Redding Type S Bushing Die

[fvalmostthere]

Just picked up one of these for my new 6.5 creedmoor. After a bit of research I have found a lot of people use these withouth the expander and use a mandrel.

My question is could you use the redding die with the expander and then run the brass back through again without the expander and get the same result?

In my head the bushing narrows the case mouth and the expander and mandrel expand the case mouth.

So instead of narrowing and then expanding. Could i expand narrow expand with the first round and then narrow back down to proper neck tension with the second round?

Sorry if i am way off, never had anything but rcbs dies before so this is a whole new world for me. Tired of spending money though so if i can get away doing it this way and not have to buy a mandrel and expander die that would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

[spife7980]

The Redding works in the exact same way as an rcbs. You take the large fired brass and squeeze it up into the die which squeezes it smaller. It doesn’t matter if what’s touching the die is a solid steel wall like I assume your rcbs is or if it is the steel wall of a bushing, the only thing that changes is the amount of squeezing down it does.

The expander ball goes into the fired case mouth freely but then is trapped inside when the neck gets squeezed down above it. Dragging it out trough the neck of the case forces the brass to open up to the diameter of the expanding ball.

Some people substitute the mandrel for the ball. Instead of dragging the ball out a mandrel forces its way in, but it enlarges the neck to the desired diameter with the same results as the ball coming out the other way. It just add an additional step to the process as opposed to the ball which does it all in the first step.

If you run the mandrel or ball through the case without going all the way down to where the die sizes anything down then you won’t be doing anything. A fired case is larger than the expander so in your “expand narrow expand” situation the first expand would accomplish exactly nothing on a fired case.


You can get away without a mandrel just fine, leave the expander ball and decapping rod in the die just like it comes factory. That’s how the majority use their dies.


Wait: you said “first round” do you mean on a virgin unfired case? If so then running them over a mandrel before the first loading will even out the variable neck tension that cases come from the factory with but that’s not at all a requirement.


With a bushing die instead of sizing down below your desired diameter and then opening the neck back up with an expander you can select the bushing size so that you get your desired neck size without having to open it back up. This will push any inconsistencies into the middle where it interfaces with the bullet unlike having an expanding step which will push the inconsistencies to the outside leaving you with a round hole in the center. For that reason I recommend selecting a bushing that will make use of an expanding step.