Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Bullet Seating Dies - Wilson

When I shot competition, I had a variety of different seater dies, including LE Wilson. I was looking around the Brownells site for Grendel dies. They have a better selection south of the border, are usually cheaper and don't have to be special ordered.

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When I was checking Brownells for a 6.5 Grendel in line seater, I spotted a 225 Winchester seater, so I ordered one of them as well. I thought that some of you might like to know what Wilson seaters and other dies are available. Don't order from Wilson direct! They are expensive. Go to Brownells, if you cannot get them at a good price up here. For the seater, you need an arbor press, but they are inexpensive and available at Princess Auto, Cdn Tire, etc.

The link is for the Wilson seater dies. You can check to see if your cartridge is available. You can also snoop around for other things as well.

https://lewilson.com/bullet-seaters/?dir=desc&mode=list&order=name

This is an amateur youtube video that shows how to adjust the seater die. You can see how the die works and how to change the seating depth. Most of us use a mic to adjust the depth. What this fellow describes is nothing new, unless you have never seen how these dies are employed.

My F-Class friend turned me on to these wilson dies and the arbor press, I love them. I bought the sinclair/brownells press, its nice.

You bet. The first two I got were for my 308s and 222s. I bought an inexpensive arbor press somewhere. Might have been Princess Auto. Easy and compact.

I have Wilson seaters cut from the same reamer used on the chamber. That's pretty precise.

DF

With any cartridge/rifle combination I want to get anally accurate with I reach for the Wilson dies. Slow to use, but what's time to a pig?!

I like them, but for me at least, the reloading process is the same speed as when I use my regular seating set up. I use 2 or 3 single stage presses, so they are set up for different steps. Because of the little arbor press, I had to buy a small side table for my trays, bullets and other stuff. It looks like a TV tray, but it's made of wood.

I just use the arbor press from start to finish when going the Wilson route, sizing and seating. De-capping is with a 110 year old U.S. gov't tool made by Frankford Arsenal (from before the modern upstart Frankford Arsenal), re-capping with a Lee hand tool.

These are very good but for my hunting rifles I am ok with the Forstner seaters. The Wilson is almost a slam dunk for reducing run out very nice dies. I have one new build that may deserve the Wilson dies just so I can find out how really accurate this rifle is.

My Grendel seater has shipped. The 225 is backordered.

Anecdotally for the late arrivals in the audience, Wilson wasn't the inventor of the system. I have some similar dies made by A.O.Niedner circa 1920, for .22 High Power and some kind of .25 rimmed wildcat (I think .25 Krag). They have the address on them from before his Dowagiac, MI days. Very precise instruments- the bullet seater die "pops" from release of air pressure when the stem is removed. He certainly didn't invent the system either- it was de rigeur in the pre-loading press days.