Lee Factory Crimp Die Problem

ErikT

ErikT

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I have the Lee Factory Crimp Die in several calibres, and most of them work perfectly, just as they were designed to. That being said, I have been having troubles with my .308 Win FCD, and I simply cannot determine what the difficulty is.

Here's the scoop: Without a cartridge in the shellholder, I can raise the press ram to the base of the die, and the die functions perfectly (the base of the die moves upward, causing all the crimping arms converge to the centre). Unfortunately, once a cartridge is present, the shellholder hits the base of the die, and the die simply stops functioning. The base doesn't shift upward any more, and the crimping arms don't converge to form a crimp. I take the cartridge out again, and everything works fine.

I have tried disassembling the die and cleaning everything out, then lightly lubricating everything; I have adjusted everything I can several times, all with no success. This die works perfectly in my hand press, but in my nice bench mounted press it simply won't work. Am I missing something? Anyone had a similar problem? This is the only problem I've ever had with a Lee die, and I'd hate to have to scrap it, but I'm running out of options. Thanks for any replies.

Erik.
 
Has it worked before, and just now crapped the bed?

You say it works in your hand press.....is that with a cartridge present?

If it's never worked before, it may be the die. The crimp collet may be too short and the cartridge is topping out before the die can do it's job. The collet does say 308 on it, right?
If it's just recently started pissing you off, it may be the trim length of your brass.

Call Lee and bounce it off of them. They'll probably replace it for free.

(E) :cool:
 
Until recently, I only reloaded straight-walled pistol cartridges and never had a problem with the FCDs. However, I've never been able to determine whether or not the FCD for the .357Sig works at all... I always get the feeling I'm missing something, some little detail that escapes me. No matter how I set it, I can crank that handle with all my might it never seems to do anything.

Sorry, I guess I'm not much help but I thought I'd mention that I too have had problems using FCDs designed for bottleneck cartridges.
 
Cerdan said:
Until recently, I only reloaded straight-walled pistol cartridges and never had a problem with the FCDs. However, I've never been able to determine whether or not the FCD for the .357Sig works at all... I always get the feeling I'm missing something, some little detail that escapes me. No matter how I set it, I can crank that handle with all my might it never seems to do anything.

Sorry, I guess I'm not much help but I thought I'd mention that I too have had problems using FCDs designed for bottleneck cartridges.
Click to expand...

The Lee FCD for bottleneck cartridges, and the Carbide FCD for straight cartridges are 2 totally different animals altogether.
 
Yes, one only needs to look at the dies to understand that.

The point of my previous post was to say that I too have the same problem using the Lee FCD designed for bottleneck cartridges.
 
You really should not have to use a L FCD for your .308 win. If you have a good neck die like Redding series B, the factory crimp becomes redundant. There's quite a few people that feels the neck die creates un equal pressure on the bullet, resulting in uneven release and inaccuracy.
 
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