I need some .32 caliber gas checks for a couple of Lyman moulds. If you have used gas checks sold by Hornady for this size can will you tell me if they work as well as the Lyman brand. I've looked and can get the Hornady cheaper by a good bit but I don't know if they fit Lyman moulds well.
Somewhere I read that the Hornady company makes the Lyman checks. Any truth to that?
Thanks, Dew
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I don't know if Hornaday makes Lyman's checks or not - I, too, have heard they do. What I do know is that a reloading buddy of mine and I have both made a detailed comparison of Lyman and Hornaday .30 cal. checks, including weighing representative samples, cutting them in two and measuring and inspecting them, and we have satisfied ourselves that THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE - except price. If we can't get Hornaday checks, we'll use Lymans. Both, of course, are designed to crimp on.
Lyman checks used to be different. I still have some for .375 cal. They were thinner, they were NOT designed to crimp on, and they were made of an entirely different metal
Wes
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The gas check shank measures are often like playing “roulette",as is hoping to get other correct diameters in thenoses of rifle bullets from the big manufacturers.
I use Hornady gas check s ,anneal them ,and if necessary open them with a punch made from a hemispheric head screw.
The devilish little brass cups change ,definitely can change from one lot to another.
Or you can cut the bullet's edge with a case neck chamfering tool.
I am so glad when the pressure of my loads allow me to use bevel base bullets,with NO gas checks.
Cast bullets are not world standards as Sierra Matchkings,there always are innumerable variables, in making cast bullets,without doubt this is one of the things that makes our sport such a fascinating pastime.(or should I say struggle?)
An endless struggle with infinite variables ,compare it with the boredom of shooting Eley tenex 22lr cartridges in a heavy Anscutz carbine in a windless indoor range..
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Dew,
I have never used anything but Hornady's because they were available to me while the Lymans were not. I have had nothing but good results with the Red H brand as long as I made certain they were squarely seated and sized appropriately for the arm in question.
I have recovered a number of my fired bullets in various calibers. (6.5mm, 7mm, .30 8mm, .35, .44) About 90% have the GC intact even though the slug may be distorted by impact.
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lyman buy's repacks and marks up the hornady ones.
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lyman buy's repacks and marks up the hornady ones.
How do you know this to be true?
Thanks dew
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What technique do you use to anneal gas checks? The 416 gas checks will not fit on my 410610 HP bullets. So I need to find another way to get them to fit.
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Generally I have a 2” piece of Black Pipe threaded and capped on each end. I fill the pipe with gaschecks and sawdust, cap it up and put it in the fire in the wood burner in the rifle hut at our club. After a couple of hours it is done, all of the sawdust is ash, sift out the ash and put them in a jar with some white vinegar to clean them up, rinse and dry on a towel.
You want the sawdust in there to help burn up all of the oxygen so they dont scale up as bad.
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I am olf fashioned,and live in a very antique house.
In the winter I have a wood stove in the Kitchen ,and having put 1000 gaschecks in a tin can that has a steel wire handle,I land the little bucket on the burning embers.
I have to take care that that bucket won't capsize in the fire.I burn only wood,not coal.
I keep the smoke valve closed,I fear a forge effect might easily melt the copper.
After about 30-45 minutes I lift the whole thing from the fire and quench it in cold water.
The gaschecks become dull red and softer,they offer very little resistence during sizing.They develop a quantity of thin black” skins” that fall away by gravity.
You can wash them with more water or tumble them in ground corn cob,at your pleasure.
I have used old stYle screw cap pipe tobacco cans,but they are a mess,you must make holes in the lid and retrieve them boxes from the fire with long Torquemada pliers.
I believe my system gives a more uniform treatment to the checks,the usual natural gas kichen fire or the electric plates you use in the US give,in my opinion,uneven heat to the checks.
I have RCBS 's 416 rigby mould and it mates with Hornady's gas checks,with my alloy.
If the bullet's gas check shank is too large for your gacheks,you can just omit the gas check or use the following gadget.
