Seater / Sizer for 358429?

[Bob Jones]

Thanks to the kindness of a member here I finally got my hands on a 358429 and it's working great for me. What isn't working great is my seating die. The driving band in front of the crimp groove is causing the boolit to get wedged in the seating die and is driving me crazy trying to load them. It also squishes (technical term) the front of the driving band. I've got an OLD Hornday die set for .38/.357.

Anybody out there loading this bullet and have a recommendation for a new seater/sizer that works well with these boolits? I was looking at the RCBS Cowboy die, wondering if that would be better, says it's set up for lead. Thanks.

[crowbeaner]

I don't have any Hornady dies so I haven't had your experience with that bullet. I seat in one step and crimp in another. Are you sure the top driving band is sized to the same diameter as the lower bands? It sounds like it is larger in diameter, and may be too big for the die set you have. I use RCBS 38 dies with an added seat/crimp die in my Dillon to get the 2 step seat/crimp. I'd see if you have any lube buildup in the die making the fit too tight. I use the same top punch for lubesizing as I do for all my bullets # 429. If you aren't sizing all the bands that may be part of the problem. CB.

[Bob Jones]

The problem is that the seating stem also has the crimp in it, so they're connected. Hard to do without pix but the seating stem has about .1" of larger diameter, then a square step to a slightly smaller ID and then starts to curve in, pretty much the inverted profile of a round nose bullet. The front of the driving band hits the start of the curve of the inside of the seating stem. At one time they may have come with another seating stem for wadcutter style bullets, but when I got the dies this is the only seater they came with. Looking at other brands of dies it appears that the roll crimp is on the die body itself while the seating stem is independent.

Think I'll break down and order the RCBS Cowboy seater / sizer die. This one works fine for .38's with smaller bullets so I'll just keep one set up for 38 and one for 357. I just got a set of new RCBS dies from another member here and was real impressed with them, they're doing a great job for me with the .41's.