milanuk

Had to go back and re-read the whole thing... been a while! For the most part, it appears I've been pretty fortunate over the years when it comes to both the 'big box' stores (Cabela's, Sportsman's, etc.) and smaller LGS. But there are still a couple that come to mind... About 20 years or so ago, before I started reloading, I was in a small mom-n-pop pawn shop / gun store picking up some Ultramax .223 Rem ammo for shooting prairie dogs. The guy that ran the shop started to quiz me, wanting to make sure I wasn't trying to 'shoot too far' with this stuff (it was loaded with a 50gn TNT, IIRC). Said he'd had to make sure to 'train' his wife and daughter to ask the right questions when people bought the stuff and complained about not being able to hit a coyote on the run with their Mini-14s - at "500 yards" He proceeded to explain how it was because the bullets were going so fast that the aerodynamic friction heated them up to where the bullets just came apart! I played along a little, and asked "well then, what about the .22-250 Rem and .220 Swift? They shoot pretty close to the same bullet, even faster. But they work just fine at longer distances don't they?" He responded with "Hmmm... maybe they use some kind of special titanium alloy in the core to keep from melting?" Fast forward about 15 years, and the whole Hornady A-max tip 'melting' thing... almost wondered if *maybe* he wasn't just a tiny bit right (there actually is a bit of heating going on due to friction) But I'm still 99.999% positive the problem was the 'Mini-14', not the caliber, bullet or anything physics related A few years later I'd moved, made some new friends, and decided I wanted to trade my Bushmaster 'Dissipator' in on a Bushmaster V-Match 16 or 20. Turned out, one of the LGS (another pawn/gun store) had exactly what I wanted hanging on the wall. Brought mine in, offered them a trade that was heavily in their favor, and they were *just* about there... but then they had to get greedy. Noticed that the trigger on my Dissipator wasn't stock, and asked what it was. I told them (JP single stage), and that it cost about $140 plus installation by a gunsmith (before I learned how easy it was to work on AR15s). Their response was that "oh, we'll have to take at least that much off the value", and proceeded to give me this song-n-dance B.S. about how any aftermarket parts might get them sued if someone had an accident with it. I said, fine, I have the original parts still on the bench at home. I'll go drop it in, and it'll be back to stock. "Oh no, we'd *still* have to send it back to the factory to be checked out / calibrated / certified." Ended up selling the thing via the local classifieds, got what it was *actually* worth, and came back and bought the damn V-Match (no one else in town carried them, unfortunately). The same sales person (the owner's father, "Dick") had played some similar B.S. tune a year before when I'd been looking for a custom varmint rifle. Said they absolutely wouldn't carry anything like that, claiming that none of the 'custom' gunsmiths knew how to do barrels as well as the factories. So when I had a gun that went 'kaboom' in my face and was returned by the factory as being certified 'nothing wrong with it' (friggin' chamber would swallow a NO-GO gauge, and dang near closed on a FIELD gauge) I knew exactly the store to sell it to... Traded it for my first Savage bolt gun, and the rest, as they say, is history

In theory, you can put the lock nut on the bottom side of the tool head - it works as a jam nut just as well there as on top. Just be very, very careful and do a couple test runs with just that part going full stroke before you get everything *else* set up. The reason I say this is that multiple people recommended that I do that... and apparently on a 550 there isn't enough room and the nut hits the fingers of the manual indexer. Probably *not* an issue on a 650/750, but still, go slowly and make sure before you damage something like I did. I opted to go without the jack nut, specifically because I didn't have a lathe. At that point, I just screwed the HB adapter on the router, set the bit height in the collet, and then screwed the HB adapter + the router down until the cutter got close to making contact, and then snugged up the lock nut. At that point, it was a lot of back-n-forth, adjust a little, adjust a little more, go back some, go forward, etc. etc. etc. until it was 'close enough. I'd definitely recommend getting the sizing portion of the trim die all sorted out how you want it, before you start mucking with the trimmer.

