Redding competition seating die

[Bwhntr53]

Ok. I finally received this seating die. Not a lot of help with the enclosed paperwork. I ran the shell holder all the way up. Tightened the die all the way down until it touched the shell holder. Tightened up the set screw to hold the die in place. On the micrometer I set both zeros together. Have I done this right so far? If not I am open to every suggestion. Also how do I use the micrometer to set my seating depth? I am using the Hornady Comparator and micrometer to get the distance to the ogive. By the way I am using a Berger 130gr vld bullet. I do have the seating stem for the vld bullet. Total OAL of the cartridge has to be 2.80 or less to fit in the clip of the rifle. I do have a dummy round set on 2.80. On the Hornady Comparator Gauge I have a reading of 2.053. Thanks for everyone's advice.
Bwhntr53

 

[Supersubes]

Only the sliding sleeve should touch the shell holder, not the nose of the die body. Leave a small gap between the die body and the shell holder. From there you set the micrometer itself to wherever you want essentially(on “0” and on whatever revolution you want), then adjust toward your target seating depth using an Allen wrench down the top of the micrometer knob(little hole). You must hold the micrometer knob still while you turn the center screw. Some zero everything at the max OAL (touching the lands), and some set zero at their target jump. From there, All adjustments are made using the micrometer knob.


If you’re confused about he center Allen screw for zeroing the die, unscrew the whole micromerter assembly off of the die(All the blued parts), and look inside it. It should be pretty clear what kind of adjustment range you have there with the center screw, and how that is affected by the position of the micrometer knob itself.

 

[spife7980]

I set it up the first time trying to zero everything out.

Now I just set it in the middle where nothing is going to bottom or top out and keep track of what the goal outcome is and go from there. I use the micrometer more as a relative measurement guide, not the hard measurement.
If I’m 15 thou out from what the loaded round to measure I’ll turn the micrometer down another .015, I don’t care if it actually reads 1.69 or 4.23 on the micrometer.
Next time you process your brass you may not get the same seating result with the same setting, you may have to turn it in or out a few thou.

But the micrometer is a hell of a lot easier to make those changes on than a normal seater where you just blindly guess and hope you made the correct change. That’s where the micrometer pays for itself.

 

[Bwhntr53]

Only the sliding sleeve should touch the shell holder, not the nose of the die body. Leave a small gap between the die body and the shell holder. From there you set the micrometer itself to wherever you want essentially(on “0” and on whatever revolution you want), then adjust toward your target seating depth using an Allen wrench down the top of the micrometer knob(little hole). You must hold the micrometer knob still while you turn the center screw. Some zero everything at the max OAL (touching the lands), and some set zero at their target jump. From there, All adjustments are made using the micrometer knob.


If you’re confused about he center Allen screw for zeroing the die, unscrew the whole micromerter assembly off of the die(All the blued parts), and look inside it. It should be pretty clear what kind of adjustment range you have there with the center screw, and how that is affected by the position of the micrometer knob itself.

Thanks a lot.
Bwhntr53

 

[ReaperDriver]

I set it up the first time trying to zero everything out.

Now I just set it in the middle where nothing is going to bottom or top out and keep track of what the goal outcome is and go from there. I use the micrometer more as a relative measurement guide, not the hard measurement.
If I’m 15 thou out from what the loaded round to measure I’ll turn the micrometer down another .015, I don’t care if it actually reads 1.69 or 4.23 on the micrometer.
Next time you process your brass you may not get the same seating result with the same setting, you may have to turn it in or out a few thou.

But the micrometer is a hell of a lot easier to make those changes on than a normal seater where you just blindly guess and hope you made the correct change. That’s where the micrometer pays for itself.

This^^ The micrometer is relative. As said before, I set the die until the shell holder compresses the sleeve most of the way but never touches the main die body. The amount is not all that important, just "close". Once the die is locked down, just back the micrometer out a bit until you know it's not going to seat the bullet beyond where you want it. At this point, seat a bullet, check the OAL with a set of good calipers and then adjust the seating turn to get close. Repeat until you get to exactly the depth you want. Remember, most bullets are not perfectly the same length unless you have tipped bullets like the TMKs or AMAX or you've spent a lot of time on the meplats. So don't chase the seating depth too much. Find a good average.

If you change bullets, just back off the micrometer on the die a bit and repeat this trial and error method until you get to the right depth. But if you use only one bullet, I find that as long as I have the die ring locked and don't change anything it's super repeatable from loading session to loading session. Just screw it in and start seating bullets. Of course I check them randomly as I go. But it usually spot on. I love my redding micro seater die. I use it on both my .223 and .260 Rem and the runout is super low. Far better than any other seater die I've ever used. You'll like it.

 

[Bwhntr53]

I worked on getting the die set up. Left clearance with the shell holder all the way to the top. Not bottoming out but leaving some small space. Turned the micrometer up and zeroed on the 2 to leave space for the micrometer to move both up and down without runout. Using some resized brass and bullets I plan to reload with, no primer or powder. I used the allen wrench to back the seating stem out. Worked slowly seating the bullet a little bit at a time I worked the seating stem down until I reached the length I wanted of 2.80. From there I used the micrometer and adjusted a few measurements at a time to get other OAL cartridge lengths. Using my caliper to check the OAL cartridge length of each one. Nothing like practice, practice, practice to get the right feeling of seating bullets. Going to use the RCBS bullet puller to reuse the brass and bullets I am practicing my reloading with. This is my way of learning to reload using the Redding competition seating die.

 

[FLIGHT762]

When I set up my Redding mic seater, I adjusted the mic dial to the "2" line and seated a 178 A MAX @ 2.800" right on the "2" line. I keep a note card on all of the other bullets I use so I can go immediately to other seating depths. Works great.

 

[Bwhntr53]

When I set up my Redding mic seater, I adjusted the mic dial to the "2" line and seated a 178 A MAX @ 2.800" right on the "2" line. I keep a note card on all of the other bullets I use so I can go immediately to other seating depths. Works great.

This same method seems to work great for me just getting started. I did this same thing "practicing " by loading more "loads " working my way down just to check the micrometer with my caliper. Thanks for the tip of using a card to keep the micrometer readings. Didn't think of that one. Since my clip will only hold the 2.80 length I have to work down from that. When testing new load data.

 

[ReaperDriver]

The other trick to reduce runout that I've found works well is to seat the bullet about halfway, lower the handle a bit, rotate the brass about 90-180 deg and then seat the rest of the way. I routinely get runouts in the .001-.002 max whereas when I don't spin the shell, the runout is more like .003-.005.