I've wondered about that when he said he could rotate or sink a projectile by hand... that would seem to indicate the brass is not even sized yet.
I use the same exact die for the same exact caliber, and I don't have the troubles he's having. It's a bit of a pain to adjust (counterintuitive), certainly, but it works.
Paulo: to adjust that die:
1. Check that you're using the correct seating stem. For flat-nose bullets, use the one with the full flat contact surface. For ogive bullets, use the one that is hollow.
2. Screw the die into a bushing, insert the bushing into the press and twist to lock it in place.
3. Raise up the shall plate by pushing the lever down.
4. Screw or unscrew the die in the bushing so that the die body (not just the alignment sleeve inside it) barely contacts the shell plate. The alignment sleeve will be pushed up inside the die body, that's normal.
5. Screw down the lock ring against the bushing and tighten the hex screw to fix it in place.
6. Bring the shell plate down.
Ok, that sets the die itself in proper position. Now, the first adjustment is temporary only, just to make a "proof round" that will have the right OAL.
7. Unscrew the crimp adjust lock ring and seat adjust lock ring. Basically, make the two lock rings loose.
8. Unscrew the crimp adjust screw by a few full turns, and do the same with the seat adjust screw. The idea is that when you put a case+bullet in the plate raise it into the die at the next stage, there will be no action at all: no crimping, no pushing the bullet into the case (i.e. no seating).
9. Place a case that has been sized and belled in the shall plate, and place a bullet on it. Raise the plate by pressing down the lever.
10. Tighten the seat adjust screw until you feel it contact the bullet. Then give it a half turn more, to push the bullet into the case a little.
11. Take down the shell plate, take out the cartridge and measure the OAL. It will most likely be too long.
12. Put back the round on the shell plate, raise it, tighten the seat adjust screw a little more (how much depends on how far you were from the desired OAL, I usually go 1/4th-1/8th of a turn at a time).
13. Repeat steps 11 and 12 until the bullet is seated to the desired depth inside the case.
At this point, nothing's locked down on the die (just the die itself to the bushing), and that's the way it needs to be. You have a "proof round" in hand that has the OAL you wanted, and you're now going to use it as a gauge to set the crimping screw and the seating screw properly.
14. Unscrew the seat adjust screw by several turns so that the seating stem cannot touch the proof round when you insert it in the die again. That's important.
15. Place the proof round on the shell plate and raise it into the die.
16. Screw in the crimp adjust screw until it barely contacts the round.
17. Take the shell plate down, then screw the crimp adjust screw by a little more, say a quarter turn at most.
18. Taking care not to let the crimp adjust screw rotate at all, screw in the crimp adjust lock ring tightly. The crimping part is done.
19. Bring the shell plate and proof round up into the die again. The proof round now gets taper crimped.
20. Screw in the seat adjust screw until the seating stem barely contacts the bullet. Don't screw any more, or you'll seat the bullet deeper than you wanted.
21. Taking care not to let the seat adjust screw rotate at all, screw in the seat adjust lock ring tightly. The seating part is done.
22. Take the round out, examine the crimp closely (no loose bullet, no undue case or bullet deformation?), measure the OAL again, make sure all's good. If something's out of kilter, you'll want to restart at step 7 by making a new proof round.
One thing I found with use: When there's only one round in the press (at the seat/crimp position) I get the exact OAL I adjusted for.
When there's other rounds in the other stations of the press (size/decap, bell, powder) at the same time, the seat/crimp die does not seat as deep as I had it adjusted for, it makes the bullet juuuust a little longer in OAL. I don't worry about it: once all my rounds are made, I tend to quickly pass them a second time in only the seat/crimp die to finalize their OAL. With good quality projectiles, I get them to within 0.001" like this.
One final caveat: I haven't reloaded tens of thousand rounds yet, and I make no guarantee as to this advice I just gave you. Someone more experienced may look at my process and see I'm doing something wrong, who knows? It seems to be working for me, that's really all I can say!
Good luck.
