Nathan gave a very good explaination. It must be done in a lathe to insure the precision required. Use this type punch with gas checked bullets only, in the Star sizer. Do the same with the lift out plug for in and out sizers like the RCBS and Lyman, and apply enough pressure at the bottom of the sizing stroke to imprint a tiny ring at least 75% of the way around the bullet base..
A dramatic account of what results can be: I had a 240 gr cast plain base load for a 44 magnum Marlin which printed around 1 3/4 inch at 50 yards. After bump squaring the bases, no other changes to the load, all bullets went through a ragged hole, group well under a half inch. ------ Understand that results are most dramatic with short for the caliber bullets like this, but it will show clearly on target with any bullet/load/caliber.