Lee vs Bonanza seating die

[troyboy]

I have seen the question asked an infinite amount of times."Which dies are the best". The usual answer is Redding,Forster,Dillon,Rcbs,Lyman,Hornady. Most often Lee is last on the list so I decided to do a test to see the difference for myself. The press is a Lee classic cast single stage. The full length sizing die is Lee. The shellholder is Lee#2. Seating dies are the vaunted Bonanza bench rest and Lee dead length. The expander of the full length sizer was polished and all dies were disassembled and cleaned. The brass is once fired nickel plated Winchester fired in an unknown rifle. All brass was full length resized with the decapper expander installed. The brass was then trimmed with the lee trimmer,primer pockets cleaned and uniformed on the Rcbs case prep station. 20 cases were then primed on the press with Federal primers put into a Rcbs universal loading block. Charges of WW 760 ball powder were dispensed by the Rcbs chargemaster and poured into the cases through an Rcbs universal funnel. Sierra 150gn spire point bullets were then seated. 10 with the Bonanza seater and 10 with the Lee. Overall length was measured with the Hornady bullet comparator and a Central Tools Japan made dial caliper. Concentricity was measured on my home made tool with a Central Tools Japan made .001-1.000 dial indicator. The results were very suprising.

Lee: .0026 avg runout and .001 avg seating length difference 10 cartridges
Bonanza: .0023 avg runout and .0008 avg seating length difference 10 cartridges

Basically this test proved to me for production 7/8 dies in factory rifles that the best dies are the ones with the finish and features that a person chooses.

[firebrick43]

were you very careful in setting the boolit on the case straight or just set it there and plunge?? I wonder if the forster would better align boolits that are cocked somewhat in a fast paced production such as a progressive press??

[Garyshome]

Way more accurate then me!

[ascast]

Nice test - I really like to see people do tests like this. Now you night try using the Bonanza Co-AX press with that die, or a Lyman 310 just for giggles.

[RogerDat]

One of the funniest things I ever saw was my old boss over the course of 3 weeks traded in a $150 banjo at a loss to buy a $300 banjo, then trade in the $300 banjo at a loss to buy a $1300 banjo. All while taking beginner lessons (which never were followed through on). Watched him do the same thing with motorcycles (got to a Harley and fell over at a stop sign) and bicycles (English touring bike in basement of the shop never ridden)

Point being that you have to be pretty good or pretty dedicated to becoming good to justify the greater expense of a $1300 banjo. Figure it is the same with most equipment. Spending lots more than what you are actually going to accomplish with the equipment or well beyond the level of skill you intend to pursue makes little sense. Consider the acceptable range of deviation for the given application. Making plinking ammo vs. competitive shooter is not much different than what tools such as table saw do I need to make a bird house vs. china hutch. And the tool is irrelevant if I'm just going to develop a casual level of skill and am in it for fun.

[EDG]

Have you compared your results to the standard non dead length Lee Seaters?

Check out my comments on the .38-55 dies and see what you think about Lee dies in that caliber.
I know the Lee seaters are pretty sorry for seating short bullets in a .45-70. The design of the seater doe not straighten the bullets easily unless you spin the case as you start it upward in the die.
The Bonanza/Forester dies are exceptional for seating bullets in many calibers since I own about a dozen or more. I also like the Redding Competition seaters but they are so expensive that I rarely find them at prices I will pay. I normally use the older Bonanza seating dies for bottle neck rounds and the Reddings for BPCR rounds.

Price does not play much of a part in all of this if you buy used dies since there is not a lot of difference in the price of used dies other than the premium seating dies like the Reddings and to a lesser extent the Bonanza Foresters. . I consider my time a lot more valuable than messing with second rate dies.

RCBS also makes the window type (Vickerman style) seater with a sliding guide and a micrometer head.
This die is adaptable to many different cartridges by changing the bullet guide and the seating punch. I only have one that is used infrequently so I cannot report on its merit very much. But if your need to put together a quality seater for an odd ball round it will make it easy to do.