6.5 Jap Reloading Issues!

[school of mines]

I need some cost effective ideas for reloading fat 6.5 mm boolits! The bore on my 6.5 Jap is large. I can cast boolits big enough, but my Lee die set will not load the fat boolits without damaging them. I suspect I need a larger expander and a larger seating die.

So, I thought I would get a Lyman M die but need to know what diameter the expander is. Does anyone know?

Or, I can get a custom sized expander rod from Lee? Has anyone done this?

And I need to hone out the neck area on my Lee seating die. Who does this?

Once I dial in the boolits size, who makes custom diameter push through lee sizers?

I am looking for the most cost effective way to do this so I am open to any and all ideas! (Other than selling the rifle! Ha!)

[Char-Gar]

I have a Jap Type I, with a bore of .269. That means a cast bullet of .270 or larger. I bought an old Hollywood 6.5 Jap seating die on Ebay and it will accommodate bullets of up to .273, so I am good to go there.

I have a Lyman expanding plug for the M die, and I think it is about .262 but I have not measured it in a while. I very well may have to make one a little larger.

Lee will make Custom push through sizers, if you trust their quality control, which I don't. The best best is to contact our board member "Buckshot". He can make the custom sizer and probably everything else you need as well.

I understand the desire to keep cost down, but in this cast bullet sport, we often have the need for custom tooling. We are lucky to have guys like Buckshot around who can take care of us.

[Larry Gibson]

If you've a 7x57 seating die that can be used to seat the fatter 6.5 bullets in the jap.

Larry Gibson

[school of mines]

Thanks for the ideas! I wonder if a .270 seating die would work as well?

[Mk42gunner]

A .270 seating dies would be large enough since jacketed bullets for the .270 are .277", but it might be too long. If you happen to have an extra .270 seating die laying around you could try it, if it is too long then grind the bottom of the die until it is short enough to work.

Robert

[smokemjoe]

My Lee 41 swiss seating die was like this also . 432 bullets stuck in the die, I found a drill bite 7/16 and drilled it out, the die was soft, Try this with your die, You can heat it up with a torch to make it soft to drill also, I done this also to a 458 mag. seating die for my French and Wendell rifles for larger bullets, Hope this helps, Joe

[Ed in North Texas]

A .270 seating dies would be large enough since jacketed bullets for the .270 are .277", but it might be too long. If you happen to have an extra .270 seating die laying around you could try it, if it is too long then grind the bottom of the die until it is short enough to work.

Robert

That sounds good to me. Didn't want to be adjusting my 6.8 and 7mm seating dies all the time, and don't have the desire to soften and drill the 6.5 seater either. Since I don't own a .270 (Jack is rolling over), I picked up a spare .270 seater to use with the 6.5s. Will grind it down if need be when I start shooting the 6.5s (when I get a round tuit).

[madsenshooter]

My Lee 41 swiss seating die was like this also . 432 bullets stuck in the die, I found a drill bite 7/16 and drilled it out, the die was soft, Try this with your die, You can heat it up with a torch to make it soft to drill also, I done this also to a 458 mag. seating die for my French and Wendell rifles for larger bullets, Hope this helps, Joe

That's an interesting thing about Lee Dies Joe. In the past, I have cracked a lot of other brands of dies, using them as casehead swage dies, they were just too hard. but my Lee dies, used for the same purpose have held up.

[Ed in North Texas]

That's an interesting thing about Lee Dies Joe. In the past, I have cracked a lot of other brands of dies, using them as casehead swage dies, they were just too hard. but my Lee dies, used for the same purpose have held up.

Sounds like Lee heat treats their dies in a similar manner to the way Mauser receivers were treated. Surface hardness backed up by a softer, more resilient, core.

[Wayne Smith]

Send your die and a couple of boolits to Lee with an explanation. They will open it up. Did for my 8x56R Steyr.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

for expanding a rifle case mouth for a fat cast boolit
if you don't have a Lyman M die.
What I use is the next size larger Lee brand FL size/decap die.
Lee calls there case mouth expander button "easy expander"
see their website or current catalog.
it has a very gradual ramp/expander.
I like it better than Lee's universal flaring die...and
I have a large selection of Lee dies for various calibers.

for my 257x6.5 Robt using a .269 boolit
I use a Lee 7mm Rem Mag FL siz/decap die for flaring the case mouth.
I adjust the decap/expander button as high as it goes in the die body.
with such a gradual expander, it's easy to set and works great.
Jon

[madsenshooter]

There's another of my good ideas that I gave away. I wrote Lee sometime ago about their expander rod after breaking the linkage on one of their little hand presses because the neck was stuck on the then straight sided expander. Drew what I had come up with and sent it to them. In Lee's book, he credits one of his sons for the idea, so I know who got the letter.

[school of mines]

Quick update! Loaded some .266" plain based boolits over a starter load of Trail Boss and took them to the range. The resulting group was large to say the least (one keyhole! Ha!). I knew I needed a .270 boolit, but couldn't wait to try and put some rounds through my rifle. I did find a old herters .270 Win seating die, so I will try to use that next with my .270" Lee cruise missiles. It was just a thrill to put rounds through a historic rifle that hasn't been fired for quite some time!

Thanks again for all of the advice!

[3006guns]

Just a thought.......why not "beagle" the mold and see what size the result is? The general consenses seems to be that your boolit should be as much as .003" over groove diameter. I've had to do that on several of my milsurps and it works well. In addition, I've cast the boolits, lubed but NOT sized them. If the assembled round will chamber with no problems it will be safe to shoot. The result is a projectile that works well with moderate charges of Trail Boss.

I've also noticed that the Jap rifling seems to prefer a harder alloy.

[swheeler]

I need some cost effective ideas for reloading fat 6.5 mm boolits! The bore on my 6.5 Jap is large. I can cast boolits big enough, but my Lee die set will not load the fat boolits without damaging them. I suspect I need a larger expander and a larger seating die. So, I thought I would get a Lyman M die but need to know what diameter the expander is. Does anyone know?

Or, I can get a custom sized expander rod from Lee? Has anyone done this?

And I need to hone out the neck area on my Lee seating die. Who does this?

Once I dial in the boolits size, who makes custom diameter push through lee sizers?

I am looking for the most cost effective way to do this so I am open to any and all ideas! (Other than selling the rifle! Ha!)

SOM: I have several seater dies that have been opened up to accept a fat cast bullet, slotted dowel with emery cloth in a drill press. Just keep going until your fat bullet will slip through. My 6.5 swede dies use a 6.5 Carcano expander and 7.62x54R use 303 brit expander, or you could take a 270 win expander and emery it down to desired diameter.