Die frustration - help please!

[selmerfan]

Okay,
So a couple members here were kind enough to trade me/send me a good sample of 311284 and 311299 boolits for me to size, check, and lube for my .30-06. I'm shooting a M70 Classic FWT SS/Walnut which slugged out at .3095. I have a .311" sizing die in my Lyman 4500. The trouble comes when I'm trying to seat the boolits. The upper end of my Redding standard seating die doesn't allow my cast boolits to go into the die! When I "slugged" the upper end of the die it came out with a measurement of .309", great for .308" diameter jacketed bullets, not so much for my .311" cast boolits. What do you guys do in this situation? I read through the thread on die modifications, but I'm not a machinist, nor do I have access to the tools, I'd bugger up the dies even if I did. Should I purchase another die and have it honed out? There's a Forster Ultra BR .30-06 seating die for sale on another site I frequent for a VERY good price, I might buy it and have them ream out the floating chamber to .311" for me. Would that be a possible solution? Do I need a separate die for cast boolits? How many of you have separate dies for cast and jacketed? Thanks!
Selmerfan

[Mk42gunner]

I haven't had that problem,.... yet. Do you have any other 30-31 caliber dies the you could borrow a seating die from? My RCBS dies in .30-06 seat .311 dia boolits just fine.


Robert

[selmerfan]

I have some .30-30 and .308 dies, but the .308 are Forster BR dies and the .30-30 won't fit a .30-06 case...

[selmerfan]

Wow, talk about making up a problem! Why I was assuming my cast boolits should fit all the way through the upper end of the die I'll never know, I should have just tried seating a dummy round first. Not problems, because obviously the nose is narrower in diameter than the driving bands. Must have been a Monday...

[docone31]

I am familiar with that also. I use Lee dies, and the same thing happened to my paper patch loads. I sent the die, and two wraps to Lee, and two weeks later it came back, the castings fit perfectly.
We do something the industry has kinda gone from. They make dies for jacketeds now, and castings are the past.
You will end up with designated dies. Really, not such a bad thing. the .309s for jacketeds, the modified dies for cast loads.