Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Hornady dies?

Is anyone using them?Are they any good?I've always used Redding or RCBS,but it looks like I'm going to have a tough time getting Redding .25-.284 in Canada.Thanks,Monashee

Junk.

Hornadys are average dies, as good as any other common dies but no better. Meaning, they are quite good but not in the same league with Forstser/Redding for absolute tack driving accuracy. Few rifes would ever see any difference with any brand of dies.

How many 25-284's do you shoot,that can't tell the difference?

I`ve a couple sets, and IMO they are on par with RCBS. They are not Redding or Forster but they are a step up from Lee or even Lyman rifle dies.
The tapered expander is a plus, and I see no real differance in runout with brass sized in them, then I get with brass sized in any other die brand of similar type on my bench.

I bought a set of 7x57 rifle dies from Hornady because of their bragging about the "exactness" of their bullet-seating die... and found the expander button in their resizing die was over-expanding the case mouth as it pulled out of the cartridge case.

I returned the die-set to Hornady with a full, written explanation as to the reason I was returning them. Some time later, I got the Hornady die-set back and, apparently, Hornady had done NOTHING to eliminate my complaint.

Sooooooooo I called Hornady and brought this large amount of "over-expansion" to the Hornady's representive's attention on the phone, but was summarily told, "Our engineers say that the die & the expander plug are WITHIN OUR SPECIFICATIONS!!!"... or in other words, "SCREW YOU!"

Apparently, their "engineers" didn't bother to read my letter which accompanied the die-set I returned to them... or they felt I didn't have a "CLUE" as to what I was talking about... and this was their way of telling me that they would do NOTHING about it.

I felt the amount of "over" expansion the Hornady expander button was doing would considerably shorten my cartridge case's life and considerably LESSEN the number of reloads I'd get out of the cases... so I decided to go further.

Since I had several sets of RCBS dies in other calibers and was always well-satisfied with any RCBS product I bought, I decided to buy an additional 7x57 die-set from RCBS. Once I got the RCBS dies, I removed the expander shaft/button and measured it with my digital calibers. I found the RCBS expansion button was quite a bit smaller in diameter than Hornady's expansion button thus "exercising" the case mouths considerably LESS (but still "sufficiently") thus probably making a major contribution towards MUCH longer case "life" for my cartridge cases.

Apparently, Hornady's expander button was NOT "within the specifications" of the RCBS engineers.

So "much" for Hornady's "specifications"!

Obviously, my complain was both "reasonable" and "true". What's the point in expanding the case mouth FAR beyond necessary and then, "squeezing" it all-the-way BACK DOWN in order to grip the bullet thus vastly limiting the number reloads I will be able to get out of the cartridge cases?

And Hornady's "excuse" was that their expander button "was within our engineer's specification".

I am a "reasonable" man... but I won't take "BS"... particularly from a manufacturer who is trying to "bullsh*t" me or who are attempting to "cover-their-collective-fannies" with the excuse "the measurement is within our engineer's specifications".

The product in question MAY BE "within their engineer's specifications", but OBVIOUSLY, their engineer's "specifications" are NOT consistent with the industry's "specifications" in view of the considerably smaller diameter of RCBS's expander button for the same caliber.

I've bought many different Hornady products... and was always "satisfied" with them, but I certainly can't recommend their reloading die-sets... even if they ARE "within their engineer's specifications".

'Nuff said...


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Thanks guys,thats just about what I expected to hear.I'll keep digging for a set of Redding dies. Monashee

www.sinclairintl.com

They'll happily and economically ship the Redding dies to your door. Trust me.

i like their bullets ,but would rather not use their loading dies

Ed

Thanks Rick!Looking forward to seeing you here later this month! Cheers,Monashee

I broke one of their unbreakable pins and they sent me a new stem. The new stems have light threads as well as the collet to hold them.Before that, one of the mods to the F/L was to add cuts in their collet. The seater die gave me problems,too. They need to add a breather hole if they are going to make them to such a tight fit that the bullet seater gets held up by vaccum.

Youch. I was just about to order a set for my 7x57... thanks Ron T for that insight!

I do have to say that I like the smoothness of their sizing button... I have a set for my 338-06 and it literally takes less effort to neck up 270 brass w/ that sizer than it does to resize 30-06 brass in my RCBS 30-06 FLS die.

Of course I've never measured the amount of case neck expansion/contraction my brass is subjected to in the process...

A friend of mine trusted my ammo (270 wby) for his final quest of the grand slam of sheep. A pretty expensive hunt (I think) to harvest a desert sheep. The result was a 1 shot kill at a lasered 690 yards with a $.15 cent hornady interlock on a case done with $22 hornady dies.
I load for about 20 cartridges and have about 10 sets of hornady. They're not perfect in every respect.....but I'll probably buy more.

I always like to hear 25-284 specs,lay it on me.

like kracky , I've had pretty good luck with Hornaday dies....I have 6 or 8 sets . The seater dies do work good , I load my .17 and 204 with Hornadays , and consistently get half minute groups out of good rifles .

I once returned a set of 375 RCBS dies because the seater plug was so rough , it would pull a bullet back out of the case . You can run into a problem with any mass produced product .

like kracky , I've had pretty good luck with Hornaday dies....I have 6 or 8 sets . The seater dies do work good , I load my .17 and 204 with Hornadays , and consistently get half minute groups out of good rifles .

