S&W 500 what dies to use!?

iamcanadianeh

iamcanadianeh

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I've got a Dillon 650 and I'm going to avoid paying through the nose for rounds, so it's more parts for the Dillon! :dancingbanana: What brand of dies do you guys have the best experiences with? I'm hoping to get some life out of my brass.
 
i've only used lee dies so that's all i can comment on, overall they are good and get the job done. i wish they made a factory crimp die, or let me buy the seat/crimp die body only. i pretty much shoot lead out of mine and when you seat and crimp with the same die it messes up sometimes, but i am putting alot of crimp on the rounds.

if it's just jacketed rounds then the seat/crimp die works just fine, but that's to expensive.

what bullets, weights are you planing on loading?

as far as my brass life goes i'm on the 8th or 9th loading of winchester and hornady brass (50 each). the only issue i have is with the hotter loads (what i shoot 90% of the time) the bullets get pulled out and sometimes jam the cylinder up. the next cleaning i will be annealing the brass to see if that fixes the issue.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
i've only used lee dies so that's all i can comment on, overall they are good and get the job done. i wish they made a factory crimp die, or let me buy the seat/crimp die body only. i pretty much shoot lead out of mine and when you seat and crimp with the same die it messes up sometimes, but i am putting alot of crimp on the rounds.

if it's just jacketed rounds then the seat/crimp die works just fine, but that's to expensive.

what bullets, weights are you planing on loading?
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I'm thinking the 350GR RS plated rounds, the other stuff is pretty pricey.
 
iamcanadianeh said:
I'm thinking the 350GR RS plated rounds, the other stuff is pretty pricey.
Click to expand...

almost as much as factory the first time around, 350 FTX hornady were $1 each and brass was $1 each, powder/primer was $0.18.

with casting i'm at .20-.25 cents a shot and shoot 350gr to 700gr bullets.
 
I use RCBS with the Hornady crimp die, works great! I don't know for a fact if the crimp die is needed since I was fighting with misfires which turned out to be caused by using pistol primers instead of rifle (don't make the same mistake, use large rifle, not large pistol - if in doubt, measure the pocket depth but unless the brass is super old, it'll be for rifle primers). But I like the crimp the Hornady die puts on the case.
 
TheJuggernaut said:
I use RCBS with the Hornady crimp die, works great! I don't know for a fact if the crimp die is needed since I was fighting with misfires which turned out to be caused by using pistol primers instead of rifle (don't make the same mistake, use large rifle, not large pistol - if in doubt, measure the pocket depth but unless the brass is super old, it'll be for rifle primers). But I like the crimp the Hornady die puts on the case.
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good point! i had my firing pin get fire cut by using mag pistol primers and hot loads.
 
I was going to buy the Redding titanium carbide dies but instead I have a set of Lee dies coming. Worse case scenario, I'm out only 35 bucks. I'm going to swap those junky Lee locking rings for the Forster cross bolt die rings and use the dies in my COAX press. Hopefully it works well. I have new Hornady brass and will be starting with 350 XTP's.
 
I have RCBS dies and am only loading for a single shot NEF rifle right now, they work great with jacketed commercial bullets but I have a lot of trouble getting my cast .501 sized bullets to chamber. Not sure the issue, hoping lee makes a proper factory crimp die eventually...
 
I've loaded around 500 rounds with the Lyman 3 die carbide set. I do prefer the the M die over other neck expanding dies. I've mostly loaded 375 grain cast lead, but I've also loaded 100 rounds of Hornady 350 grain XTP Mag bullets. I haven't fired them, but they all load smoothly into the cylinder. The seating die keeps consistency. I find pretty much every round I load will be at the same OAL as the first loaded round and generally may only vary by about 0.001". Only issue I tend to have tends to be when loading cast bullets. Every so often I'll need to clean out the seating die as I'll get bullet wax inside the die. This issue would exist with any die used anyways, but worth considering if you're loading cast.
 
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