Originally Posted by
Bent Ramrod
This may mean anything or nothing, but what lube are you using, and how much pressure do you put on it?
I have a Lachmiller that I use for heavy-duty sizing, and noticed that my .30 caliber boolits were coming out asymmetric like you describe. This had never happened before. But I had changed the lube in it to one of those modern High-Performance lubes (saving the Alox/Beeswax, Ideal and soft homemade lubes for use in the 45s). The new concoction wasn’t advertised as needing heat (that was the next product up on the performance chart), but required a lot of heaving on the wrench, even with a hair dryer, to get it moving. And, coincidentally, there were the scuffed and bent boolits.
I put a heater plate under the Lachmiller, waited until things were warm enough so the wrench work was no more difficult than with Alox/Beeswax, and ran some more boolits through. No more uneven sides, just like it used to work. Perfectamundo!
I have no idea as to cause and effect here, but if you’re using a Red or Blue or other high-velocity lube that’s stiffer than the old standbys, you might give this a try. If your Dad was using that 45 for all those years with no complaints, it’s unlikely that the alignment was off. There is, as Johnb mentioned, the potential for the setscrew to push the die offside, or even crack the casting, if tightened too hard, but any actual wear in the die hole would announce itself with ribbons of lube squeezing out of everywhere. The nut used on the RCBS (which was originally the Lachmiller sizer) would prevent any side motion of the die, so misalignment is even less likely there.
I dunno—I must lead a charmed life. I’ve scrounged up a half-dozen well-used Lyman 45s, a couple Ideals and the Lachmiller (bought new as a remainder), and I’ve found no evidence of misalignment in any of them. Also a plethora of used moulds, by all manufacturers, with only a couple instances of undersized castings.