I have a FL die reamer and a set of die blanks coming from PTG. What reamer is used for making the seating die?? Any "surprises" I should know about before doing this?

I use my chambering reamer for my seating die and speced a sizing die reamer. Your chambering reamer will not make a die to size your brass.

Yeah, I have a finish chambering reamer and a sizing die reamer, just didn't know how to make the seater. I was hoping that I didn't have to buy another reamer.

You must have not read all of my post. I use my chambering reamer to make my seating dies.

Butch, do you send the sizing die out for hardening after reaming, or do it yourself?

I never go to the trouble of hardening a seating die. I like melonite on my sizing dies.

Who do you send them to for melonite? I like that stuff too, but haven't tracked down a good place to send parts to yet.

My Buddy used to run the Mimtrutec plant and handled it for me. He relocated and climbed the ladder.
Jay Cutright on the BR.Com forum was looking to get a lot together to ship out for treatment.

OK, for the ignorant (like me) what is melonite?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melonite


I found this on my very own "Google Machine".

He could also google this forum.

Found info on this site - Thanx
Lots of praise for it but not a lot of in depth info.

A steel that will give you good working hardness and resistance to wear is 4140HT or prehard as it is called in the trade. It has just enough hardness to resist wear yet is machineable with standard highspeed tooling. You get the hardness you're after without having to send it out and deal with minimum charges ($75.00 was pretty typical when I was working). We used a lot of 4140HT in the toolroom, it saved a lot of time and money as it could be put to work immediately after machining was completed. Try it you'll like it. Here's a tip: when you contact your steel supplier ask if they have a "drop" or bar end. Many times they'll sell you a short piece for little money, sometimes they'll even give it to you. Worth a try, I got lots of material this way.

Why not a CM barrel stub?

We used Chrome Moly barrel stubs in gunsmithing school with complete satisfaction plus the price was right. I suggested 4140HT for those that were concerned with heat treating. I did so solely to help them avoid avoid the minimum charge when heat treating one off items. The barrel stub posesses sufficient hardness for service as a rifle barrel which will see much more use than a die.

Heck, I make special diameter cast bullet sizing dies out of brass. I started doing that when I first wanted an off-beat diameter I couldn't buy and just wanted to experiment before cutting one out of steel. I found it to work fine with no measurable wear after thousands of bullets, so I said "what the heck, why not make some more out of brass?"