My Experience Reloading Hornady 325 grain FTX Flex Tip

jakesnake66 · October 25, 2013, 11:30 AM

I won't bore everyone with my saga concerning reloading Hornady 325 grain FTX bullets in once-fired Hornady "short" brass. What I want to pass along is that the Lyman 45-70 dies have worked great for me - * with some modification *.

The most important things about the Lyman set: they include a 2nd seating stem for "pointy" bullets, and their seating/crimp die crimps these bullets in this brass perfectly - a nice little roll crimp that looks just like the crimp achieved by Hornady themselves. The difference with the Lyman die is the case does not insert all the way into the die, so the length of the brass is not as critical. When the brass is inserted all the way into the die there is still about 1/2" sticking out the bottom. So the mouth of the shortened Hornady brass will still reach the crimp shoulder.

I've had great success with Lyman products, including their dies, but I'm not here promoting Lyman. I'm simply passing along my experience with something that has affected some other people trying to load these bullets. Now, getting the Lymans to work well is not without some trouble and effort. The version of the special seating stem in my set did not screw in deep enough to fully seat the FTXs, so I had to grind off about 1/2-3/4" of threads from the bottom of the stem - something that only took about 20 minutes and was not difficult. Also, this same stem has too-sharp an edge inside the tip, so when seating the bullet it digs a ring into the soft FTX jacket. I filed that edge down to a more rounded profile. It's still not where I want it, but i'm confident I can get it there. This seems preferable to seating with the standard seating stem, which applies all downward pressure directly onto the gummy tip - something that I'm not comfortable with, but which others have done without issue.

I spoke to Lyman about this matter, and I was told by one technician that they are working on some enhancements to this die set aimed at better handling the Hornady bullets and brass. It's unfortunate that so many people have had such problems reloading this product.

JM

October 25, 2013, 11:30 AM	#1
jakesnake66 Junior Member Join Date: March 23, 2013 Posts: 3	My Experience Reloading Hornady 325 grain FTX Flex Tip I won't bore everyone with my saga concerning reloading Hornady 325 grain FTX bullets in once-fired Hornady "short" brass. What I want to pass along is that the Lyman 45-70 dies have worked great for me - * with some modification *. The most important things about the Lyman set: they include a 2nd seating stem for "pointy" bullets, and their seating/crimp die crimps these bullets in this brass perfectly - a nice little roll crimp that looks just like the crimp achieved by Hornady themselves. The difference with the Lyman die is the case does not insert all the way into the die, so the length of the brass is not as critical. When the brass is inserted all the way into the die there is still about 1/2" sticking out the bottom. So the mouth of the shortened Hornady brass will still reach the crimp shoulder. I've had great success with Lyman products, including their dies, but I'm not here promoting Lyman. I'm simply passing along my experience with something that has affected some other people trying to load these bullets. Now, getting the Lymans to work well is not without some trouble and effort. The version of the special seating stem in my set did not screw in deep enough to fully seat the FTXs, so I had to grind off about 1/2-3/4" of threads from the bottom of the stem - something that only took about 20 minutes and was not difficult. Also, this same stem has too-sharp an edge inside the tip, so when seating the bullet it digs a ring into the soft FTX jacket. I filed that edge down to a more rounded profile. It's still not where I want it, but i'm confident I can get it there. This seems preferable to seating with the standard seating stem, which applies all downward pressure directly onto the gummy tip - something that I'm not comfortable with, but which others have done without issue. I spoke to Lyman about this matter, and I was told by one technician that they are working on some enhancements to this die set aimed at better handling the Hornady bullets and brass. It's unfortunate that so many people have had such problems reloading this product. JM