Seating Die Stem mods on the fly. . .

[LRI]

I threw this up in the GS section, but it might be more beneficial to someone here. Soon as the chit cures I'll throw a pic or two up.

Been tinkering with a new cartridge. Eventually I'll be making a seater die, but for now its easier to cannibalize some stuff to get it up and running. Issue has been the cup that registers against the ogive. It's been dinging the snot out of the bullets and distorting them.

What to do on the cheap?

I'd have to buy an super small boring bar to match the ogive 1:1. More money than I want to spend on this right now.

So, back to the original question?

I'm gonna bed that bugger. Whipped up a seater stem blank out of O-1 and drilled a .250 hole nice and deep down the center. Mixed up some JB kwik and filled a syringe used for cattle/horses. The needle gets to the bottom of the hole so that any air is pushed out ahead of the resin. Stuck it all back in the hardinge, sprayed a 300 grain 338cal SMK with release and stuck it in the drill chuck on the tail stock.

Squish together and go drink a cup o black wattah while it cures.

It's hardening now so we'll see if it works. My guess is it should provide me a 1:1 fit that could only be reliplicated by lapping a dozen or so bullets in a conventionally machined seater stem. Again, more work than I want to invest right now.

We shall see. . .

 

[LRI]

Oky doky then. That didn't work how I wanted.

Epoxy failed to adhere. Guessing there must have been some oil left in the hole. (thought I got it cleaned well enough)


Plan B

Mount part in drill chuck on mill. Have a 3 jaw chuck on the table. Put part in side jaw work space and tighten chuck. Aligns itself. No indicating this way.

Warmed up the part and pooled solder in the hole. Mount bullet in drill chuck and squish. It's cooling so we'll see. . .

 

[witchhunter]

I have used a pointy dremel to take the edge off of seaters so they wont leave a ring on bullet ogives. Seemed to work fine.

 

[oldfudd]

LongRifles -- so? How'd Plan B work out? Can you check the hardened solder in the stem to verify that it's symmetrical around it's circumference? Thanks.

 

[gstaylorg]

According to one of the techs at Redding I spoke with some time ago on this issue, some people were using glue guns (heated kind) to fill in the tips of their seater stems. They would push a bullet into the glue before it cooled (set) so that the resulting hole would match the shape of the nose better. It was also reported to help minimize runout for VLD-type bullets. I would imagine that lot to lot variation in bullet nose length might affect how well that technique would work. Probably best to sort some bullets by OAL and use the longest one you could find.

Don't know if you tried this, but I'd probably want to soak the stem in acetone for a while to remove any residual oil or other material that might prevent the resin from sticking. Alternatively, some really, really fine finishing sandpaper (> 2000 grit) rolled up into a cone, or some steel wool might be used to "rough up" the surface a little bit so the resin could bond better. Good luck with it.

 

[arnie19]

Been using the JB weld trick for years with custom made cast bullets .Never had a problem with the epoxy staying in the stem .I clean with brake cleaner and also cut grooves so it can pull out .