Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Redding Type S or Type A Dies

Gentlemen,

I posted this in the reloading section--I thought I would post it here also.

I want to start producing loads for 600 yards.

I have always used Redding Type A dies in my hunting rifles.

Are there any advantages to the Type S bushing dies?

GB

I like the Full Length Type S bushing dies in conjunction with the Competition Shell Holders...
That way you can fine tune your head space with the shell holders and size your necks to the tension you want..
If you use the Necksize Type S Bushing die you'll need to get a body only sizer sooner or later..
I also neck turn to just knock off the high spots.. All this for factory chambered barrels..
I have not ran side by side comparison with Type A dies..
Not my original idea as I read about it in a Precision Shooting article back in the 90's

I use both; Type S full length bushing dies for my 6.5x47 sniper rifle and Type A for my 9.3x62 hunting rifle. Before I had the 9.3 made i'd have bought Type S, if they made them, but since no one does I was forced into buying Type A. Am I sorry? Heck no, my 9.3 is a flipping tack driver.

Since I like to have control over how much neck tension I put on the bullet, I take Type A and have Redding hone out the neck a little larger so I'm not sizing the neck as much. I don't use an expander ball in conjunction with decapping unless the decapping pin retainer screw is small enough to not touch the inside of the case neck. If I have to I decap seperately using a universal decapper.

Alan

A lot of the time Type A dies will produce ammo just as straight as Type S dies, especially with some tweaking the expander ball on the Type A's.

JB,

One of the things that has me thinking type S dies, is a batch of Winchester brass that appears to have thin necks.

I bought a bag of one hundred over a year ago, and have just recently gotten around to loading them.

When I sized and loaded the brass for first firing, I noticed that my expander ball entered and exited the case mouth with little effort. And, when I seated the bullet, there was little friction.

I finally got around to shooting all 50 rounds in a consistant grouping rifle and load--and the results were dismal.

I varified the rife/load by shooting some R-P brass--whah-lah--back on track.

As far as I am concerned, I have one hundred pieces of useless brass, and at $40 per hundred, I'm miffed.

I'm thinking that in such cases, a type S die might salvage such brass, or extend the use of brass as the neck begins to thin after repeated loading/trimming.

You are correct. I have different neck bushings for each brand of brass I load in a specific caliber...Fed., Win., Rem., Lapua.

If the brass has diff. neck thickness, you can get the right tension by changing bushings.

GeorgiaBoy,

In the instance you describe, S-dies would solve the problem. The abilitu to adjust to different brass is one of the advantages of the S-dies.

However, I must note that generally case necks start to thicken (rather than grow thinner) with repeated firings--if there is any variation from the initial thickness.

JB,

I did not know that necks start to thicken with repeated firings.

The reason that I thought that they grew thinner is because I have some 5 times reloaded R-P brass that is behaving in simular manner as the Winchester. After the 5th reloading, there is very little resistance to the expander ball, and very little neck tension on the bullet.

Perhaps the 5 times loaded brass is becoming "work hardened"? Maybe the sizing die is out of spec? I don't know.

I am new to crafting long range ammo--I am not new to reloading. I have been doing it for 15 years. I typically get 7 to 8 reloadings before chunking brass--just because in the past it has been relatively inexpensive.

I'm really stumped with this. I don't know what is happening to my neck tension.

Yeah, the reason for lessened neck tension on 5-times-fired brass is work hardening. The necks of brass that's been fired that many times should be annealed, which solves the problem, and also avoid the risk of necks cracking.

Of course you can just toss 'em, too.