Hornady seating dies

[jimsair]

Just a quick question for those of you who have, or do use Hornady dies. I'm coming from the world of RCBS dies, and am curious if the Hornady seating die, with its sliding bullet seater sleeve, actually works better than the fixed seater dies from RCBS, Lee, Redding, Dillion, etc. It would seem to me that any "conventional" die would straighten the bullet as it's seated, but I'm also thinking Hornady wouldnt incorporate such a feature if it didnt work. What say you all?

[caspian guy]

The sliding sleeve allows the die to align the bullet with the case before it is seated.

I don't like them as well as redding but they work well. I use them for calibers I can't justify spending for redding.

Edited September 2, 2010 by caspian guy

[3gunfun]

My Hornady die seems to be working just fine. But I am considering a set of dies to separate seating and crimping.

[98sr20ve]

Mine did not work well. I had a 20% failure rate where before it was rare to have anything fail the case gauge. I opened it up a little on the inside and it was better but still not as good as my simple Lee.

[jgedmond]

I have had no problems with the Hornady seating dies for 9mm and 223 and think that the sleeve is a great feature. For 9mm, I do not crimp, just remove the flare. For 223, I purchased a Lee factory crimp die and do not crimp while seating.

[Shadowrider]

I love the Hornady dies. The seating sleeve seems to work great for me.

But full disclosure, I use the Hornady taper crimp die at station 5 for pistol calibers and the Lee factory crimp die for .223 and I've never even tried to seat and crimp at the same time with any of their dies.

[noylj]

The seating die works great, except...

The weight of the sliding sleeve and the seating stem will cause the hole that the "C" clip sits in to elongate until finally when the sleeve slides down it will keep sliding down and fall out. You will then contact Hornady and get a new die body.

For my .38 Special Wadcutter loading, I found that the Lee seater produced slightly more accurate ammunition then the Hornady die, which was noticeably more accurate then the RCBS or old Redding seating dies. This of course does not mean that the same holds for other dies or other calibers. However, to get the best accuracy with a S&W Model 52 takes very careful loading practices.

My die choices now are the Lee 4 die set if I was to buy new dies and the Redding Profile Crimp die for any roll-crimp needs. The Profile Crimp Die is just plain fantastic.

Yes, Grasshopper, the seating and crimp should be two separate steps. Likewise, many times I also use the Hornady or RCBS expander die separate from the powder-charging step.