Digital calipers will work just fine for measuring the necks. They might not be 'perfect', but unless you're turning case necks and checking measurements to the ten-thousandth, they're 'good enough'. Just be careful (and not totally ham-fisted) when using them. I generally rely on a good set of Mitutoyo Digimatic calipers, but in a pinch cheaper ones will work as well. use the thin blade portion of the jaw, and be conscious of having the tool as close to perpendicular to the surface as possible. If necessary, take a few different reads - the smallest one is probably the right one, where the tool is aligned correctly. The Redding Type 'S' F/L bushing die uses a two-fingered collet on the decapping stem to hold the pin. That's probably the only think I really wish they'd change on those dies - I'd rather they had a shouldered pin design like other brands use. Awful easy for that decapping pin to get pulled out by a tight flash hole even when you're using the right size pin for the hole. IIRC, the pin measures something like 0.057", the 'old' PPC holes were about 0.059". One or two firings and it's pretty easy for a little bit of crud build-up in the flash hole to take up that very minimal clearance. In the past I've gone thru and uniformed the flash holes with an appropriately sized tool, which opens them up to 0.061-0.062", which eliminated the problem of getting done sizing cases only to find that your decapping pin went AWOL about 79 cases back... I've heard rumors that some of the newer small flash-hole brass now comes with 61-62 thou sized holes, but I haven't seen any with my own eyes as of yet. FWIW, I've never been able to get the cap nut on the collet tight enough to hold the pin in place *without* using pliers on both the stem and the cap. YMMV. I don't recall for sure, but you most likely need to order the BR/PPC sized decapping pin separately. If you're going to stick with using the expander on the sizing die (vs. using a separate mandrel), I'd strongly recommend you order one of Redding's floating carbide expander balls. It eliminates probably 99% of the gripes people have with regular expander plugs on sizing dies, and is well worth it. Much harder and smoother than the stock expander plug, and much smaller bearing surface. Plus it 'floats' on the decapping stem, so it can self-align in the neck as it is pulled through. With an appropriately sized bushing, it should just barely 'kiss' the inside of the neck as it is pulled through - just enough to make sure everything is round and concentric, without stretching or pulling anything out of whack. As far as the bushings... can't say definitively, as I haven't use Lapua 6.5CM brass yet (several boxes on the shelf, just haven't needed them yet). But the math is pretty damn elementary... take a number of measurements of the neck wall thickness of your cases, to get an average. Then bullet diameter + 2(neck wall thickness) - your desired neck tension = approximate bushing size. For one of my match .308 guns, with neck turned brass, that works out to 0.308 + 2(0.014) - 0.002 = 0.334". I generally recommend buying an extra bushing either way, one thou above, one thou below, just in case.

At those prices, I'll stick with the SB die for now. I'm not shooting *that* much... but it's an interesting option for sure [emoji106] Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Interesting... not sure I need it, but I might look into it anyway [emoji16] Sounds almost like it is hitting the same area that a small base die does, or a ring die (even lower, pretty much all the way to the groove). Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

I'm not familiar with roll sizing... I thought that was a handgun ammo thing? What part of the case is it hitting that makes the brass go through the Giraud better? Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Ick. Get a Giraud. Run them all thru, if they get trimmed, great. If not, no problem. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Depends if it's blaster ammo, or something I intend to use for 'precision' stuff. I'd say it's generally good practice to keep it sorted by firings, head stamp, (lot # if you can) etc.... but for blaster ammo, you'll probably never be able to tell the difference in practical terms. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

FTFY On a more serious note, while I do actually agree with you in a technical sense... running samples of >30 for each and every load increment does *not* make any kind of sense for people living in the real world. For that matter... for someone like the OP, loading 55gn FMJ ammo for a .223 / 5.56... don't even worry about it. Really really. By the time you shoot that load far enough for the ES/SD to actually matter... that load is already sucking balls in the wind, general accuracy, etc. Shoot it within its reasonable limits - I'd say 300yds, others might stretch to 400 - and its a non-issue, or at a minimum, the least of your worries. For whatever reason, .223 Rem / 5.56 is notoriously difficult to get good ES/SD values from, even in match guns with precision handloads using good bullets matched with suitable powders and better primers. Tight ES/SD is just not it's game. I fought it when I shot Service Rifle / Match Rifle, I fought it (and still) do when shooting FTR at longer distances. Not saying it can't be done, just than the general level of effort to get a .223 down to the same ES/SD numbers *consistently* as a .308 or any other mid-sized cartridge, is significantly more.

