Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Collet dies

That's good, Casey. I'm glad you enjoy your hobby, and that it ties in with your other hobbies.

Originally, I had included the need to keep trying to improve, because it advances accuracy of standard equipment. But because it had nothing to do with my post, I deleted it.

Many of the hunters here are hoping to find that magic formula, but measurable improvements are rarely seen. Like any Internet forum, the value of the advice is often hard to measure as well.

Younger shooters, or those new to reloading, should not be led down the garden path. If they are using factory firearms, they should concern themselves more with reloading technique, and less about equipment that will not help them. I refer specifically to concentricity gauges and bushing dies. Even those people who have reloaded for years do not need most of the higher end equipment.

Think about what you hunt, and where. Can you add to your equipment and make the fall hunt, or varmint hunt, or birds, a better experience? What do you need, versus what others say you need? If you are going to spend money on hunting, get a good scope. Make sure that you have a great trigger. Spend lots on 22LR.

My advice would be to shoot more. Spend less on your reloading equipment. The key is pulling the trigger...often. Practice your shooting. You can reload your own certainly, but however you manage to get your cartridges, shooting should be the main thing. Competitive shooters practice constantly. The best piece of advice borrowed from them would be to shoot more.

Shooting makes you a better hunter. Shooting makes you a better competitor. You cannot buy experience or accuracy from a store. It doesn't come out of a box, or result from using a brand name. If that were the case, many of the people here would be champion shots.

Similar subjects come up on the forum regularly, and I've been here for 17 years, so I have witnessed the cycle.

That's assuming a perfectly concentric chamber that's perfectly aligned with the bore and a bolt face that's perfectly square to the chamber. Heck, BR rifles don't always accomplish that.

I understand your point about the shoulder of the case contacting the chamber's shoulder, but that's the purpose of fireforming new brass.

Even then; I'm the second owner of a pristine M722 in 257R replete with Balvar mounts and B&L scope all from the late 50's. Take a fired case and stand it on a table top and it looks like the Leaning Tower Of Pizza. And it's banana shaped. And it shoots 120gr Partitions less than an inch at 100yds.

I've even gone to the effort of extracting a case after firing, marking it before ejecting, neck size the case, load the round again, and placing the round 180 degrees opposite of the previous firing, and it doesn't make a difference in group size. It defies everything I think I know about concentricity.

I thought I made good ammo until I bought the sinclair gauge. In many ways that gauge cost me a lot of money because if I had a lot of runout (even in a rifle that was shooting well) it bothered me and I went on a quest to tighten things up. In general, some neck turning, Collet dies, Body dies and better brass has gotten things down to under .004 on the sinclair gauge for me. I have had a bunch of custom collet dies made, and even a few custom Redding body dies.

I have a true tool, but don't really use it. I tend to check for runout and if I find a round out more than .004 I mark the primer with a sharpie and use it for a fouler, or practice at closer ranges etc.

Steve,

Here on the 'fire we love it when a newbie handloader (fresh meat) comes on and asks questions. Before we know it, we're giving him advanced handloading advice using advanced (expensive) reloading equipment.

I keep wanting to yell "Let the guy walk before we try to make him run!!!"

The thing is, a newbie can get a Lee collet die pretty cheap, and it'll likely help him load straight ammo even if he doesn't proof measure it on a fancy fixture with a Mitutoyo indicator.

I have noticed that over the years.

There is also the element of "look how smart I am" that appears too. I ignore most of it, but occasionally feel that I must speak up.

He: I have ten Forster presses and 20 sets of their dies.

The other he: Great! I have 12 of their presses and 30 sets of dies, along with gauges, several wildly expensives calipers, Zeiss scopes and Sako rifles. But I want to invest in some better equipment!

Pax.

That is true! Good point.

Of course, it's a 50-50 chance he'll have to sand down the mandrel and use a micrometer to measure his progress.

I just ordered some undersize.

Anyway, any handloader should have at least a decent caliper which is up to the task. No need for a .0001" Starrett.

You're right there too Mathman.

My Lyman caliper I bought in the early 90's is as accurate when used on Starrett blocks as my Mitutoyo calipers are up to 4 inches, beyond that the Lyman falls off a bit though.

I'm debating whether to order different mandrels for my LCD's or just sand them down. It might be handy to have extra mandrels for different brands of brass if I want to use the LCD's sometime. It's just that my Redding setups I have are doing the job.

Mathman,

Can you order the mandrels directly off the Lee's website or do you have to call them?

I ordered straight from the website.

I found them, thanks!

If you want the versatility, for $5 a mandrel, let them do the work. They have the equipment and the talent in house.

I'll mention another piece of gear some would consider an extravagance, my tungsten carbide Sinclair primer pocket cutter. Cutting/cleaning primer pockets is most often not of measurable benefit. But this tool has bailed me out more than once. I have used several thousand Rem 9 1/2 primers that were definitely on the tall side. I have also used hundreds of cases whose primer pockets were on the shallow side, on top of that having an excessively generous radius at the outside edge of the bottom of the primer pocket. After a few minutes with the cutting tool, voila, problem solved. Considering that I've gotten over thirty years use out of the tool its initial cost is forgotten.

I rarely do this but......





This is why I never bought INTO the collet thing. From 1975---2017 I have MORE than acceptable hunting accuracy and I DON'T own 1 set of collet dies.

Color me Weird.


Jerry

I NEED to add also:

I use PFL sizing. I've learned to set the sizer to where I can just BARELY feel any resistance when chambering a case/loaded round.

I get extremely good case life as well.

Jerry

Collet dies are not expensive, and hardly high end. They are simple to use, inexpensive dies that are easy to adjust, require no lube and have cheap, easy to swap out mandrels.

It's a free market system. You are free to buy, or not buy, what you want.

Agree.

The cheapest way to load really concentric ammo is with the Lee Collet neck sizer. And a home made body die from the Lee FL die that comes in a 4 die set.

All my hunting rifles have premium tubes, have been pillared, bedded, tweaked, etc. On a bench I can tell the difference.

Out in the field, you’re right. It’s a different dynamic. But, that extra confidence in what your rifle can do is a good thing, whether or not you can deliver that level of performance. And if a long shot is gonna be your only shot, then that little bit of extra precision may pay big dividends.

I’d rather have it and not need it than be stuck with the alternative scenario.

DF

Back to my original post, when I can size almost every piece of brass in the bag straight, and not have to measure case necks, I'll stick with my Reddings. When brass was scarce during the Big Scare that was important to me, but maybe the Trump effect has changed the equation a bit.

Of course I plan on messing with my LCD's some more too...

My thoughts exactly that tRump produces more concentric cases.