2.260" in SAMMI max for .223 Remington (that is what we are discussing, right?). It sounds as if the stem is already down on the stop funnel/shoulder in the die. You do have the main die body screwed all the way down to touch the top of the shell holder when the press ram is up, right? Assuming you do, check the writing on the side of the die body to make certain it says .223. If so, now take the aluminum seating stem adjuster completely off so you see the back of the seating stem. Put a loaded cartridge in the press and run the ram up and down a couple of times. On the second pass the stem should not move except for maybe a little centering if it is all the way down on the shoulder in the die. If it bobs up and down as you run the ram up and down, then it has room to seat deeper.
The next question: if the stem doesn't move up and down and the other conditions I mentioned are satisfied, did you get a mislabeled die or a defective die? Fortunately for you, I happen to have one myslelf, so I was able to check a couple of measurements on it.
Using the depth stem on my caliper, I measure from the top of the die body down to the bottom of a Winchester .223 case in the shell holder and pushed up all the way by the press ram is 2.767". I was able measure from the top of the die body down into the hole in the through-die powder funneling taper (that also serves as the seating stem depth-stopping shoulder). I lowered the press ram slightly, pushed the caliper depth stem down in and against the side of the hole, and with the back of the caliper body parked on the top edge of the die body, I then raised the ram up into place. The case neck pushed on the caliper depth stem up to a measurement of 1.074" from the top of the die body. The seating stem itself is 1.400" long. If I place the stem in the die body it sticks up above the top of the die body 0.400".
I have to take back what I said about the shim. If I take the die out of the press and put the seating depth adjusting cap back on and screw it in until it stops, the stem no longer rattles inside. This means I have pushed it hard against the bottom of the funnel/shoulder in the die, and that's all the adjusting that can be done without a lathe. If you have access to a lathe, you can actually shorten the business end of the seating stem by cutting back and matching the outside taper (that matches the funnel/shoulder). This will let it push a bullet further down as long as the aluminum depth adjustment can still push the shortened stem down without bottoming the adjuster cap itself.
If I had one of the light V-max bullets to try, I could get further on the measurements, but I don't. 75 grain A-max and some very old 50 grain FMJBT's are the only .224 Hornady's I have in hand at the moment.
Call Lee about this if you have no lathe. They will probably still make you a part that works with your bullet.
Nick
