Altering Dies to Form Cases

Attachment 324378 Sometimes reloading dies will not work for a particular cartridge. I found out after what I thought was a 32-40wcf Ballard target rifle. After slugging the bore came to find the groove diameter was .330" So maybe my newly acquired rifle was not 32-40 but maybe 33-40wcf !!! I owe marlinman93 a big thanks for his observation. My Lee Precision die set squeezed my brass way too small. Hit a corner of the sizer die with a file. It bounced off! Called Lee Customer Service. They were first class! Calvin from Lee's Customer Service was most helpful. He came back to inform me Lee uses 12L14; a free machining steel alloy on their sizer dies. I included a photo of me annealing the sizer die to a dull red. I buried the hot die in a bucket of sand. Came back a half hour later and dug out my soft die. I chucked it up in a collet and reamed the neck of the die to .351" and gave it a nice polish job. Now 30-30 WCF and 32 WCF cases form up nice to make 33-40wcf brass and accept my .333 cast and lubricated boolits. I will recase harden my altered sizer die. But for now I am as happy as a clam! My old Ballard shoots clover leafs at 50 yards!

It sure is nice to bring one of those old-timers back to life! My machine work is limited to whatever I can do with a drill press and a file.

Wayne

I had wondered how they made the dies so cheap. 12L14 is sure easier to cut than D2 die steel. How are you going to case harden it?

Never heard of a .33-40 WCF. I know reboring 32-40 to 33-40 was common enough. I once had a Stevens 33-40 that had gone through this change. Gun was typical worn out ratty old 44 but the bore was new. Wish I had kept it.
Well done on your project. Please post he rehardening sequence.

I would prefer to use a cyanide bath but the salts are too dangerous to mess with. I have pretty good luck with Kasnite. Only thing I have developed is getting the reworked annealed die to take a case hardening is to spoon the Kasnite powder into the dull red die and heat it up to a red color till the melted salts look like baked beans on the surface. I water quench the red hot die in a 5 gal. bucket of water with a swirling motion. The surface of the dies are hard enough to form brass. Takes a wire wheel to clean up the threads and some 320 cloth on a stick to re polish the inside of the die. Don't forget to wear a pair of sunglasses as the heated salts glow quite bright when heated with an oxygen-acetylene torch.

You don't need a fancy lathe. A cheapy import machine will work!

I have altered/ modified many size dies to fit what I need by annealing them and then reamed or cut them to what I needed. Even in this soft state they resize brass fine and really don’t need to be any harder. If it were a caliber you were going to shoot thousands of rounds you may put wear on the die but regular cartridge brass is much softer than the die and if lubed it sizes just fine.
Jedman

Jedman you are right! Dies I have annealed to work my brass to the dimensions I want don't have to be that hard. I find my re-case hardened dies work better. I give em a nice ID polish too. I just have a small 14" Logan tool room lathe and a J Model Bridgeport. I can rework most anything and have made my own dies. Nice photo of you standing in front of your lathe.