Lyman Ammo Checkers

Great product worked excellent

This item arrived early, nice. It was packaged well and shipped via Fed-ex, much better than via USPS! Amazon packages used to be shipped via UPS, or Fed-ex. Now almost all packages are shipped USPS AND NONE ARE DELIVERED TO MY HOME! Amazon should go back to their old method of shipment. The item delivered is of good quality and made in the U.S.A..

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So far I've only checked the 9mm hole, but what I see is fine. I used plug gages to measure diameter and depth (They're all 2.00" long). SAAMI spec for 9mm is 0.3913" dia measured in from the breech face 0.200". I used a 0.392 minus gage (0.39195" measured with Mitutoyo QuantuMike) and it went into the 9mm hole in the gage I just received 0.201". So this looks right on.I noticed that, like my Glock barrel, this hole on the gage is tapered.On my block, the top of the hole is about 0.395", and down at the bottom (there's a ridge that stops the shell from going in any farther) it's about 0.382" (again this is approx as there is a small radius at the bottom of the hole that makes plug gages a few thousandths larger stop a little early). You can see this taper easily by dropping in a shell "upside down". The rim on a new Starline shell is about 0.387, and if dropped in that way it doesn't go all the way to the stop, implying that the dia is 0.387 most of the way down the hole.Other reviewers have mentioned other issues, which I will comment on here.The item I received in mid Sept '17 DID have the calibers marked on the top. Also for those that mentioned that it didn't check for cartridge length, since mine had the ridge at the bottom (I'm calling it the "stop") I decided to check where that stop was. Dropping that same new Starline shell, which had an overall length of 0.748" (SAAMI recommends 0.744"-0.754") into the Lyman gage stopped with the top of the shell about even with the top of the gage (+/- 0.002"), so I think you could also use this current delivered gage to check shell length.So overall I concluded that this gage, at least for the one hole, 9mm, I checked to be right on, and a good tool for checking what it is designed to check.Previous reviewers have mentioned that loaded cartridges that fit into the gage would not chamber in their pistols. My Glock 19 (circa 1985), when checked with a plug gage, had a chamber diameter of 0.391 about 0.200" in from the breech face, so I feel that if a cartridge fits in the gage it will chamber ok in the Glock. I have not actually tried shells that won't fit in the gage to see if they will chamber, but the math says that this gage will tell me if my reloads will cycle properly in my Glock.SUMMARY: For the 9mm bore, this gage is SPOT ON.

I picked this item to check the accuracy of the item I am working on.

My only issue is that I had a couple of .45 ACPs fit into this gauge but when it tried to chamber them in my firearm, they wouldn’t chamber due to being a little too long.

The product description that states if your reload fits the gauge it will fit your chamber. Because of that, I mistakenly thought this would not only check case size, but overall cartridge length to ensure you have properly seated your bullet. It does not. It only checks the case to ensure it meets SAAMI standards. I wanted a gauge that would let me know I have seated my bullet to the proper depth and not end up with the cartridge too long so it wouldn't feed. This is not the gauge for that. To do both, you will need a Lyman Pistol Max Cartridge Gauge for your specific caliber. This gauge is great for checking to make sure you didn't deform your cases in any way during the reloading process, but that is all it does. It will not check for proper cartridge length.

Very helpful in sizing my shells