your adjustments you can repeat the adjustment easily. If you get a chance to see and use a Star once you will never be the same.
Just my .02 worth

[HATCH]

The Star is a pass thru sizer.
It does Nose first so you don't need multiple top punchs.
Basically most people use one top punch for all there needs.
The limitation on the Star is the max size you can size is .585
I never plan to cast anything larger then that size anyway so it is perfect for me.

You touch the bullet only once.
You place the bullet in the die, pull the handle all the way down then back up.
The up stroke has no "load" on it because the bullets drops out on the down stroke.

The Lyman you have to place the bullet in the die, pull the handle down and up (load both ways), and then remove the bullet.

Also currently the Star is the only sizer to offer a AIR option and a bullet feeder option.

[rockrat]

Speed is the thing, especially with gas check boolits. If you are only going to use plain base, the lyman isn't too bad(I have 4 of them), but I find myself doing my 30cals on the Star. It is about 2-3x the speed of the lyman, but plain base, I can go about 3-4x. Only drawback to the Star, is it doesn't like to size down boolits much over .001" die diameter using harder alloys. I have one mould that casts .315" and when I tried to size down to .313" I was afraid I was going to break it. (#2 alloy water cooled--hard). Oh, dies cost more too. It takes me about twice as long to change a die in the Star vs. the lyman.
Thinking about a second Star.

[Roundnoser]

IMO all the advice and experience given here is true. I would ask yourself a couple of questions: How many bullets do I shoot per season and how many calibers do I intend to cast?

The Star is more of a high volume lube-sizer (great with pistol bullets), and would work fine if switching back and forth between a couple of calibers / bullet profiles.

If you only shoot a few hundred rounds per season, it might be better to get a Lyman 450, and save yourself the money (used Stars regularly go for $200. New ones are $275). A used Lyman 450 can be had for around 60 dollars, and used dies can be 10 - 20 bucks. Top punches, maybe 5 bucks each. -- In contrast, Used Star dies can go from $25 and up. New ones are 35 - 40+ dollars. The top punches are about $15(?).

Of course, everyone will have an opinion so it really comes down to what YOUR needs are, and what you are willing to pay! -- Let us know what you decide to get. Good luck.

[songdog53]

I personally like the nose first feeding and will size and lube and take care of GC and drops out bottom and always another one following it. I went straight from pan lubing to Star and i reckon the Lyman and RCBs are good sizer lubers but i like the speed and simple feeding and they drop out bottom and when they do are ready to reload. Just my 2 cents and i know are lot more that have used all the types and just went to star and plus lathesmith makes best dies around and lot cheaper than any factory bought ones. Just bite boolit and bought one and have been a real pleasure to use.

[Dennis Eugene]

Last night I changed dies in my star had to add lube half way through my sizeing session. I did 446 429421 bullets in just under an hour total time,it would have taken me probley three hours in my RCBS LAM II,'nuff said. Dennis

[Mustangpalmer1911]

I am ordering a Star ASAP after watching the vids of stars my RCBS LAM II is making me crazy.

[Dennis Eugene]

Mustang, I agree, I had a star laying on my bench for a couple months. I had picked it up used off EBay or some where. I watched one of the videos of the star in action. Once I had seen that I got mine up and running with in a week,and never looked back. I now have dies for all my Cals. for my star and can't remember the last time I used my RCBS. Dennis

[cajun shooter]

Both the RCBS and Lyman may size a bullet out of round because of the design of the machine. That's if it is set up wrong. The main thing is that they require two strokes to size and lube and the Star requires one. I bought my first Star in 1970 and did not realize what I had until I used a friends Lyman to do some bullets. The Star does have a learning curve that requires you to read the directions. If you just open the box and go to lubing you will start cussing soon after. The air cylinder and either the shovel handle or roller handle are must haves to really start to love the machine. The air cylinder makes it so all you do is feed the machine bullets and that is it. The handles stop the big palm blister that happens with the stock handle. You don't need a compressor running for the air cylinder to work as you only use the pressure not the air. A Wally World air tank will work for months before refilling and that is only from leaks. Use Teflon tape and your good to go.

[Doby45]

I personally like the nose first feeding and will size and lube and take care of GC and drops out bottom and always another one following it. I went straight from pan lubing to Star and i reckon the Lyman and RCBs are good sizer lubers but i like the speed and simple feeding and they drop out bottom and when they do are ready to reload. Just my 2 cents and i know are lot more that have used all the types and just went to star and plus lathesmith makes best dies around and lot cheaper than any factory bought ones. Just bite boolit and bought one and have been a real pleasure to use.

