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Old December 16, 2014, 11:23 AM   #26
F. Guffey
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Again, all of my dies are micro adjust, I do not find it necessary to make wild guestimates in degrees and fractions. I have shop skills and tools. My seating stems protrude from the top of the die, that is it, that is all I need. Then there is the other end of the die, I can raise and or lower the die to increase and or decrease the seating depth. Easy for me, others would be required to learn to zero, step sequence is not for everyone.

Competition seating dies, I have a few, some go back to When Weatherby called them 'UNIVRSAL' and some of us know Weatherby did not make dies. I like the bullet alignment with the neck when seating bullets with the competition type seating die. Then I made a bullet seating devise, it does not have a die body. It outperforms any other devise I have for seating. The devise is too far out to be acceptable, not a problem.

F. Guffey

Last edited by F. Guffey; December 16, 2014 at 11:25 AM. Reason: change make to made
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Old December 16, 2014, 11:53 AM   #27
Bart B.
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If the accuracy was the same or better, would not cost and ease of use then influence my decision? Yes. But testing good enough to be statistically 90% plus better is needed.

Have I ever compared the resultant accuracy between the two resizing die types? Yes. When I removed the decapping/expanding hardware from my regular full length sizing dies then lapped their necks out to a couple thousandths smaller than a loaded round, too good things happened. Bullet runout and many-shot test groups were numerically smaller. I deprimed fired cases then cleaned them before sizing anyway, so no additional steps were needed. Bought several used RCBS full length sizing dies very cheap (at gun shows) then lapped out their necks to different diameters for different cases' neck wall thicknesses because I don't uniform case necks. For an extra $10, Forster hones out their full length sizing die necks to the diameter you specify.

I did get the RCBS competition bullet seater for their ease of use. Much faster to seat bullets than conventional seating dies. Bullet runout across several standard and expensive competition seaters stayed the same. They didn't straighten up bent case necks enough to make any difference. Full length sized case necks without the use of expander balls makes them the straightest on case bodies. Minimal sizing of fire case necks lets less force be needed to seat the bullets; too much force seating bullets in too small of case mouths tends to bend case necks just like expancer balls coming up and out through them in the sizing dies. Measure the seater's bullet chamber diameter and compare that to your bullets' diameters; you may be surprised how sloppy the bullets fit which does not keep them straight. Few seating dies hold the case neck fixed in lateral position relative to the seating stem axis which is important for straight bullets in cases.

The original Bonanza seating dies were among the best commercial ones. Forster now makes the same die under their brand name. There's a few custom seating dies made for your sized cases that are worthwhile but only when your short range accuracy is down in the sub-2/10th MOA range

Last edited by Bart B.; December 16, 2014 at 12:00 PM.
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Old December 16, 2014, 03:02 PM   #28
603Country
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You make a good point, and I know that you know what you are doing. But, with the testing I have done, specific to my 223, the Lee collet die gave me best results. I'm sure of it, but can't put a percentage on it. I will eventually see how those dies work for my 260, 220, and 270. Maybe in the Springtime.

On comp seating dies, I have both the RCBS and Redding versions. I think I like the RCBS type better, due to the little window for inserting the bullet.

And one other thing about that Lee die that I like is that since it doesn't care what case neck thickness is, neck tension seems more consistent when using resized cases. Oddly enough, when I recently loaded some new Lapua cases, after running them through the Collet die, neck tension seemed to vary a bit. I didn't expect that.
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Old December 16, 2014, 03:39 PM   #29
Bart B.
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603, how'd you measure neck tension to meaningful units?
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Old December 16, 2014, 07:45 PM   #30
603Country
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Strictly by feel, or better said as a variance in feel or effort. Surely you can feel a difference after all the years you've been doing this.
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Old December 17, 2014, 10:46 AM   #31
F. Guffey
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Quote:
603, how'd you measure neck tension to meaningful units?
Another unfair thing about reloading, you guys have tension gages, a gage that is not available to me. They say to me bullet hold can be measured in pounds, I have gages that measure in pounds, unfair, no one makes a conversion chart from tensions to pounds. I can measure an interference fit, I can measure a crush fit, I can not measure tensions.

Confusing, I have tension gages, I have deviation gages, the tension gage is marked off in pounds but when I push something in and or pull something out I measure in pounds, I can not find a conversion chart for tensions to pounds.

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Old December 17, 2014, 05:48 PM   #32
Bart B.
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603, it's hard for me to sense by tactile feedback from the press seating bullets to determine the bullets seating force accurate to a pound or less. There are bullet seating tools that measure that force to fractions of a pound.

It's easy to measure a bullet's release force needed to get it out of the case neck by seeing how many pounds of force applied over 1/4 second it takes to pull a seated bullet from a case neck. My 30 caliber reloads have between 2 and 15 pounds. Military 30 caliber ammo I've meadured is between 25 and 60 pounds.

I tried to find the static coefficient of friction between copper and brass but none of the tables listing such things had that combination. There are online formulas to calculate the force needed to overcome static friction.

Last edited by Bart B.; December 17, 2014 at 05:58 PM.
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Old December 17, 2014, 07:41 PM   #33
603Country
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Bart, you're getting as obsessive as Mr Guffey with his feeler gauges (not that there's anything wrong with the use of feeler gauges).

When I work through a couple hundred cases and resize them with that Lee Collet Die, I get a pretty much constant force to overcome to seat bullets as I go from case to case. So when I went to the new and never fired Lapua cases, I did something that I don't normally do. I ran all hundred new ones through the Lee die. Then trimmed, primed, charged, and started seating bullets. The variance in effort from case to case was from time to time quite noticeable. It wasn't every other case, or every 5th. Just every now and then I'd get one that was a good bit different. I didn't need to measure the tension to tell that there was a difference. I thought it odd, since Lapua cases are so consistently good, and consistently consistent. I know it sounds odd to say it like that, but Lapua fans will likely understand.
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Old December 17, 2014, 08:19 PM   #34
Bart B.
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603, it's OK to be obsessed with the right stuff. But I've seen no accuracy issues with a few pounds spread in bullet release force. I'll take straight case necks on cases over consistant bullet release force any day. If case neck wall thickness has more than a .0015" spread, I'd turn them until that was their limit.

I believe that if one doesn't get best accuracy with full length sizing done right, their process is flawed by at least one error related to components, tools or technique. Especially when good makes/lots of commercial match ammo is better than most reloads
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