Simple and cost effective, but who needs tools…?

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Familiar with NOE’s sizer kit using bushings for both regular sizing and nose sizing?… Good. We’ll come back to that later…

Ever size a bullet with a full diameter section above your crimp groove, and on close inspection realized that the sizing marks on the nose looked a little bit out of “perfect alignment” when the bullet was pushed through?… If course you have. It’s common, even with a decent lead-in, to see that a cast seemed a little bit tilted as it was sized, and that misalignment is easily visible on a nose like that… It happens often on cast bullets, to one degree or another.

Our sizer dies/bushings have a lead-in section that tries to eliminate as much of that misalignment as possible, but is there a better option?… What about an option that might have many of the components needed already in your possession?
For a normal set-up, the lead-in has to be generous to allow casts that might be several thousandths larger than needed to slip into place. Getting every cast perfectly aligned before contacting your punch is almost impossible using a base punch. A nose punch has a slight advantage by forcing the nose to somewhat center, but sometimes we aren’t interested in sizing base first…. Sometimes we WANT to size nose-first… You want to seat a gas-check squarely and true to your bullet’s shank? You probably see merit in sizing nose-first.

Now… back to NOE’s sizer bushing kit…
The die body for the kit allows an inexpensive bushing to be swapped at will for desired diameters. NOE also offers nose-sizing bushings that interchange. Each bushing is flanged to create a positive stop at the mouth of the die body, and is retained with a set screw…..
“What if”… There was an optional die body that allowed the normal bushings to be seated deep enough that a second standard sizer bushing (held in an adaptor) could be secured at the die body’s mouth, essentially “stacking” sizer dies?
The die body would have two internal diameters. The first (sizer die position) would be a slip fit for the standard NOE bushing’s body (like the original kit) and the section from the die body’s mouth to that point would be a slip fit for the NOE bushing’s flange, so you would have the same positive “stop” for the internal (sizing) bushing actually doing the sizing operation.
The adapter would have a body diameter matching the flange diameter of the original bushings to create a slip fit into the die body and be flanged to create a positive stop at the die body’s mouth in the same manner as the original bushings. It would hold a second NOE bushing that you could use as a precise alignment die prior to actually sizing in the second, deeper seated bushing.
The adapter body could have a hole allowing a set screw from the die body to pass thru and secure both the adapter and the lead in bushing.
Set screws for the adapter/alignment bushing and the second (sizing) bushing being used for actual sizing should be placed above/below each other on the die body in the event that any slack from manufacturing would be eliminated in the same direction.
The bushings have a recess on the OD, so these set screws don’t need to be tight.

It would seem that sizing to any diameter with different casts of slightly different diameters could be almost perfectly aligned by simply choosing a bushing .001” over the as-cast diameter to match… A .310” sizer, for instance, could almost instantly be fitted with a .312”, .313”, or .314” “alignment bushing”… The combination possibilities are numerous.
It would also allow almost perfect alignment for nose sizing… If your bullets were sized at .310”, for instance, you could select a .311” lead in bushing that could, “maybe”, offer better sizing concentricity of your bullet’s nose.

The possible advantage of having this optional die body is that it would eliminate almost any user error, and it would be very fast (especially in a push-thru press that sizes in a downward direction). Add the huge number of combinations available with NOE’s bushings and you can tailor the tool to size virtually anything more precisely, quickly.

The question of “need” can only be answered by results.
If this optional die body, with it’s stacked bushings, proved to be an effective aid in consistently obtaining better accuracy with a minimum of effort….and a minimum of cost…
Would you “need” one?

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