Need Help With Pistol Reloading

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bigga_boy

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Well as the title says.....

i have been reloading my .308 for some time now and looking at starting with .45acp and eventually moving onto 9mm lugar as the prices go up!

my question is, 3 or 4 piece carbide die set? i currently use Lee Precision and want to continue to use it.

So do i get carbide 3 or 4 piece set....help please.

thx in advance
 
Well, the 4th die is a carbide factory crimp die. If you crimp, you may like to have it. As well it does a final sizing pass on the cartridge.

I would just get the 4 piece now, us it if you want, but at least you have it, and don't have to buy it seperate later. For the 10 buck difference.... Why not just pull the trigger all the way?
 
Depending on the type of press, and the quantity you see yourself doing, 3 or 4 dies is the answer. Make sure they're carbide dies, as you don't want problems reloading.

Myself, I have loaded '000s of pistol rounds on my Dillon 650 and have the 4 dies set up on a tool head so that when I switch calibers, I only remove the tool head with that caliber's dies and accompanying powder hopper and replace it with another tool head which has the new caliber's dies and powder hopper already set up and tightened down. Caliber changes take a minute and don't result in my settings being changed.
 
bigga_boy said:
my question is, 3 or 4 piece carbide die set?
Click to expand...

Yes. Hope this helps! :rolleyes:

I would recommend 4-die sets, and definitely get a case gauge or two especially for 9mm. .45 ACP is a pretty forgiving cartridge, but 9mm is tetchy and hard to set-up properly. I use a 3-die set for .45 and have really no problems, but I use 4-die for 9mm - and yeah, just about all my dies are Lee too. I bought a set of the nitride Hornady's for 9mm, I was having big problems (all my fault, natch :redface: ) at the time, but I could not say with any authority that they do any better of a job.

The big advantage of separate crimp dies is that they make changing the length of your bullet seater a snap, because the seater die only sets the bullet depth - so if you need to seat the bullet deeper, the case has not been crimped yet and you can do what you want. If the bullet has been crimped, you can't push it any deeper or the case will dig into it and make a mess - but with the fourth die, the bullet can be set and reset and then crimped once you're happy.
 
I use a number of Lee carbide sets for pistol calibers. Once I added the factory crimp die, the occasional chambering problem went away. Some brass is thick and bulges a bit. The Lee die #4 irons out the bulges and guarantees every round will chamber.
 
Definitely get the 4 die kit instead of the 3. I've had a couple finished rounds not feed well into a tight chambered 9mm pistol. Brought the ammo home, picked up a LEE crimping die, ran the rounds through the die and they chambered perfectly after. After that, I've added running the completed rounds through the crimping die, more so for uniform sizing. Never had a round giving problems feeding after that.
 
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