It's a scale. Other than the ability to 'talk' to another device i.e. AutoTrickler, etc. there isn't much else *for* it to do. Some of this type of scale sometimes have counting functions - where you can weigh an individual item, and then a pile of them and it'll tell you how many are in said pile... but bullets/brass tend to be a bit too heavy and/or bulky for the scale's available range, and powder kernels too small/light, so... Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

About the only 'intense' feature worth worrying about is pairing it with an AutoTrickler and AutoThrower [emoji106] Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

...until you have to F/L size again. Neck only is fairly old school. Most (if not all) upper tier competitive bolt gun shooters F/L size every time, and probably a majority use a neck expander mandrel of some sort. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

As with most things... it depends. Normally a regular F/L die should be the go-to choice, but occasionally, depending on the chamber dimensions, you may find that you still have a sticky bolt even though you have bumped the shoulder more than enough. More often than not (in experience) that's a sign of the case web needing a little more squeeze. The other thing that may require a SB die (or a specialty 'ring' die) is when you take a batch of brass from one barrel and re-use them in a new one. Even if you had it chambered by the same 'smith with the same reamer... sometimes there is a difference in runout from one set up to the next. Or maybe the reamer got re-ground. Maybe there shouldn't be... but that's not the world we (or at least *I*) live in. One chamber may have had a "fat" back end, or the other way around. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

My experience with "100% processed" brass has been... that it wasn't. Not even close. I pretty much ended up completely re-processing it myself; about the only step I don't end up re-doing is cleaning. They usually get that much right... usually.

25 might be a bit warm for a starting load. IIRC from earlier endeavors to duplicate BH 75 match ammo, 24-24.5 was more the norm. Pulled down some factory rounds at the time... they had 24.2-24.3 of what looked like Tac... and a $hit load of neck tension; one might almost call it a light to medium crimp. We tried up to 25.5 with poor results - crap velocity, damaged rims, etc. Backed off to 24.2, and started playing with a taper crimp die... everything just tightened right up. Personally I'd start at 23.5 and work up 0.2 gn at a time, and then adjust the neck tension and/or crimp. Sent from my P027 using Tapatalk

Does anyone have any pics / video of a Dillon modified/short tool head for .300BO in action? Pics of the modified chip manifold as well? Thanks!

Have you managed to use the lock ring on the bottom (on a 550) without damaging the indexer? What am I missing? Sent from my P027 using Tapatalk

This is about all the room I have... Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Tried that. The nut hit on the index star, and irreparably damaged it. [emoji25]

Do tell... Just did a batch (few hundred) with the 4-flute bit and I noticed that I'm getting a bit of swarf down inside the case... almost like the fan on the 1617 EVS is blowing so much its overpowering the 1.25" vac port. Then again, I don't have much of an ejection path for the chips to begin with... Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Tell em to get after it! [emoji12] I'd be all over one of those like a fat kid on a donut! [emoji106] Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

If you're priming on press... probably not. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Yes... to degree. The problem is applying the stuff consistently, case after case, time after time. The stupid ceramic beads get more on the outside of the case than in, and using a bore mop is only marginally better. It's about like copy machine toner, if you ever had the misfortune of being around that stuff when spilled - gets into/onto everything, and it's a PITA to get out of anything. Miserable stuff. Used it for years. Then people started moving away from wet tumbling, part of which was the occasional click-no-bang, or else a really low shot, usually due to traces of moisture that got missed during the drying process when trying to turn a set of match cases around when going from tournament A to tournament B. But part of it was the mindset of "why go to all the effort to get the carbon *out* of the cases, only to have to jump thru hoops to put it *back*?!?". Why not save ourselves a whole lot of time and trouble and skip the whole thing altogether? Shiny cases don't shoot demonstrably better... so why wet tumble? Don't get me wrong... there are some very good F-class shooters who wet tumble. They have a process worked out, and it works for them. But an increasing number of shooters are back to dry tumbling - or just wiping the cases off and calling it good. They might be brushing the insides of the necks to knock loose the crusty bits, but that's about it. It's about what works better in terms of consistency in seating force, and vertical on the target at distance. I fully understand that brass for PRS guns can get a lot dirtier than other LR precision sports, so there may be a valid argument for tumbling of some sort. If you have a system that works for you, stick with it til it doesn't. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

I saw that! Not available until July-ish, it sounds like. I also saw a post in another forum where someone looked at it, looked at their APP, and realized that it's literally the same handle bars as the press comes with... just swapped from left to right, with the roller bar in between. Made their own... Which got me to wondering... if a person could finagle *two* of the angled handles somehow, or make their own off-set ones, it might be possible to clear a press-mounted trimmer

Has anyone here paired this with a Lee Universal Case Feeder, and/or the Lee Case Collator? Specifically interested in decapping and swaging .223 / 5.56... I just don't shoot enough to justify adding a 1050 to the bench. Actually, if they hadn't made the handle that dang 'Y' yoke style... this thing paired with a case feeder and an RT1200/1500 would be pretty sweet!