Hey gents, it's been a while since I spent much time on a precision rifle, but I have been getting back to the long gun lately and was starting to work on some load development this weekend. I ran into a major problem with both of my sizing die- both were brand new Lee .308 dies.
I neck sized and primed my brass throughout the week, but failed to check neck tension before priming. Today, when I was wanting to start charging and seating bullets, I realized the neck tension was WAY too loose. I pulled some unsized brass and started playing around with the die, trying to fix the issue. The die is simply too loose to resize properly. Even with a piece of metal over the case holder so that the brass goes ALL the way into the die, the neck is still far too loose. Bullets can be inserted and removed by light finger pressure- this is an obvious problem. After reviewing the instructions and searching for solutions to the problem, I've found nothing that helps. It seems almost as if this is the wrong die, but it is clearly marked .308.
Frustrated, I decided to deprime and resize all the brass I had prepped using a full length resizing die. With this die, I found the opposite problem. I can not get my brass to fully seat into the die. I tried excessive lube, adjusting all the way in and out, and nothing worked. I put 50+ pounds of pressure into the handle and the only result was a stuck case. I again searched and found folks recommending undersized mandrels, polishing the die, etc... but at this point, I'm plain pissed.
This isn't a case of a die not quite working perfectly. In one case, the case's neck is opened up so much that bullets are dropping into my casings. In the other, the brass, in spite of experimenting with the full range of adjustment, will not come remotely close to seating in the die. This has thrown a nice wrench into my weekend load development plans, and I'm getting really frustrated here. Has anyone here seen similar issues with Lee dies?
FWIW, I've reloaded thousands of .45ACP and .223 rounds with Lee dies. I found the Lee .223 resizing die to be a bit on the tight side, but servicable with quality lube. I'm not new at this, but by no means am I a reloading SME either. If there's something I haven't done that I can try, I'm all ears. At this point, I'm thinking of throwing the dies into L. Michigan and going to pick up some Lyman or RCBS dies instead...
I neck sized and primed my brass throughout the week, but failed to check neck tension before priming. Today, when I was wanting to start charging and seating bullets, I realized the neck tension was WAY too loose. I pulled some unsized brass and started playing around with the die, trying to fix the issue. The die is simply too loose to resize properly. Even with a piece of metal over the case holder so that the brass goes ALL the way into the die, the neck is still far too loose. Bullets can be inserted and removed by light finger pressure- this is an obvious problem. After reviewing the instructions and searching for solutions to the problem, I've found nothing that helps. It seems almost as if this is the wrong die, but it is clearly marked .308.
Frustrated, I decided to deprime and resize all the brass I had prepped using a full length resizing die. With this die, I found the opposite problem. I can not get my brass to fully seat into the die. I tried excessive lube, adjusting all the way in and out, and nothing worked. I put 50+ pounds of pressure into the handle and the only result was a stuck case. I again searched and found folks recommending undersized mandrels, polishing the die, etc... but at this point, I'm plain pissed.
This isn't a case of a die not quite working perfectly. In one case, the case's neck is opened up so much that bullets are dropping into my casings. In the other, the brass, in spite of experimenting with the full range of adjustment, will not come remotely close to seating in the die. This has thrown a nice wrench into my weekend load development plans, and I'm getting really frustrated here. Has anyone here seen similar issues with Lee dies?
FWIW, I've reloaded thousands of .45ACP and .223 rounds with Lee dies. I found the Lee .223 resizing die to be a bit on the tight side, but servicable with quality lube. I'm not new at this, but by no means am I a reloading SME either. If there's something I haven't done that I can try, I'm all ears. At this point, I'm thinking of throwing the dies into L. Michigan and going to pick up some Lyman or RCBS dies instead...
