Custom carbide Size Die

[M.A.D]

Finally got around to making a couple of Custom Carbide Sizing Dies for a mate who makes bullets. I cant wait for my Lee APP press to arrive and Automate it and make some more Carbide Size Dies for it..

[1hole]

Carbide is highly resistant to normal wear, carbide case sizer rings last for hundreds of thousands of uses but case hardened steel bullet sizers are pretty durable too. Your new sizers are nice but I can't imagine lead bullets ever causing a hardened steel bullet sizer to wear enough to measure so I wonder what your new carbide sizers will bring to the table. ???

[mattw]

I for one would love to see the NOE sizers for the Star made from carbide. They would be slicker, or at least my experience with carbide dies is that if they are polished to the same spec as steel, they are slicker.

[M.A.D]

Carbide is highly resistant to normal wear, carbide case sizer rings last for hundreds of thousands of uses but case hardened steel bullet sizers are pretty durable too. Your new sizers are nice but I can't imagine lead bullets ever causing a hardened steel bullet sizer to wear enough to measure so I wonder what your new carbide sizers will bring to the table. ???

My mate was going through a set of the Lee sizers every month. So roughly 90,000-100,000 And on top of that, Lee dont make a 0.3565 or a 0.3575 size die.

[MrHarmless]

Carbide is highly resistant to normal wear, carbide case sizer rings last for hundreds of thousands of uses but case hardened steel bullet sizers are pretty durable too. Your new sizers are nice but I can't imagine lead bullets ever causing a hardened steel bullet sizer to wear enough to measure so I wonder what your new carbide sizers will bring to the table. ???

I think the advantage of carbide is it's lubricity compared to steel, and it's a little more wear resistant.

But you're right, steel dies should last a long time, but I believe the wear mostly comes from contact with the pusher stems.

[EDG]

The cost of a solid carbide die that size is so great you could make 5 or 6 through hardened dies out of A2 tool steel for the same price. A worn steel die can always be honed to the next largest size and then reused.

[1hole]

My mate was going through a set of the Lee sizers every month. So roughly 90,000-100,000.

Wow, that's an impressive pile of loading and shooting in one month! (Hope he has a good Dillon press with a reusable lifetime warranty!)

More seriously, I've read that steel reloading dies are expected to FL size something like ~ 250,000 rounds before case sizer wear exceeds tolerance. And that's brass against hardened steel. Seems far softer lead bullets pushed through steel sizers would last nearly forever even for a commercial process.

BUT ... I'm sure your nice carbide bullet sizers will work well for a looong time!