Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best reloading dies?

Count me among those who likes the Lee Collet die. I'm also happy with Lee's decapping and seating dies.I have their factory crimp dies for a number of calibres too, such as for my .30-30, .303s and double rifle. I don't really have any use for FL or body dies - haven't used either for years. I have not found them necessary, even after a case has been reloaded multiple times. I am of the view that shoulders moving forward and cases lengthening after the first fireform are a product of sizing processes, in particular such things as dragging expander balls through the neck, or "partial sizing" where shoulders get squeezed, and neck sizing with a collet die seems to obviate these problems. YMMV

As well as the dies named above, I have also used Lee's "hit'm with a hammer" Lee Loader, dies designed to be used in a vice, Simplex, Hornady and RCBS.

I love Forster. They make great ammo. I don't have anything fancy just plain old Forster dies. I like the straight line bullet seaters. They make accurate stuff. My .280 Remington shoots real well with ammo made in Forster dies.

I did that 35 years ago. I got a quality barrel and had it screwed into a good action. It works.

Depending on the caliber, brass hardness, brass thickness, the bushing die may kink the brass neck out of alignment. The expander ball may help straighten to some degree a kinked neck. I have also used mandrels in another die to straighten kinked necks.

Forster neck and full length sizers that have had the necks honed to the dimension that you want are absolutely dead nuts in producing "straight" necks. Their $12 fee to hone a neck to size is well money spent.

There are two applications, I am talking about, extremes in accuracy trying to get the best concentricity in seated rounds, and hunting accuracy or perhaps "shooting steel" accuracy.

Production dies are just that, mass produced. You have to do your own QC on any set of dies you own. It is not unusual to find std RCBS or Redding Deluxe die sets producing some very straight ammo, given modest attention to reloading techniques.

Having some kind of tool that gives you a reading on neck run out as sized, bullet seating run out is critical to check to see if your dies are producing ammo with run out .003 and less. Long range shooters try for .001 and less.

Many companies make a tool that uses an indicator to check run out, I like the 21st century due to the wheel that rotates the case

[/URL]

ONce you check a die and it's run out, modify your techniques, many people sell the tool.

keith,

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to try one of those run-out gadgets....

I bought most of the dies I own used, so I've got a number of mixed sets: C-H, Lee, Lyman, RCBS, Pacific, Hornady, and some I can't identify. Never had any real problem with any of them. But then, I'm an oddball. I like Lyman/Ideal 5/8 X 30 dies.....

Don't take this personal but if I had to do everything you do I'd consider getting a 6.5 creedmoor and run factory ammo for the rest of my life.

The Lee Neck Die is 3 times faster and easier than any setup you have. Also makes straighter ammo


Trystan

Years ago, when I started reloading, bettering factory ammo was pretty easy to do.

Shooting Creed factory ammo, well it ain't that easy to out do good factory stuff. I've had to work pretty hard to edge it out, and I'm not talking about that much difference.

So, your advice is solid.

DF

HOW could you possibly know that ? You can't !.


Jerry

It's your imagination and pretend do with it as you must!


Trystan

Clark,

If you didn't use the expander balls in the Redding dies, then I'm finding it hard to comprehend how they came in worst in the test, because my experience differs considerably. As noted earlier, I use just about every kind of available mass-produced press die, primarily to understand how each works so I can write about it. Consequently I have several sets of Redding bushing dies, both standard "S" and Competition, and cannot remember any resulting in bullet runout of more than .001 to .002," and usually it's much less. In fact the dies I use for my 6mm PPC benchrest rifle are Redding Competitions, and the MOST runout I've measured on loaded rounds is around .0005".

Of course, I'm turning the necks of the 6PPC cases, but also use Redding bushing dies for much of my high-volume varmint-shooting ammo, without turning necks. Among those rifles is a CZ 527 Varmint in .17 Hornet, and with unaltered Hornady brass it averages under 1/2" for 5-shot groups at 100 yards.