I'm just curious: I've always used a 4 die set for handgun cartridges

(single stage press)

1. Size and decap
2. Flare and prime
3. Seat the bullet
4. Crimp

A 3 die set combines (3) and (4). I never trusted this because I thought it'd be more consistent to do it in two separate operations, and it doesn't take that much more time.

Plus, with four dies, you leave the seater and crimper set up, so you don't have to re-set the seater plug every time if you use a 3 die set to do (3) and (4) separately.


What do y'all think?