I'm having a hard time telling from the Redding body die description, are they all small base? If so, will this overwork my brass from making it smaller than necessary?
Case life will be destroyed if you bump the shoulder back too much. I ruined Lapua .308 brass years back trying to load my .308 the same way I load .223.
I sized it back to SAAMI so it fit in a case guage, and I got a lot of case separations. I since adjusted the die to match the bolt gun's chamber and stopped destroying nice brass. (I keep a different sizing Die for gas guns)
"What would a $2,000 Geissele Super Duty do that a $500 PSA door buster on Black Friday couldn't do?" - Stopsign32v
Ok, I also use Lapua brass so I want to get a long life out of them. Would the proper technique be install the body die per instructions, measure using a comparator, and then adjust the die (by backing out) until I'm only bumping the shoulder back like two thousandths? I understand the concept you're trying to get across to me in general, but getting the end result in specifics is what I'm trying to wrap my head around. I'm sloowly picking up what you're laying down.
I'm not a big instrumentation fanatic. I grab like 3 pieces of Brass and set the die to where it just takes the force out of closing the bolt.
A comparator is probably easier, but I'm stubborn and cheap.
"What would a $2,000 Geissele Super Duty do that a $500 PSA door buster on Black Friday couldn't do?" - Stopsign32v
Chambers and resizing dies vary in size, below just some of the .223/5.56 dies I have used and tested. Example I have a standard Lee .223 die thats not shown that will reduce the case body diameter "MORE" than my small base dies do. And in the upper right hand corner are two Redding body dies, a standard and small base .223 body dies. And my favorite dies are the Forster full length dies with their high mounted floating expanders. The forster die produce the least amount of neck runout and very concentric cases.
NOTE, I buy bulk once fired Lake City 5.56 and 7.62 brass fired in a verity of chambers. I size the cases the first time using a small base die to bring the cases back to minimum dimensions. Thereafter I size the cases with my standard Forster full length dies. My RCBS small base die only makes the case body diameter approximately .001 smaller than my standard Forster die. So remember both chambers and dies have a plus and minus manufacturing tolerances.
Below a "FIRED" 5.56 Lake City case in my Hornady cartridge case headspace gauge. And I then adjust the resizing die for .003 shoulder bump.
Below the Forster dies hold and center the case neck when the expander enters the neck. And the floating expander does not pull the case necks off center inducing neck runout.
Last edited by bigedp51; 10-20-20 at 18:13.
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