Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Which dies for a beginner?

A West Virginian should appreciate walking to school 5 miles, up hill, in the snow each way, barefoot on the Way to school...

seating a bullet, I make a dummy round... seat the bullet barely in the case...

chamber it in the rifle, and ram it home with the bolt...

the chamber then tells me max length of the case..

set my seating die on that, and then back its setting off say 1/8 or less of a turn...

try that in the chamber...

if slides in with minimal resistance...call it good...

pull the bullet out of the case and put it back in with the rest of the crowd..
and load it up....

a friend gave me a Redding Micrometer die to try...

I tried it and gave it back, and told him I appreciated the offer...

He also gave me a digital electronic scale set up to try for a week..

gave that back also.... when I could have had it for free...

I prefer my old 505 beam scale and Lee Powder dippers and my RCBS trickler...

turned down a free Dillion 550 and 650 press....preferring the way I self taught myself
with the Rock Chucker...

If that seems hillbilly, I guess it is.... I was born in Bluefield....

Seriously, no sarcasm intended, I'm trying to learn here.....

Without the micrometer, there is an adjustment screw on top of the seating die correct? If so, is there a correlation between a .25 turn in the adjustment screw and seating the bullet .015" deeper? (Just using this as an example) because if I'm understanding this correctly, without a micrometer, there would seem to be a lot of "back-and-forth" involved between adjusting and measuring and adjusting and measuring again, rather than setting the micrometer only once to seat the bullet at the desired depth and measuring only once to confirm the desired result.

It's some cut and try, but not really anything bad. I'm just spoiled to the easy adjustment heads on the fancier Redding and Forster dies.

I didn't make that remark, but you forgot the "wearing a feed-sack dress" part of it, lol.

Hell of a high school football team came out of Bluefield this year, they took us to school in round 1 of the playoffs.

This is the stuff I'm trying to learn; thanks!

Newby too but as I understand it yes. I'm fairly sure that the micrometer die can be zeroed out at the exact length necessary to contact the lands. At that point you can accurately adjust exactly how far off you are using the micrometer.

In my case however it really isn't as useful as it might seem. I can't reach the lands anyway except in one rifle I own and still fit the round inside the mag box. I could have spent the money on micrometer dies on those 4 rifles I load for and it wouldn't help at all because all I can do is measure the mag box and go from there. It just so happens that those rifles aren't real picky about COAL,so I just go with SAAMI recommended max,it fits my mag box and produces good groups. I don't have the option to play with 10 thousandths to 40 thousandths off the lands to see what works best,so I think the micrometer would have been a waste.

This^^

For me, there's no reason to look anywhere other than Forster-Bonanza, or Redding. You can pay more and get the same thing (Redding) or pay the same and get less (everything else).

I have Forster dies in almost every cartridge I shoot, or will shoot, and have been nothing but pleased with them. In cartridges they didn't have, I went with Redding and have been pleased with them as well. I'm not averse to spending money on good dies. That is not an area to go on the cheap IMHO.

If a guy has nothing but RCBS and is happy with them, who am I to argue? They do make good dies, have fantastic customer service if you ever need it, and their seater does something the sliding sleeve dies won't do. Crimp. I have a .375 H&H seating die, and that's all it is for. Crimping bullets in place. Even though I prefer other dies, a set of RCBS dies is a good choice and it's not money wasted.

Lee's Collet die has a ton of fans, and it should. If Neck sizing your brass is what you want to do, there is no better choice. Problem for me is I don't NS, I FL my brass. I was given 2 sets of Lee's, and can't say I'm impressed with the fit or finish of either of them. Being a machinist, maybe I'm a little too picky, but that's how they feel to me.

Heard a lot of issues with Hornady dies when they came out. Maybe they are better now? Unless you get a killer deal on a Press/Die kit that comes with them, I really see no reason to seek them out seeing as what else is on the market that I'm totally happy with instead.

As for the Micrometer Head, I use them. So they cost more. They are worth it when it comes to convenience. Once you find the depth your are after, just write the setting down in your notes. If you try a different bullet it will need changing of course, but you can always go back easily. Throat erosion is easy to keep track of as well.

I started out in the early 1970's with RCBS and was a RCBS snob for quite a while, if it wasen't green I wouldn't have it. I used LEE dies to load both rifle and handgun for a while, I like Hornady seating does with the sliding sleeve but do not like their sizing die because of the decapping pin arrangement. My most recent purchase has been a Redding Deluxe Die Set with both FL and neck sizing dies.

When I first started reloading several years ago, I did a lot of research and bought mostly RCBS equipment. including a Rockchucker single stage press and dies for the calibers I was reloading at the time. I read negative stuff on Lee equipment and decided against it. Later I added a couple of Redding die sets but, could never get a good feel with the equipment I was using. A relative who has been reloading several different cartridges for years said he exclusively uses Lee presses and Lee dies. So, I tried a couple of Lee die sets and really liked the ease of set up and the accurate ammo that I was loading with them.

I decided to give more Lee equipment a try. I had a buyer for my RCBS press and bought a Lee Classic Turret Press and later their Classic single stage press. I've since added more Lee dies. Guess I learned not to believe everything you read with regard to reloading equipment reviews. I don't mean to diss any other manufacturer's dies but sure wish I would have started with Lee dies and other equipment from the start.