Lachmiller Lube-A-Matic issue

[tddeangelo]

Hi all, been a long time since I posted...life, job, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I'm getting to a point where I want to get back on track to casting boolits. I've been casting roundballs for my flintlocks and I decided to dig out the Lachmiller Lube-A-Matic I got off the classifieds here several years ago and never used, and make sure it's good to go for when I can start casting boolits. I had thought to start taking some of my WW lead ingots over the time between the holidays and start casting if I found a mold to my liking prior, but if not, to be able to do some casting over the upcoming late winter months that are just no fun at all otherwise. I got my Dillon press up and running, and there's this nifty new steel plate range 5 min from my house. It seemed to me that converting the WW lead to boolits made sense to free up more shootin' money for primers and powder and not spend it on boolits. I can crank ammo out pretty quick-like with the Dillon, but that means I have lots of ammo on hand, which means I shoot more....etc etc etc. So you can see how this escalated, lol.

Anyway, enough of that.

So I get the Lachmiller thing out and start getting familiar with it. It appeared to me that the follower that pressurizes the lube should come up if the threaded stem was turned the correct direction. One direction seemed to make no change. It just stayed put, about half way down the lube chamber. The other direction sent it down, and the prior owner's lube started coming out, as it should since I was cranking it down. It seemed like the follower would only apply pressure, but it wouldn't come back up and release the pressure. And yeah, I flipped over the ratchet.

So, I took the wife's hair dryer (CAREFULLY) and cleaned out the mess that had formed. Things look good. There wasn't a ton of lube, and the follower is now at the bottom because...well...why wouldn't I wind up in that situation, right? I can thread the stem out the bottom completely, the follower won't come up. I can thread the stem fully up and fully down and it threads through the follower.

I'm sorta at a loss here...how do I get this dang thing back to where it should be, and how do I keep it operating correctly? Any ideas?

I sent an email to RCBS CS just in case they do offer help with the Lachmiller stuff, although I'm not sure they will?

Otherwise, the device seems to be in great shape and good order.

Thanks for any help anyone can suggest!

[Valley-Shooter]

Do you have it mounted on a bench?
That drive shaft needs something to push against (the bench) so the plunger will go up.

[ascast]

is there an "O" ring around the outside? maybe worn enough to not grip in reverse. Sound like you can turn a couple threads out and then just pull it up out.

[tddeangelo]

Do you have it mounted on a bench?
That drive shaft needs something to push against (the bench) so the plunger will go up.

Yep. That was the issue. Figured it out after I hit “post”.

Thanks, guys.