Ok, just finished my first attempt at reloading gas checked cast boolits for a bottlenecked rifle cartridge (.303 British) and a few questions have come to mind that I"m hoping the brain trust here can help with!
1. When you size rifle boolits on a Star Lubrisizer do you just use the pointed nose of the boolit behind to push the one lodged in the sizing die on through? (Or do you need to order a special punch and push them through backwards? )
2. Is there a way you can "size" the gas check without sizing the boolit? I'm using a Lyman 311413 mold and they are dropping right at .313 from the mold. Ideally I'd just put on the check, lube'em and load'em, but when I tried that the hornady 30cal gas check is bigger than .313 and it stretches out the case neck so the boolit just sits loose.
3. Is somewhat normal when loading for a rifle like this to have one of the lube grooves "exposed"? I think if I loaded it all the way into the case neck there'd be an INCREDIBLE jump to the throat.
4. If I have to order a special punch, what's involved with doing that? Do I need to send them a couple of boolits or ?
Any and all advice is GREATLY appreciated. Right now I'm leaning towards just ordering a .313 die and using that to do my gas check crimping and ignoring the boolit tips getting slightly flattened when pushing the previous boolit out of the die (I'm lubing by pan lubing).
Have a good one,
Dave