Kind of a late comer to this one but you got very good answers. It helps to think of reloading dies as tools. A small base die is just another tool available to you "IF" you need it. But as with other similar items it's also a tool that you can choose to use even if you don't need it. But if you use it and don't need it you could be sizing your brass a lot more than needed. This can result in degraded accuracy and less to even poor case life.
Personally I've loaded for several ARs, a M1A, M1 Garand, Remington 742, Mas 49-56, and Browning BAR sporting rifle and probably a couple others. I haven't needed a small base die yet.
My friend actually got a small base die by mistake in his .308Win die set. He started getting case head separations after 3 to 4 reloads and couldn't figure out why. While looking over his process I noticed the "SB" stamped into the size die. Problem solved.
Motor
|
   
   
|
|
Reply With Quote
