A quick experiment with the Lee Carbide FCD

[prs]

My press is set-up to do 45ACP and I just got a nice big batch of large primer brass clean and dry so being bored and with a few minutes of time on my hands I did the following. All the brass is/was once fired Starline fire formed in my one and only 45 ACP pistol, a Ruger SR1911. With Lee T452-230-1R sized to .452 in the push through Lee sizer, the fit was too loose in fire formed brass; as expected. Ran a few cases through my 45ACP CFCD by pushing them all the way throuh in a "bulge buster" set-up. The sized boolits would not thumb press in and as as close as I could measure using an internal digital caliper for the cases and a micrometer for the boolits, the potential resistance fit would be almost exactly .001". So, I could use the carbide factory crimp die without the crimp functon to full length size my rounds; but would the result be different than using a typical size/deprime die? Next I took the bulge buster sized cases and ran them through my Lee full length size die, except I turned the die out to only size where the boolit would occupy. The full length size die further sized the case, obviously so by eyeballeing the case and as proven by the internal calipers reading almost .001 smaller yet. To read the case's internal diamenters I did had to chamfer the internal rims a bit, just at the rim though. Is this pretty consistent, or do others note the Lee CFCD to be just the same diameter as the full lenght sizer?

prs

[bigboredad]

mine Have been proven to be as yours

[ipijohn]

Mine also.

[MikeS]

I just measured 3 dies, a Lyman 45ACP carbide sizer, an RCBS 45Colt carbide sizer, and the Lee CFCD. the Lyman=.464 the RCBS=.466 and the CFCD=.470 I already knew the Lyman & RCBS dies were within .002 of each other, and that the RCBS was the larger of the 2. I'm surprised that you guys find you can use the CFCD as a replacement for the sizing die for 45ACP. I'm curious if the CFCD wouldn't be a good sizing die for 45Colt, as every time I reload it I wind up with a cartridge that has a waist, larger at the boolit, and base, but thinner in between them.

I've already started using the 45Colt sizer for ACP resizing, as I was having a similar problem, when I would resize cases in my Lyman sizing die I would always end up with cartridges with a very slight bulge around the boolit, but that doesn't happen if I use the 45Colt sizer. I've often wondered if the size difference is due to different cartridges, or different companies?

This IS what you're talking about, right? Or am I missing something?

[prs]

Mike, what was in the back of my mind was getting an external case size die that yields an internal diameter pretty close to what the internal size/bell (M die or such) die will leave. Less working of the brass and maybe less rebound of the brass and maybe less downsizing of my soft lead boolits by the brass. Well actually I was jest a'fart'n around too.

Just about every 45 Colt round I make is a bit "wasp waisted" as you describe. Maybe the full length size dies are biased toward copper clads. When loading for my Ruger single actions and Marlin rifles, I can get by with using the brass as form fired, regardless of which fire arm shot the round previously. I simply set the full length die to only size the protion occupied by the boolit and used the long decap pin as intended for the universal depriming die. Those rounds were almost devoid of the wasp waist and may have been totally straight except for my use of a .454 boolit in my Colt rounds. My goal in doing so was to reduce blowback in the Marlin with less than full house black powder rounds. Worked great, until my son decided on another make of revolver that will not accept the form fired ammo from the Marlins or Rugers.

prs