Star Sizer Issues (what a surprise).....

[GrumpyFinn]

Today I finally found my problem. Alignment of holes was totally off, I finally took the die out and while the boolit was inside, pushed a straightened fishing hook (didn't have any needles) through the lube holes and marked the boolit, pushed it out and whatdayaknow, NOT even close to the groove, little adjustment and now I can lube with 45psi (before I needed 120psi), no heat and after 1000 boolits no major adjustments needed, well it's Florida so 85 degrees is not really considered heat.

[LAH]

Just set up a new Star magna luber last night. Am using Jakes hard molly lube with a Lyman heater plate wired with a light dimmer adjustment. I had no problem sizing bullets from a Lee mould at .452 but tried to size Lee cone shaped 9 mm bullets that came out of the mould at .360 down to .356. That didn't work and gave up after I thought the handle would bend.

What am I doing wrong on the 9 mm bullets?

Added, I did lube the first 9mm bullets with imperial sizing die wax and the die with a Q tip.

Sizing from .360 to .356 is a bunch. If your alloy is hard, say 12 BHN or above it would be better to size in two steps, perhaps sizing a lubing to .358 first, then sizing to .356. Just a thought.

[ronbo]

Double post

[ronbo]

I have the new star figured out this morning now I think. The .356 Star die I have is an old die from California. I spun some fitz metal polish on a soft cloth chamber cleaner fob inside the .356 die and polished it up to mirror finish inside. Am using a Lyman heater with a light dimmer, bought a battery powered cooking thermostat at walmart and mounted the temp probe on the face of the heater plate. With the hard Jakes lube about 110 to 115 degrees seems to be the sweet spot, any hotter and I had small blobs of lube on the bullet nose.

The 9 mm now go through the star sizer like hot butter, I love the thing, have never had such easy bullet sizing and fast.

Picture of the $14 Walmart thermostat, bent some metal clips to hold the probe on the Lyman heater plate.



Picture of heater 600W dimmer slider control, mounted a metal electric box on the wall to hold the dimmer and outlet.

[lathesmith]

Nice setup Ron!