Make a punch flattening the head of a big hemispherical wood screw and open your gas checks with that.We call the medium ball peen hammer :the precision engineer.
l
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Thanks for the answers, would never have thought of that. Great ideas.
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giorgio,
May I ask what is the rifle you are holding in the picture and what is the caliber...in other words fill me in.
Thanks, Dew
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I have two Ruger 77 mark II this one is a 458 Lott,the other is a 416 Rigby.
Of course I do not even own factory cartridges for theese two mid bore rifles.
Sir Stanley Baker used to say that big bore rifles begin over the 12 gauge.
I can shoot ,without damages,to the gun carriage ,with full loads an old 375 H&H CZ that sports a California stock,The current(as imported to Italy) big bore CZ have a face punching German boar hump stock,instead than the forward sloping Monte Carlo stock.
The Monte Carlo recoils away from the face,not into it.
I have only a single cavity mould fot the 416 with correct grease groves and undersize nose,it shoots decently,but I would like to change barrels to 300H&H caliber.A very complicated work ,here,as cun control laws favours the BIG maker and the BIG importer,Italian members will understand.
The big Lott like best,I have a host of 4 cavity moulds in 45 caliber,I lke to shoot it from offhand,standing,as bench rest shooting is for guns that recoil less.
I have put on a big white front sight bead that I can see decently,I wish I could find a Big fiber optic front sight for my Ruger,as big as the one that Brownells offers for the CZ.
My beloved boars just appeared and disappeared like ghosts in the brush ,this last season,I must begin a serious and heavy training not to be fooled again on the fourth september sunday 2010. We have fast and furious shooting in our hills.
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You can see,or better guess the presence of three game trail,one at my left and two at my right a few yards afar.
The situation is a bit easier without the leaves,and a couple of inches of crusted snow.
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Hey Dew
Your 32 will come with it's own particular problems for which my answer may or may not be helpful. At the risk of dating myself, the older Lyman checks are made of brass. They are thinner and lighter. Also they are easier to work. When I was much younger, my Dad made a flaring tool similar to what came in a Lee hand loader. The stock I have remaining of brass checks won't last long enough for my needs so I am interested in this thread and how to deal with the copper ones. Slinking through the auctions looking for old Lyman brass checks has so far yielded outrageous prices, but they are there.
Say, Buffalo George, I will find the appropriate heading and get a discussion going on the different kinds of pig hunting. In the states, Florida in particular, I'm referred to as a “flat lander” and pig hunting here is different. It will be neat to hear about all sorts of styles, techniques and hardware used. I hope you will join in. Sorry for going off thread.
Roy
Shoot often, Shoot well
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Roy You should check with Charlie (codernall) here, he makes a check maker called freechexII that may solve your problem of running out of brass checks. I have one of the earlier models and it works great with a variety of materials including brass.
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Gunarea OK so you have dated yourself... how old are you? I have three or four boxes of the old Lyman checks that you are speaking about. I bought one in 1973 and I don't have the others marked. Right now I am using some OLD Sierra GC. Would anyone know when Sierra made GC and then stopped?
Dew
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If you read the label on Hornady gas checks, you will see where they say, the only American made gas checks. They don't tell you that Lyman and RCBS both buy Hornady gas checks and dump them out of the Hornady box straight into their boxes. I was talking to an RCBS customer service rep on the phone years ago about a new sprue plate for my 44 mold (he sent one free of charge) and I ask him why RCBS gas checks were so much more expensive that Hornady's and he burst out laughing. He then told me he walked past a huge pile of empty Hornady gas check boxes because RCBS was restocking their gas checks with Hornady's and then doubling the price. I thanked him for his honesty.
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Buffalo George Dega
Thank you for the information and pictures.
Dew
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another way to aneal gas checks is to wrap a bunch in aluminum foil with a few bits of wood to act as a flux and put it in your melting pot on top of the molten metal for enough time for it to get hot. take it out and carefull dump the hot gas checks in water and it it was hot they will be anealed.
Jim Wilcox
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