Redding micrometer seating die help

[Evojai]

Hello fellow shooters!

I am new to reloading and over the weekend I decided to give it a shot. I am working with brand new 6.5CM Lapua brass. With some of the cases dented in, I decided to run them in the sizing die to open up the case mouths. Using the Redding neck bushing die, not sure if neck tension was too tight causing some cases to seat different. On the cases that were tighter I noticed they would not seat as deep and would have to adjust the micrometer.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[j-dubya]

Perfectly normal. The micrometers don’t work like a measured gauge where that bullet is always going to be seated to the same place. Variables such as neck tension, friction, and compressed loads all can cause the depth to vary/change at the specific increment set on the micrometer.

 

[Evojai]

Perfectly normal. The micrometers don’t work like a measured gauge where that bullet is always going to be seated to the same place. Variables such as neck tension, friction, and compressed loads all can cause the depth to vary/change at the specific increment set on the micrometer.

Okay got it! Thanks for the input

 

[Steel head]

The Redding micrometer seaters aren’t what I’d call robust and don’t like heavily compressed loads or really high neck tension.
Personally I run all my new brass that will use those types of dies through a neck expander Die with a mandrel .002-.003ish under bullet diameter before loading.

 

[Nimothy]

Also the micrometer doesn’t push from the tip so differences in bullet size within the lot will show slight variation in oal. Also in my experience new lapua brass has the tightest necks of any brass I’ve bought. I used to expand them but since I like to start development on fired brass I usually just load The min or slightly above with a cheaper bullet (I use hornady 140 bthp in 6.5creed) give em a quick chamfer and let them rip. Maybe that isn’t advisable, but it’ll save some time. Welcome to the rabbit hole of handloading. It’s very rewarding most of the time and other times you’ll want to pull your hair out. The good news is there is a lot of info on this site. I can honestly say it’s improved my ammo 10x since I’ve become a member here.

 

[XLR308]

The necks on Lapua brass definitely need opened up before initial loading.
I also use an expander mandrel for that as others have stated but the button on the die stem will work just go slow since your forcing the button into the case mouth instead of pulling it out.

 

[Evojai]

Thank you all for the great info and quick responses!