Wouldn't the fireball seating die kind of leave the base of the hornet to be pretty much where it wanted to be? As in a bit on the loose side. I realize the neck would be about same but the hornet base would be about .070 smaller......
Hello 6.5 x 54
If I understand you correctly you may be comparing the RCBS Gold Medal system to say a redding competition seater.
To some extent there is a very real point comparing say, a redding competition seating die to the RCBS GOLD. The redding die may be a bit more accurate for reasons eluded to in differences in how the brass is aligned with a specific cartridge sleeve while seating the bullet.
In the example we started off with 17 FB to 17 HH. We are using two different extended shell holders specific, to the cartridge base we are dealing with.
From my perspective The RCBS Gold Medal seater is a lot less anal in terms of aligning the brass. The Gold Medal seater is relying more on the shell holder like most other standard seaters out there along with the neck. Where the RCBS set up shines based on my experience is the
top loading bullet alignment sleeve.
Again from my perspective what I gain with the RCBS GOLD MEDAL seating die is convenience and accuracy with the top loading sleeve. An added bonus is versatility, being able to change out shell holders to use the same seating die on additional cartridges using the same bullet diameter.
When handling these small 17 cal bullets with my large hands, being able to load from the top makes a big diffrence in terms of the finesse required by the operator to feed the bullet.
My experience and understanding is when our brass starts off with a straight neck and we start the bullet reasonably straight, we will experience very little bullet run out.
From what I have read and what stands to reason for me, If our brass is for any reason has a crooked neck after sizing; No bullet seater will correct the crooked neck.
Thus yielding more bullet runout. On the other hand if the neck consistently starts straight and our bullets start reasonably straight our bullet runout tends to be very little consistently.
I believe the only way to fully appreciate the top loading feature through the side window is to try it in a
"17" or 20 cal application.
