Are competition Die sets worth extra money

[awaveritt]

I'm going to start reloading for 223 rem and am wondering whether to spend extra $ on the "competition" die sets from rcbs. From what I understand, the comp die sets are manufactured to "closer tolerances" and have the micrometer adjustment seating stem. I should add that my purpose for reloading will be for informal benchrest type shooting from a sporter weight CZ 527 with a Leupold Vari-X 2-7 scope - in other words- non-competition shooting. Still the question of whether this would give me any advantage in the accuracy department intrigues me.

Should I spend the extra $30-40 or buy more components?

[amamnn]

IMHO, loading for that rifle and that application - probably not. Still, the biggest factor in accuracy is the shooter, so--what ever makes you feel better will make you shoot better. Remember to use wind flags, too.

[rn22723]

Just get a set of Redding Dies Type S Match. The measure your brass neck wall thickness. Multiply that by 2, and add 0.224" then substract 0.003" and order that for the bushing size.

[FM12]

For the money, LEE collet dies are pretty accurate. The size only the neck and your brass fire forms itself to your chamber. Limited case stretch also, = less trimming. And, as we all know, less trimming is always better!

[Powderman]

Believe it or not, I have had excellent results with a simple pair of Lee dies. For the sake of accuracy, you can get a neck sizer die, and then go through the rest of the brass prep.

[A_Gamehog]

I have 2 of them, love them with the flat base bullets and smaller sized bullets. When you buy brass sometimes the case neck is dented or non circular, I have always been able to place it in with zero shavings. With some dies and the smaller bullets (34-45 Gr.) you pinch your fingers seating the bullets with regular dies, not with these.. RCBS is my favorite comp die. Forester, Lee, many others make similar if not better products to each user. The bushing dies are the gold standard for Benchrest shooters, don't confuse these "Competition" dies with those. They require more experience and skill to get an accurate result. I would guess most hunters use a regular set of dies whereas most Competitive shooters use Bushing dies. I fit in the middle...

Watch this video..RCBS die

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjIot...eature=related


Watch this video...Redding die

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D4sP...eature=related

[Slamfire]

Not in my opinion. The only competition die I would buy is a I like is the forster seating die. I have them in .223, 308 and 30-06.



I have received .001" bullet runnout with cheap Lee sizing dies. And I don't know if .002", .003", .004" bullet runnout means that much.

Look, "competition dies" are pushed by people who want you to believe that there is an equipment based solution to accuracy. Shooting is a skill. If you want to get good at it: practice, practice, practice!

I shot this target in a 100 yard match, with ammunition sized in a standard RCBS small base die. This is prone rapid fire, twenty shots dumped in two ten round strings of 70 seconds each.

Practice would have tightened up that group more than "competition dies".

[wncchester]

" From what I understand, the comp die sets are manufactured to "closer tolerances" and have the micrometer adjustment seating stem."

Okay, a personal evaluation. A conditional YES; comp dies are "worth it" IF you shoot well enough to see the difference and IF your present dies leave something to be desired and IF your rifle shoots well enough to see the difference.

I see no justification to the stories of "closer tolerances" in any comp dies vs common dies. They are all made to SAAMI tolerances and that's a plus to minus figure. So, to what side would they be made, closer to the plus or minus side? How well any die matches our chamber is the more important factor and that's a crap shoot.

What really makes comp dies "better" is the design, not the tolerances, as such. Nor do the micrometer seating heads add anything but user convience, we can do exactly the same thing when adjusting any seating die IF we know what we are doing.

Hornady's short sliding sleeve bullet seater is the "precison" equal of the VERY EXPENSIVE RCBS "Comp dies". While a bit more convienent to use, that design really isn't any more precise than any other conventional seaters.

The seaters by Redding and Forster, with or without the micrometer heads, are better in that they are made much like a BR type seater. They have a full lenght slinding sleeve that fully captures the case and bullet in alignment BEFORE the bullet begins to enter the case and they are equal in performance.

Some people love Redding's bushing sizers for the necks, some don't, and both have valid reasons for their thoughts. I prefer Forster's for a FL die and the Lee Collet Neck Sizer for a neck die. Forster's FL sizer has a unique expander button that can be adjusted up the decap rod to allow neck expanding to begin immediatly as the neck is being withdrawn from the neck of the die. That sure helps keep necks straighter than any other conventional neck expander button that allows the cases to drift around in the die as expanding is done.

I believe that a LOT of the brand loyalty based on color of the box and blind opinon would be destoyed if more people had a concentricity gage. Those who think their brand die is "made to tighter tolerances" often get a rude awakening when their ammo is run through a gage that actually measures the finished product! A gage can be used to check our reloading methods like nothing else can, a target only shows the end results, a gage can show us where in our process the errors occur! We can't fix what we can't detect.

[Inspector3711]

Here's what I did... I bought the Redding 3 die set ($30)... Then after learning about it I added a Lee collet die. You can't beat Redding standard dies for the price and if you're going to neck size you can't beat the Lee collet die for $16.

[Unclenick]

If you're going to shoot benchrest style and you get a load perfectly tuned to your gun, you might see some advantage to the competition seater dies. I use Redding but hear the Forster is similarly capable. The first one I got was for .30-06, and that was over 15 years ago. With a Redding standard seater I used to see TIR (total indicated runout) of typically 0.003" to 0.004" with LC brass. That was loading with an old Lyman Spartan Turret press, which is nothing like as good on alignment as the Forster Co-ax press I use now. However, despite that imperfectly square press, the Redding Competition Seater Die reduced TIR to essentially zero seating 168 grain SMK's. The exception is where case necks are not uniform in thickness. In that case they would have TIR equal to the difference in thickness from the thinnest to the thickest part of the neck.

0.004" TIR can cause up to an m.o.a. of difference in group size (at least it can at long range). There was testing of that published by the NRA about that in the sixties. It's in their out-of-print book, Handloading, if you can find a copy? (I'm keeping mine.)

The Lee Collet Die is one of the best bargains on the planet if you are going to neck-size only. Unlike a conventional neck-size-only die, it seems to exhibit no tendency to take the neck out of alignment with the case over time. AFAIK, the only conventional neck dies that don't ever show any of that tendency at all are the custom types you cut with the same reamer that chambered your rifle (which you have to have available for the purpose). The Lee die's mandrel prevents the "dreaded donut" from ever forming in the first place. It takes a little practice to get used to, but once you get it, it is a truly excellent tool.

Lee also is the only maker who finishes their sizing dies by honing. That makes them essentially perfectly round. The cosmetics of Lee dies are underwhelming, but they've been very clever about what's on the inside in most instances. Where I starting over, I would just buy the Lee Deluxe die set that includes the Collet Die (yellow box set) and add the Redding Competition Seater.