This post is for those who enjoy a story ...
As a new reloader, I confess to having owned the naive attitude that once the decisions on
caliber and other matters are made, one just dials-up Midsouth/Midway/Natchez/Brownell's/...
on the ole' internet and orders the appropriate 3-piece die set in one's favorite
"color" (RCBS green, Hornady red, etc.). Hoo-rah. What could be more simple? Die sets
are die sets, right? The manufacturers are all pretty reputable, so pick one. Right?
While selecting my first reloading press, I wound up tagging-in with the "Red" (Hornady)
team. I liked the lock-and-load thing -- keeps your dies all set up in their adapters
so you just screw them in when it's their turn at bat. "Red" also has a good reputation
and I had been using their ammo, so it was a natural that I would get Red dies, no?
So here came my very first reloading die set, a 3-piece unit in .338 Win Mag. Blissfully
unaware of things like micrometer seating stems and bushing dies at that time, I went about
joyfully preparing a recipe of 225gr Barnes TTSX bullets mixed with Reloder 19 powder. It
worked out really well for a first attempt. I now have a pig-sticker load that makes
2845fps out my my A-bolt and leaves holes in paper nicely clustered at under 3" at 300yds.
With that positive experience, it was pretty certain my next die set would also be Red.
Add to it that the new ELD-X in 30 caliber was becoming more available at that point,
and off went my order for another 3-piece boxed set in .300 Wby. This is where my education
in dies and die manufacturers actually begins.
In addition to the dies and the 200gr. ELD-Xes, I also picked up some Nosler and Barnes
bullets to try. My wing-man was on a Berger kick at that time, so he gave me a box of
168gr classic hunters. If it sounds like he's a really nice guy, it's true, he actually is.
When I started the first loading session for the .300, I quickly noticed an un-advertised
feature of the Red dies, they left a quite distinct ring around each bullet somewhere south
of the bullet tip and north of the bullet bearing surface. They did this for the Berger
bullets, the Barnes bullets, the Nosler bullets and, yes, on my brand new box of highly
sought-after 200gr. ELD-X bullets. This ring was more than a smudge, and more that a mark,
and even more than a scratch. It seemed to actually be a combination of cut and indentation
into the bullet that you could easily feel and see clearly with the un-aided eye. If it
were a smudge or even a scratch I would doubt that it would affect hunting ballistics, but
this was something more. So, I went over to my friend's house that had spotted me the Berger
bullets. He has every die set ever manufactured plus a few, and I borrowed his Green .300 Wby
die set. It worked fine, and did not leave the toilet bowl ring around the bullets.
So, feeling like I had a clear indication that something was wrong with these dies, and also
having lightened my wallet by one Red Classic 007 press, and one Red AP Progressive press
(using for handgun) and many a box of Red ammunition and now two sets of reloading dies, I
contacted Red customer service for the first time ...
When the courteous customer service representative answered the phone, he allowed me to tell
him my short story. He was sad to hear that the Red dies were cutting my bullets, and asked me
what bullets I was using. Here I made a mistake ... Thinking of Red in terms of a press/die
manufacturer and neglecting to remember that they are very proud of their bullets and ammo, I
said something like "well, popular bullets, like Accubonds and TSXes."
Hmmm. The customer service rep did not hang up on me. He did, however, say something quite
irritating. He said, paraphrasing, "We cannot possibly manufacture dies that work with all
bullets." As my brain was thinking something to the effect "I don't see anywhere on your
boxes or promotional material that says your dies only work with Hornady bullets," I recovered
enough to ask him "well, what about my nice new box of 200gr ELD-X bullets that are also being
trashed?"
Red sent me a replacement seating stem. It did the same thing. Even to their ELD-X bullets.
My Berger-giving-RCBS-loaning friend does not have a Red .300 Wby Mag die set (I guess he missed
one), but he does have another .30-cal Red die set that purportedly uses the same seating stem.
That die is several years old and it had not cut his bullets. We pulled the seating stem out
of it and tried it in my bullet-cutting .300 Wby dies. The dies then worked flawlessly. Clearly,
there was something amiss with a batch of Red .300 seating stems.
Not wanting to sneak back in later to steal his seating stem that he apparently does not actually
use all that much anyway, I decided to return the bullet-cutting die set to my very friendly
favorite purveyor of reloading equipment (who operates out of Clarksville, TN. -- apparently that
is considered to be in the mid-south portion of the USA ;-). I exchanged it for another three-die
set in a green box (not RCBS, by the way, but another green box) and am now merrily loading Berger,
Nosler, Barnes, Sierra and, yes, Hornady bullets for my .300 Wby.
I may someday buy another box of Red reloading dies, and I may not. But I was surprised by this
experience and have since read other stories that indicate die manufacturers do not consistently
turn out well-engineered and well-supported products. They do not consistently react in a timely
fashion to real issues brought to them by their happy customers. This is not a refleciton on Red,
it appears to me to be somewhat more-or-less the case, at least occassionally, for any of the
current die manufacturers. So now, I view putting together a new die set for a new caliber as a
process, one that perhaps takes multiple revisions and multiple orders to get right. Perhaps I
have taken one step toward a less naive view of the reloading process.
Happy Reloading.
