Pistol/Rifle Dies

[Trooper]

Who has the best dies out there and why? I currently use Lee and am thinking about Dillon's.

[bfoster]

At the present time, in the realm of 7/8-14 threaded factory made dies (not including the efforts of small specialty makers such as N. Jones or S. Gonzales) on a consistent basis the quality of Redding's product is very high. Some of the dies which I have purchased from RCBS since the sale by the Huntington family to Blount have been less than what I had come to expect under the prior management. Not bad tools, just not quite up to the former standard. A matter of internal polish etc. For handgun dies destined for use on a progressive machine, Dillon's dies are quite good. You might note that in the calibres that Dillon doesn't make, they sell Redding. The one set of Lee dies which I have owned wasn't capable of producing a rifle cartridge to my standards: bullet runout was twice what I'll accept. I concluded that there was too much "slop" between the seater die body & seater plug. Rather than perform a "Mickey Mouse" repair on the die I threw the set out. This may or may not be typical of Lee's product- some folks swear by Lee dies.

[CCV]

Redding is excellent, my older RCBS dies have given many years of trouble free service (I don't have any experience with new RCBS quality), but if you are loading on a Dillon machine use Dillons dies.

[Paul B.]

I have had good results with RCBS dies, both the old ones and the newer ones. I only have the carbide sizers made by Lee. They work quite well. One handgun set by Lee (the only full set I have) has been trouble free and makes accurate ammo. Two dies sets by Hornady. They seem to work well so far, but I have had them for only a short time.
You're right about one thing. Seems like every time Blount acquires something else, the quality seems to go down and the prices go up. I will say this though. I cast a lot of bullets, and the RCBS molds are pretty darn good. They've been a lot more trouble free that some of the Lymans I've gotten recently. Maybe I have just been lucky. Anyway, I have no problem with getting RCBS dies. They have always worked well for me.
Paul B.

[Peter M. Eick]

I would say that I recently picked up a new set of RCBS dies and they were distinctly rougher then my older RCBS dies. They were so poorly machined that the seater stem has to be turned with a set of pliers to move them it up and down, (must be a burr in there somewhere but I cannot see it). I called their support, and was told that it would take between 6 and 9 weeks to replace them if they determined it was a manufacturing defect.

To make a long story short I use the dies and just rack it up to the sale of RCBS. I will say that steady adjustment is slowly working the burr out.

Now my Lee dies have always served me well and I do like the way that you can adjust them without tools. I will also agree with the above posts that Lee dies can be a bit looser then the Reddings.

My Redding dies a nice, and I have foun no real faults with them.

My next planned purchase is a set of dillon carbide dies for my M1A's in preparation for a dillion 650.

pete

[bald1]

I've had or used just about every brand made and have now restricted my acquisitions to Forster/Bonanza Benchrest and Redding Benchrest dies. If I were to go with a progressive reloading machine I'd have to take a hard look at Dillons too.

-=[Bob]=-