Lee's FCD Pistol die....revisited

[HeavyMetal]

Many years ago I bought a 9mm FCD pistol die to attempt several things I thought were causing me issues in reloading the 9mm Luger round.


Upon use I found it easily over crimped, resized every round, and boolit, and would seat boolits deeper as dirt filled up inside the die and really over worked my brass!

I had several shooting friends experience the same problems and we kind of set the FCD dies aside and quit using them.


Last year I moved into the world of the 40 S&W, bought a CZ Tactical Sport, and started reloading the 40.


With the odd failure to feed completely I started playing around with crimp and overall length, thinking I was to long and running up against the rifling leade, or over crimping or both.


I once again considered the pistol version of Lee's FCD die thinking maybe the case's were slightly Glocked, still love the rifle FCD, and so ordered a FCD die for the 40 S&W and, to help with shipping I got one for the 45 Auto as well.

Upon receiving the dies I went against my usual methods of loading and actually read the instructions!!


Several surprises were revealed to me as I looked at the instructions: gone was the ability to seat bullets! The seater plug having been replaced by a hollow plug with a very nice taper ground into the ID of one end. No crimp cut into the die itself everything was controlled with the hollow crimping plug.

I also bought the bulge buster option which replaces the top of the FCD die and removed the hollow crimping plug.

Cautions were printed concerning heavily "Glocked" Brass, why do people buy those things??, as the web of the case may have been damage in a unsupported chamber.

Fortunately I had no such problem and actual found my early Lyman carbide die set was oversizing my case except at the very base, 100 already sized case's were put through the Bulge Buster set up with almost no contact with the carbide sizer ring in the FCD die until it actually got to the rim of the case where I felt some slight resistance as the case went into the die.


Next I thought I'd run 100 already loaded rounds of 40 S&W through the FCD die and set it up according to instruction:


Run the die body down until it touched the shell holder, insert loaded round into shell holder and run it up into the die.

Held firmly against the base of the die you then adjust the crimping plug in the same manner you would a seating plug: you turn the adjustment knob in until the crimp plug touches the boolit, retract the loaded round and adjust the crimping plug in a half a turn!

According to Lee this should be set to provide all the taper crimp needed to make any round feed properly, and if not a slight turn in should be attempted.

After following the set up instructions, with the half turn in, Used a magic marker to help set up that half turn real easy, I ran 100 pre loaded rounds through the FCD die.

What a difference!! I felt the crimp hit on the first round and the case's were much smoother at the mouth after being run in the die, guess I was afraid of getting to much crimp and never got it all ironed out until the FCD die did it's job!

I have maligned Lee for the pistol version of the FCD die many times, glad I took the time to see a later production version of the FCD die.

I thought a posting explaining my experience might help others and offer an apology to Lee for not having taken a second look at the FCD die sooner.

heavyMetal

[Mauser48]

I also use one in 40. It works great for me. Never tried the older one. I load this for a glock anddon't use the bulge buster and have never had a problem. Just load light and don't fire the brass too many times.

[Bayou52]

I use a Lee FCD for every caliber I reload. They work and work well for me.

Bayou52

[tazman]

Lots of people complain that the Lee FCD sizes their boolits too small inside the brass. I am not saying this won't happen since things are manufactured to tolerances(variations). I haven't had this happen with mine. Mine only touch the case sides if the boolit is oversize or the brass is extremely thick for some reason.
With normal brass and normal boolits, the FCD just crimps my boolits in place. I don't have feed problems or crimp problems when using a properly adjusted FCD.

[dudel]

I use the Lee FCD for .380, 9mm, 40SW, 45GAP and 45 ACP. Work great. Shoot plenty of Glocks. I also prefer to seat and crimp in two steps.

The "glocked" brass was an issue with the first gen 40S&W. Case support improved in later generations. Of course, being a Glock, those first gen models are probably still running strong. I've never run into a 40 case that needed a push through (but I know I can do it if needed with the FCD).

One of the Lee products I have no complaints about. Reading instructions certainly helps.

[nagantguy]

Thank you for the update on FTD version 2, sounds like it's worth a second look.

[Outer Rondacker]

Mine works great. Then again I keep my dies clean. Some times its the simple things that make the biggest impressions. Thanks for the update. To think I was just one of the lucky ones.

[mdi]

Did you find out why your cartridges needed an FCD?

[HeavyMetal]

mdi

looks like they were slightly under crimped, LOL! will shoot some Sunday and find for sure!

[kryogen]

I don't see a need for the lee pistol FCD. The last 1000 rounds that I have reloaded without it were fine.
I use a regular taper crimp die.

I don't want my loaded rounds to go through a carbide sizer.
They cant be oversize anyway, they come out of my FL die at station 1. I don't get it.

[HeavyMetal]

mdi:
Looks like lak of crimp was the issue with my 40 rounds, a trip through the FCD die crimped them correctly and did not size my boolits, at last it looks like Lee got it right!

kryogen

The original idea behind the FCD die was to make sure every round fed correctly in the gun and no jam's happened because of under crimping, over sized boolits ( or bullets as you wish) or poorly sized case's.

I did explain my early issue with this idea and what looks like Lee's upgrades to the FCD die.

In my case the push through system was used on 100 rounds and then plain sizing for a second 100 rounds. The push through case's had already been sized with a Lyman Carbide 40 die and slid through the FCD die without touching anywhere on the carbide ring, matter of fact I had a hard time as most of them had been so severely sized the fell back out of the die when I removed the ram from the base of the case!

I seated boolits then crimped with the FCD die in a separate station. The "new" FCD die does not seat boolits!

AS far as your case's coming out of your FL sizing die correctly? This does not prevent an oversized boolit from creating to big a case diameter and causing a stoppage in your firearm.

The FCD die will prevent that and alert you to the issue as resistance will increase greatly should an over sized boolit get in the loading cycle.

In my opinion the angle of the taper crimp "plug" in the FCD die allows a much more liberal allowance for case length without fear of over crimping, unlike some of the older die sets out there, no particular company having mud slung at them just an observation concerning case length!