Re: Best Die Features For 223
"Fuzzball, I got a great chuckle reading your response."
I got a chuckle writing it. I knew what you hoped for but, fact is, there is no significant difference between the average effects of common dies no matter how purty the externals are. It's the insides that make ammo and Mr. Clark's experience largely duplicates mine.
I have no blind loyalty to inanimate objects. Advertising and hype aside, dies are variable within a narrow range. FL sizer dimensions will vary within the range set by SAAMI and anything inside the window is as fully 'in tolerance' as anything else. Meaning there's as much difference between sizers of the same brand as between brands.
Individual seaters also vary by tolerances. The design of Forster/Redding seaters is very good, their full body lenght alignment sleeves assure they won't do 'poor' work but how good individual examples work varies a bit anyway. Thing is, conventional seaters used correctly (few are) can have tight enough fits that more costly 'competion' seaters can do no better - but that ideal fit is uncommon and depends on luck, not brand. And if those who automatically slime Lee dies actually measured the work of their seaters (and sizers) many would shut up.
We usually buy rifle dies in two die sets but I'm yet to find a near perfect sizer coupled with a near perfect seater in the same set. So I often buy mulitpule die sets of the same caliber and select the best individuals from what I have. My user die sets usually have mixed sizer and seater; sometimes they're the same brand, sometimes not.
No seater can make concentric ammo in bent-neck cases and poor sizing can do that. What I prefer for most accurate resizing is the Lee Collet Neck sizer and a body die I've made by boring out the neck of the largest body diameter sizer die I can find. That means my body sized cases will be minimally changed and, by following that with a collet neck die, I can have "FL" sized cases with the straightest possible necks.
I suppose IF I had a tight-neck custom chamber that demanded neck turning I would love bushing type neck sizers but all my rifles have common generous factory chambers. Thus, for my most accurate rifles, I skim turn Lee collet sized necks just to help align the interior and exterior cylinders of the necks and then my Forster seaters (work good but less costly than Reddings) do as well as can be expected for threaded dies.
My first run reload's total indicated runout on prepped cases is typically less than 3 thou at the worst possible location on the bullet. I usually cull the worst, so my retained TIR ammo is 2 thou or less, meaning the bullet tilt is no more than 1 thou off the line of bore. Neither my rifles nor my shooting can see any advantage to less runout/concentricity than that.
All this means the die brand, other than Lee's unique neck die, has no predictable effect. IMHO. And I've let you in on the 'secret'!
PS: Not that it matters on a die thread but since Lee's "plastic crap" has been brought up, I believe Lee has carefully engineered their various loading tools to use steel, iron, alum and plastics in appropriate places to sell very effective tools for the lowest possible retail price. I'm continually puzzled by web authorities happily making "crap" judgements, especially since the judgements are <span style="text-decoration: underline">never</span> supported by any intellectually honest evidence to support the claims. ??