New O-rings for old bullet size dies

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earlmck
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New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by earlmck »

You'd think a rubber O-ring covered by grease would last forever, but mine have not. A long time for sure but apparently not "forever", because I have been having the occasional O-ring failure for several years in the dies I use with the Lyman 45 lube-sizer. My dies are kinda' old -- some of them are from Herter's. To be fair, the Herter's dies and the older Lyman dies were made back in the "good old days" when they made 'em to tighter tolerances and didn't use O-rings. And maybe we accepted a little lube leakage also. But however long they've been making O-ring bullet size dies is probably how old my dies are that have started giving me O-ring failures.

The hardware store O-rings I've tried were either a bit too small and leaked or were a tad large and tore up on insertion and then really leaked. I tried a selection from "The O-Ring Store" https://www.theoringstore.com/. Since these were probably 1/16th size to begin with my first guess was to use 1.6mm, but those leaked a bit. The ones that seem to work perfect are marked as "1.78mmX14mm" from their Buna-N 70 Duro series.

I can quit raiding other dies when I have a project now and just replace the leaky ones with new ones. Much better!

No I didn't get rid of the Star sizer -- it still does 90% of my bullet lube-sizing. But there are a few things for which I still use the old Lyman 45. In fact, I just acquired a second one so I could keep two types of lube in them. Yeah, a 45. I don't trust them new-fangled 450's.
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by GunnyMack »

Good fix for sure! Nice when you can keep stuff working.
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by AJMD429 »

A zillion sizes of O-rings I can understand, because the things they go in have varying tolerances and so on, but what drives me nuts is how many Allen/hex-wrench sizes there are. Then the tolerances are so lousy that even with a set of metrics and a set of standards, you get sloppy enough fit that the edges swage off of the wrench or the flats swage concavities on the screws. :(
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by M. M. Wright »

I sympathize with you Earl. Two Herters presses, Herters powder measure and a bunch of Herters dies. And I still use the Lyman 45 luber/sizer. That 70 number is the Shore value and indicates the hardness of the rubber and that is critical for holding lots of pressure. My old Lyman 45 no longer uses the brass ring to hold pressure on the lube cylinder but has 80 shore O rings on a piston I made for it. I really need it to seat gas checks with.
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by 3leggedturtle »

Earl have you tried O-rings from NAPA meant fir hydraulic fittings? Todd/3leg
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by Bronco »

Grainger has a ton of different O-rings. Got a bag for spares for my star sizer! I seem to cut them when I am changing dies in that machine.
Heck I even found one that fits as a drive belt for my thumbler tumbler! Got tired of buying spares, from thumbler, to only have them degrade sitting in the cabinet.
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earlmck
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by earlmck »

3leggedturtle wrote: Wed Nov 06, 2019 12:36 pm Earl have you tried O-rings from NAPA meant fir hydraulic fittings? Todd/3leg
No Todd, I didn't try anything other than the 1/16th (just barely too small) and the 3/32 (definitely too big) that were available at the local "Ace". Then I did the lazy thing and googled "O-rings". I now have two lifetime supplies of the things -- anybody need a few?

Many years ago I bought a die that was a dang tight fit and I suspect I made the sizer opening a bit larger in the process of forcing the oversized die into it. Been slightly leaky ever since. I'd suspect those 1/16th O-rings would work for most folks, but those slightly larger metrics seem like just what I needed.
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Re: New O-rings for old bullet size dies

Post by Catshooter »

The oringstore. Huh. Thanks Earl, that looks to be a handy site.


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