I also went straight from pain lubing to the Star. There are way too many positives and the only thing that could be considered a negative is the initial cost, but as you said "cry once" and be done with it.

[btroj]

I had a Lyman for 15 years or so before I got my Star. The Lyman gets limited use for some rifle bullets. The Star does the rest.
The Star is faster. It seats a gas check before crimping it on. It Allows many bullets to be sized without turning the crank to pressurize the lube.
The Star is a great tool. While it does nothing the other sizers can do it does them all better. The nose first generally means ore concentric sizing too.

The real question should be why not a Star? Besides price what are the drawbacks?

[scb]

I've got 2 stars and wouldn't part with either one of them. That being said I don't like to use them on "pointy" boolits. If you haven't used a Star the one stroke concept while true may be somewhat misleading. When one sizes a boolit in a star it doesn't go in the top and out the bottom in one stroke. The first boolit in goes into the die and stays there. It is sized and lubed. The next boolit in actually pushes the first boolit thru while it is being sized and lubed. There for there is always a boolit in the die, until you push it out with something smaller in diameter. On pointed boolits this causes damage to the nose and the base of the boolits. There is a way around it by using a secondary "punch" to push the boolit all the way thru before starting the next one but I find that far more hassle than it's worth. The other "problem with the Star is the lube die it's self. I cast a lot of different 30 cal. rifle boolits. Star dies are set-up so the lube grooves have to be positioned at the lube holes in the die at the bottom of the stroke. And the holes in the die have to have about the same spacing as the lube grooves on your boolit. If they aren't you may have a problem getting your boolits lubed the way you want. Again going back to the die you can shut off the lube coming out where you don't want it but it is done by placing lead shot in the offending holes. This works well. The problem is that if you want to again lube using those holes you have to remove the die and drill the shot out. Other than that they can't be beat.

[MtGun44]

Two Stars and three "normal" luberisizers. Stars have their place, for sure. BUT the Lyman
and RCBS machines are just fine if you lube batches of 100 or so of a given type, or change
types frequently. As to the nose punch issue, the overwhelming majority of my boolits have
a flat point of some size, so I use a PLAIN flat nose punch and almost never change it.

Lyman/RCBS are much easier to set up if you have to switch between a single lube groove
design (like a Keith) to a multilube groove design, even the same diameter. The only adjustment
on the Lyman/RCBS is max depth, you send down the boolit until it fills the top groove, the
you are done.
With a Star, the boolit is pushed down to a preset depth, and then the lube is injected to
a stationary boolit. There MUST be a row of lube holes in the die lined up with each lube
groove at that point. If the lube die has too many rows of holes, you must pull it out and
hammer in lead shot in each of 3-4 extra holes per row. If you need to re-open extra
rows of holes, you drill out the lead shot. Fussy as heck, IMO, BUT when set up right
it will put out a LOT of lubed boolits very quickly. Just don't be changing boolit types a
lot unless you will then do a large number of boolits to justify the setup time.

Bill

[Dennis Eugene]

Actually I own a couple dies of the same cal. I use them on different bullets, so one die has one row of holes open and the rest plugged and the next has two rows open and the rest plugged. Expensive for sure but a lot less time consuming when changing bullet styles. As for changing dies and set up I also wrote down seating depths for each style bullet and can change dies and be lubing again in well under five mins. Dennis

[plainsman456]

I traded for my casting stuff,molds,lube sticks and2 lube/sizers.
Not knowing what I was doing I set the star up in my bench vise and tried to lube up some 357 SWC.
Well I looked at the mess all the lube everywhere and thought I needed to find out how this thing runs before I did any more.
I then tried the RCBS lube/sizer and darn if them things were lubed in the groves and not everywhere.
I have done over 1500 200 grain 45 caliber boolits in the RCBS and I don't see a problem pulling the boolit back out of the die or turning the lube screw every third boolit.
With a ratchet wrench it is real fast.
This setup had more dies for the RCBS than the star so I think the star will be used for 357 boolits for a while.
Of I were to try pan lubing boolits it would probably be a pain in the a#$,because I have never tried before.
Whatever you choose you will like it a lot,that's for sure.

[Dennis Eugene]

Plainsman, I did over 350 bullets in the star in less than an hour, I had to crank the pressure screwdown about every 75 bullets. take the time to learn to make that star run and then let me know what you think of the RCBS. Dennis

[MtGun44]

Got both kinds, and there is a good use for each. Neither is "always better" IMO.
Folks that insist the Star is the ultimate solution are not really helping the newbies that
are just starting out, have limited $$ and do not plan on loading 1000 of the same
design at a sitting.

Bill