Im just getting into reloading, I bought a RCBS Rock Chucker supreme reloading set, My question is what brand and type of dies do I need to load a Federal Gold medal match 168 or 175 clone. Also any other advice would be greatly appreciated.
- Thread starter scott1119
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Lots of good die choices out there. I like redding competition dies and Forster. You can get bushing sizing dies to mess around with neck tension and with the micrometer seating dies you can get very precise seating. The rest of cloning the gold medal match will be in your powder, primer bullet combo.
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There a bunch of good die out there, if you just starting to load start with a full set of redding and load some ammo, keep it simple at first and learn about load devoloping , with a standard set of dies you could exceed the federal gmm in performance and accuracy, save your money for different powders and primers and get a feel for what your doing, I started with a standard set of lee dies and learned on those, I hit a point with those where I got way better loads than the federal 168 but hit a point where I wanted more and more, so I would say start basic and work on beating the fed gmm ammo and from there once you have exp you can then get some competition dies, do not approach it in there matter that the most expensive will help you cause it won't, get a feel for reloading and how things operate and move on from there, you will learn soon that expensive dies only aid in reloading when the right load will be the biggest thing for accuracy, so learn on a cheap set of dies and devolope a load that out shoots the federal gold, and once you hit the point where no matter what you do your accuracy doesn't get better then ad to your reloading set, and go one piece at a time, if you buy a bunch of top dollar tools for reloading you will never be able to see which one is helping and what is not, like if said before and you will soon learn that the best piece of reloading equipment is between your ears, get a couple of loads that beat the fgmm and then try something new one at a time to see if it makes a difference or not, if you change a primer and more/less powder at a time you will not know which helped/ hurt you, so keep it simple have fun and don't start at max loads, learn about pressure and your particular setup before getting to extreme and you will be rewarded with cheaper loads that outperform federal gold medal. Be safe
And to help out a little more try to get either imr 4064 or varget, try a 168 smk and cci 200 primer I bet you could exceed fgmm with 42 gr of either powder, there not on the hot side but will get you great accuracy anywhere within 600 yards, if your looking into shooting long range I mean 800+ that's when your gona want to work up a load that gets you the most velocity with acceptable accuracy! I believe that you don't need a max load for best accuracy! all my extremly accurate loads are under max! but when shooting extreme long range a load under max will not get you there at sonic speeds and usually extremely hot loads don't shoot as well in my experience
Redding or Forster competition dies work great.
A general purpose standard full length die set is hard to beat. I'm using Hornady Custom grade die set and standard RCBS die sets. Good luck! You'll have a blast develooping and testing your own ammo. I'll second Bob munden's advice on powder selection.
Foster BR full lenght die and LE Wilson seater die works for me, I load 175gn SMK BT, LC brass, BR-2, IMR-4893. I shot 10 shots of LC M118LR out of my M40A3 and chrono them, then Worked up a load and chrono them until it gave me the same muzzle velocity out of the same gun, always checking for signs of pressure.
Safety is always the priority when loading, I have two loading manuals, take my time doing it and I'm consistent with the components and brass preparation. I have used the same load for about two years and shot a few F-class competitions 1000 yards and 600yards and it does pretty good.
Hope that helps a little.
Safety is always the priority when loading, I have two loading manuals, take my time doing it and I'm consistent with the components and brass preparation. I have used the same load for about two years and shot a few F-class competitions 1000 yards and 600yards and it does pretty good.
Hope that helps a little.
What type of action are you loading for? A bolt gun or a semi auto? When loading for my bolt actions, I use fireformed brass and Lee collet neck sizing dies, for semi actions I generally use the Lee full length sizing die and set the shoulders back about .005". I have had great results with Lee dies, they are not the 'high end' dies, but for the price, they are hard to beat and load accurate and consistent ammo. I have a couple different sets of RCBS dies, they work fine too.. (for my 300AAC and 223)
I agree with Bob's comments as well... you don't need to load max loads for accuracy at decent ranges and either 4064 or Varget will do quite well if you do your part right. You will like the RC, I have used one for more years than I'm gonna say and it has always provided me with great ammo. I prefer to hand prime, not use the press, I think it gives me a better feel for the primer seating, I use an old Lee Auto-Prime for this task. You will also eventually need (probably sooner than you think... lol) a case trimmer for bottleneck cases.. they 'stretch' quickly in some cases and you need to keep them within the min/max length as you load over and over.
Get a few different load data books and compare and research your load data, as some will vary and ALWAYS start out low and work your way up, checking for pressure signs along the way. A chronograph is an invaluable tool for the reloader, as velocities are key to knowing where you are in the load range for a given cartridge combination. I don't load test without running all the loads through the chrono.
Most of all, enjoy learning the process and cranking out some ammo that will shoot lights out in your weapon/s!!!
I agree with Bob's comments as well... you don't need to load max loads for accuracy at decent ranges and either 4064 or Varget will do quite well if you do your part right. You will like the RC, I have used one for more years than I'm gonna say and it has always provided me with great ammo. I prefer to hand prime, not use the press, I think it gives me a better feel for the primer seating, I use an old Lee Auto-Prime for this task. You will also eventually need (probably sooner than you think... lol) a case trimmer for bottleneck cases.. they 'stretch' quickly in some cases and you need to keep them within the min/max length as you load over and over.
Get a few different load data books and compare and research your load data, as some will vary and ALWAYS start out low and work your way up, checking for pressure signs along the way. A chronograph is an invaluable tool for the reloader, as velocities are key to knowing where you are in the load range for a given cartridge combination. I don't load test without running all the loads through the chrono.
Most of all, enjoy learning the process and cranking out some ammo that will shoot lights out in your weapon/s!!!
