B&A 22cal and 6mm die Q?'s

[btrapr1]

I bought these dies today from a guy who said that he bought them as Biehler & Astles dies some 12+ years ago. He said that the dies are not marked but believes that they made them that way at times. He never used them because he was suing a set of Sherman dies at the time (which I just missed by about a week).

I have not rec'd them yet, but wanted some feedback and any help you guys are willing to offer!

The punches diameters are as follows; #1- .2243", #2- .2223, #3-.2221, #4-.2216, #5-2182, #6-.2163, #7-.2152, and #8-.2015! As seen in the attached pics

Here are the pictures



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HE also sent the following description and pics about some 22 bullets that were in the bottom of the box____

Observations: these 22 bullets are undersize big time. I think the operator was using insufficient core seating pressure and/ or the wrong punch for the batch of jackets and/ or he didn't know how to set-up dies and/ or he had a bad lot of jackets. 22 bullet's dia. should be a minimum .2240" and some people go up to .2245".

There are other symptoms of insufficient seating pressure. The lead line isn't good, actually it's bad (see pic 3). There wasn't enough core seating pressure to take the radius out of the jacket base (see pics 3 & 4). New jacket bases are convex with a radius at where the base will be. May not show up on pics. I don't think this was the dies' fault. Looks like operator error to me.
The jackets are inconsistent in OA length. I did not measure wall thickness uniformity, as cores were seated and in the way.

1 - Bullet & 5 core seated jackets- jacket diameter/ case length;
bullet .2186" /.818"
jacket #1) .2185"/ .808"
jacket #2) .2187"/ .811"
jacket #3) .2187"/ .809"
jacket #4) .2187"/ .816"
jacket #5) .2185"/ .815"

Here are the pcitures______




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Here is what he sent me on the dies____
Attached are 2 - sets dies, top & bottom ejector frame assembly complete, and 8 punches for dies.
Pic # 1 is the 22 set. L to R- lead squirt die, core seating die, pointing die.
Pic # 2 is the 6mm set. L to R- same sequence.
Pic # 3 is the top & bottom ejector frame assembly complete and 8 punches for dies.

I bought these dies as being made by Biehler & Astles, commonly called B&A dies. These are not signed or serial numbered or anything. I don't even know if they did that for their dies. They have a great reputation, in their day. I'm sure their dies are still making winning bullets for shooters today.

[scrapcan]

I have scanned the instruction sheet for B&A dies if you are interested. Send me a PM. I put all of them except the last page on a previous thread. I those should still be available a few pages down.