I once returned a set of 375 RCBS dies because the seater plug was so rough , it would pull a bullet back out of the case . You can run into a problem with any mass produced product .

Ron T

I think you have it backwards. The fired case goes past the resizer button gets sized then expanded. But I see your point. Did the case hold bullets appropriately? If it did then I doubt that it would make any difference as the bullet would expand it again to its own size.

I have several Hornady dies and all of them have functioned well. No problems so I can not attest to their service department. Do like their seater dies. Of all the dies I have owned (Lee, RCBS, Redding, and Hornady) I have only had a problem with a Redding in 7X57. The sizer was out of spec and would not size the neck down enough to hold the bullet. Redding promptly fixed the problem.

And THAT is my "point", Prwlr... Redding FIXED your complaint/problem. Hornady "ducked" fixing my complaint/problem by saying it wasn't a "problem"!

Obviously, their resizing die "reduced" the case neck's diameter. The problem was that it "reduced" it MUCH TOO FAR, then their expander button had to work REALLY hard to "pull" itself up through the far-too-narrow case neck to RE-EXPAND it back up to be large enough to accept the base of the bullet.

Of course, it doing so, it also STRETCHED the case neck thus creating the necessity for me to have to trim the case and inside/outside chamfer the case's mouth... extra work for me made necessary by a resizing die that went too far in reducing the diameter of the case's neck during the resizing mode.

The necessity to HAVE to re-expand the case neck back UP to standards STRETCHED the case neck considerably MORE than necessary due to the amount of TENSION required to resize it "UP so far. This caused the case neck to stretch far more than it would have stretched if the resizing die had NOT "reduced" the case neck too far to start with thus creating the "problem".

All Hornady would have had to do to take care of the problem would have been to DECREASE the amount of restriction inside their resizing die by a bit of judicious grinding in that area in their resizing die which reduces the diameter of the case neck and the problem would have been solved. Then their expander button would NOT have had to expand the case neck nearly as FAR as it was required to expand it and the "pull" on the case neck would have been reduced exponentially.

Naturally, every brass cartridge case has "spring-back" action in it. The "spring-back action" is the case's tendency to "sping back" to it's former size after it is released by the resizing die. However, the Hornady resizing die went much too far in compensating for this "spring back" action by making their resizing die decrease the diameter of the case neck far too much.

As I recall (this happened a couple of years ago, so I'm not sure anymore), the RCBS dies reduced the neck-size of the cases about �20/1000ths of an inch LESS than the Hornady dies and even then, the RCBS expander button still had to expand the case neck so that it was large enough that it would accept the base of the bullet during the reloading process.

This is prima facia evidence that the Hornady dies went too far in reducing the case's neck-size. Why "work" the brass and stretch the case neck MORE than necessary?

Obviously, doing so isn't in the best interests of either the brass's "life" or the brass's owner's "time"... the extra time required to trim the case and inside/outside chamfer the case's mouth or the owner's pocketbook... i.e., the cost to replace the brass earlier than necesssary due to the over-worked case-neck which causes the neck to split or the case to fail.

Trust me, Son... after almost 50 years of reloading my own, I have a pretty good "handle" on this reloading thing. It was as I said it was... and I no longer use, nor will I ever, again, buy another set of Hornady resizing dies.

The point is, I don't need the manufacturer of items I buy making "problems" for me... causing me to have shorter case life and requiring me to constantly trim my cartridge cases after EACH firing... especially when the "problems" are "problems" they created, but won't admit EXISTS... a cowardly way to refuse to handle a problem created by their own engineering department.

There was nothing "faulty" with the dollars I spent for the Hornady die-set, there should not have been anything "faulty" with the die-set I received for those "dollars".

You may not have had any problems with your Hornady dies... but, by the same token, you may not be experienced enough in reloading to realize you're having a similar problem as I had.

If I hadn't reloaded so many other calibers over the almost half a century I've been reloading, I wouldn't have known there was something "wrong" either. But I could tell by the amount of "effort" required to force the expander button up through the case neck while retracting it (and expanding the case neck) that something was WRONG because it took too much strength to make it happen even though I always lubricate both the outside and inside of the case mouth/neck when resizing it... something I routinely do, especially when I'm using the RCBS "neck-sizing-only" die as in the case of the 7x57 cartridge.

I don't blame you for not quite understanding the "depth" and the many ramifications of the problem... I've probably been reloading longer than you've been alive... and "experience" means a great deal when "problems" rise up outta the "pumpkin patch".

There's nothing "new" with manufactures not admitting a "problem". Ford did it with the Pinto... and Chevy did it with the Corvair for YEARS... therefore, doing so isn't especially anything new.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Hey Ron,

When I read your first post, I thought you were talking about the expander button being too large in diameter, not that the sizing portion was making the necks too small. I suspect Pwlwr was thinking the same thing.

Anyhow, your second post cleared up my confusion. Sounds like you had a minimum neck and a maximum expander. Might have been in spec but not a good combo.

Dale

I discussed with them the problem I had with the seater die,and the simple solution.But I got the feeling they weren't going to do it.

They use universal sized bullet seaters,mine was for 6.5s. Thus the bullet seater plug is small. The loosely floating plug fits into the floating neck aliagning sleeve.Mine was well made,it fitted tightly that it didn't fall freely enough.I think it was vaccum because the surfaces were smooth and even. A simple breather hole solved my problem .

They did send parts right away.Good service.