Interesting little problem with lee dies

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msg.drew

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As I spent a while at the bench making some bullets today for accuracy... since everyone here is completely crazy about case prep I though I would give it a shot to evaluate if my 3 hours spent to make 100 bullets is worth the extra effort...

I sized, trimmed them all to spec, chamfered/beveled, necksized, retumbled, weighted each charge exactly the same... oh yah fun bit was picking threw a bucket of brass to find a 100 that where identical weight I did this the day before.

Anyway back to my issue with lee dies, I just switched from Hornady dies that had some issues with breakages and poor design. Problem is Hornadys dies are to fragile for 223 the expander is too small and breaks to easy Hornady knows about this problem and they sent me numerous kits over the years to retro fit there newest fix I finally got fed up and switched to lee because these things are built like a tank... anways today when adjusting the seating depth on the seating die I bottem out the adjustment and sill did not meet the reloading manual spec... so I went to my store room and grabed another set to check and see if maybe there was something wrong with the set ie defective... nope they are all the same... why lee has done this I dont know... if you use bullets that are 55 grains or less you can adjust the die enough to meet the reloading manual spec.

I am using the deluxe 3 die set.. I checked a pace setter and other deluxe sets they are all the same.

I am going to call lee tommorow and find out whats going on I cant see them screwing up 5 different sets but maybe the wrong parts are installed at the factory.
 
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First lets find out what going on then I will decide if they are worth it or not... I used them to load 55 FMJ without and issues... 50 grain V-max are to short for it to work right. I couldn't see it working with 40 grain either.
 
Is the die body set low enough in the press or turret? Because I seat a round nose lead bullet that is a lot shorter than a FMJ and still am not at the end of travel for the seater adjustment.

I haven't had any problems (other than the usual measuring and adjusting) when switching between the two bullet designs.

There is nothing wrong with Lee dies in general. I have plenty. If you are that concerned go with RCBS but you will have to get the powder through die and factory crimp die separate.
 
Are you crimping? If you've got the body backed way out it might bottom out the travel.

Have reloaded 50 grain bullets in my LEE 223 dies with gobs of extra room. Maybe a fault in the die?
 
Interesting??
I have loaded thousands of rounds of 223 with virtually every size bullet offered in the past & don't ever remember a problem seating bullets :confused:

The seater pin inside the die measures 1.413" in length in mine, how does your compare?
 
My first .223 dies were Lee and I had no problem with the seating stem. I could push the bullet right into the case if I was inclined to do so.
 
Yes joe-nwt, the least expensive version is less expensive for a reason, but if lee goofed a run of seating dies, they screwed up. Any other company can screw up too. And it remains to be seen what the problem really is. So Msg.drew, what's the current situation?
 
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ok gents... to understand the problem you need to understand the design of these dies... yes the die is installed properly... its in the press the shell holder comes in contact with the base of the die... inside the die there is a rod with a part cut out for the tip of the bullet to fit into. This sits inside a holo cylinder thats screws up and down. The rod inside is in contact with the top of the die it can not physically go down anymore the spec in the hornady manual for 50 grain v-max is 2.200" its close to that but its not exact... I just found it funny that I ran out of travel... didnt have this problem with the hornady dies.
 
If you are using all the tricks of the trade to prep your brass and then shooting the ammo in an "off the rack" gas gun, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed and will probably be convinced till the end of time that it's not worth the trouble. You have to load your ammo in a way that best suits your needs.

If you load for a bolt action bench gun, you want to neck size only and have minimum shoulder set back, just enough that you can close the bolt, to achieve maximum uniformity. This can be accomplished in two steps with a Redding Competition Die Set with a separate body die and Competition Shell Holders that allow you to adjust the set back by increments of .002" from .002" to .01". These shell holders fit the ram of your press very tightly, and I find I have to tap them in place with a brass drift. It can also be accomplished in a single pass with a custom cut die that is designed to neck size and set back the shoulder by a predetermined amount.

If you are loading for a hunting rifle or a gas gun, function trumps accuracy, so you should full length resize to ensure that the action of the rifle will function. Will your gas gun and hunting ammo be less accurate? Yes, but the looser tolerances in those rifles make them less accurate than your bolt action bench gun. It doesn't hurt to cull out the heaviest and the lightest cases when loading accurate hunting or gas gun ammo, but to pick through hundreds of cases to find 100 that are identical in weight is kind of pointless, as is with neck turning, weighing primers and measuring the depth that you seat them, attempting to weight powder to a tenth of a grain, or seating your bullets with a hand die.

As to the problem you have experienced with the Lee seating die, I have experienced similar problems with other makes of dies from time to time. I don't waste a lot of effort worrying about it if I can use a longer seater stem from another die set or simply put some temporary filler material inside the nose of the seating stem plug.
 
I am loading these for a bolt action target rifle.. normally I just grab a handful of brass resized drop the powder from my chargemaster and seat the bullet dont pay much attention to details if the powder charge is off 0.1 of a grain I let it go... when I am loading for my ar's where I shoot 100 bullets in 10 min I dont even bother with the chargemaster I just use lee powder dropper and go I can average 120 an hour on a single stage press...

with all this extra prep work it took about 3 hours for 100. This load I am using has produced tight groups at 100 out of the rifle it will be used in I did this is a test to see if I can break the 1/2" group at 100 with this extra prep work or if alot of these guys just do it to occupy there time... I have been reloading for close to 8 years now and didnt really bother with all this extra stuff...

BTW 8 years might not sound like alot to you older fellows but I am just a young guy... lol I know your going to say why are you messing around with lee dies for a target rifle... I belive that you don't need to spend all kinds of money to get good results.
 
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