Modified another H&I die

[waco]

Well I finally got around to opening up a .359" H&I size due to .360" for three different lever guns. In all it only took about 20-30 total. Not sure why I put it off so long. I hope the results will be better than the so so .359" loads.
Rifles are a '92 Rossi, 1894 Marlin, and an 1984 cowboy Marlin.
I hope to get that new Accurate 158 RNFP running good in these guns.
I'll post results when I get a chance to go shoot.

 

[Brad]

What method?

 

[S Mac]

Don't know how Waco did his but I've opened some using a piece of sandpaper, progressively finer. Seems they always end up out of round .0005. And with a bit of taper..

 

[smokeywolf]

Only way to insure cylindricity is to spin the sizing die in a drill press, on a lathe or some device with a spindle, while enlarging the bore. Bore size end to end is dependent more on consistent pressure of the tool.

 

[S Mac]

I would say that is correct, I have been doing it by hand.

 

[Brad]

How hard are they? I have no idea what they are made of.

 

[S Mac]

Most of what I've worked on were some blanks I bought from the Perfesser on CB some time back. They were nice enough to work with. Recently I opened a new RCBS, and it seemed rather hard, took forever to gain .001.

 

[Brad]

The perfesser used 1144 for many of his dies, at least that is my understanding. That is the steel he recommended to me for much of my initial lathe work. The Star blanks I got from him are a joy to work with.
I bet RCBS hardens their dies and that would dramatically change the effort required to alter them. I know the sliding sleeve in Hornady seating dies is hard. Tried to open one up on the lathe and it laughed at my cutting too

 

[smokeywolf]

The factory H&I dies are quite hard. Never got into one to see if it's been cased or is hardened throughout.

 

[waco]

I used a wooden dowel and some 400 grit wet dry paper with some oil and a cordless drill on low speed. Yeah, the doe seemed pretty hard. I only took out .001" It came out okay. It's within two tenths of being round.

 

[Intheshop]

If I had to bet,would go with a proprietary hardening (process) and then honed.

The "how deep" would be kept to themselves.

If forced into the situation,I'd grind/harden a D reamer,.....depending on the numbers here(the question is what the donor size being...and is of concern.May be easier going up .005 or a little more,than .001?)...and see what happens.How does it cut?Then,at least with that particular sizer,you'd have some sort of data on how deep/hard.

If honing alone was on the menu...would fixture with a collet and a hardened guide system.Just an FYI,get on flea bay and look for a Craftsman 6x18 metal lathe bed.They are extremely useful for things like the above,and general "bench fixturing".Think Forster sight fixture on steroids.

Not that we couldn't throw it in one of the lathes....just prefer to keep them free for use in processes like this,and then also grinding mess can be better managed elsewhere.

Edit,on the lathe bed(using it this a.m.),get the flat way model # 101.21400