Harter66
07-21-2015, 03:59 PM
A friend once told me I was the American icon . Life gave me lemons and a load of manure and I'd trade the manure for sugar make lemonade, plant and orchard ,and complain about the sunshine till the trees had me picking fruit in the shade.
I aquired an AR in 223 . I had a mould for an old 222 and a 225 sizer so all I needed was a set of 223 dies and really just a sizer as a couple of yrs ago I had unstuck a 223 seating die in a Lee turret for a a fellow who gave me the die for my trouble. (It came right out with a 24"pipe wrench and a 15"Crescent) . Being a naturally inclined titewad I bought the Lee RGB set ,I already have 2 case holders and the scoop for the 222 . As my luck runs ,I get fat/heavy Lee moulds, the expander/unbreakable decapper rod is out of spec and I think maybe the neck in the die is fat , it leaves the neck ID at .221 which my Herter's neck reamer case trimmer barely scuffs inside . Which is great since I have no intention of loading jacketed. The coolest thing about Lee seating dies is that floating nose bushing, flip it over and it's a flat nose seater . Which I did and it woks great but there's a burr or rough cut or something going on with the crimp shoulder inside the die it'll crush a case before it'll flatten out the flare . This is actually a good thing it made me use the RCBS spare to apply a just noticed crimp and flatten the flare out .
sure I could lap the die or send it back but I'd have almost what I paid for the set in it again and I shouldn't seat and crimp at the same time anyway .
Long story short I bought a set of out of spec dies for a really low price and they are nearly perfect for the intended use. Yep some days ya get to make lemonade all day long.
I aquired an AR in 223 . I had a mould for an old 222 and a 225 sizer so all I needed was a set of 223 dies and really just a sizer as a couple of yrs ago I had unstuck a 223 seating die in a Lee turret for a a fellow who gave me the die for my trouble. (It came right out with a 24"pipe wrench and a 15"Crescent) . Being a naturally inclined titewad I bought the Lee RGB set ,I already have 2 case holders and the scoop for the 222 . As my luck runs ,I get fat/heavy Lee moulds, the expander/unbreakable decapper rod is out of spec and I think maybe the neck in the die is fat , it leaves the neck ID at .221 which my Herter's neck reamer case trimmer barely scuffs inside . Which is great since I have no intention of loading jacketed. The coolest thing about Lee seating dies is that floating nose bushing, flip it over and it's a flat nose seater . Which I did and it woks great but there's a burr or rough cut or something going on with the crimp shoulder inside the die it'll crush a case before it'll flatten out the flare . This is actually a good thing it made me use the RCBS spare to apply a just noticed crimp and flatten the flare out .
sure I could lap the die or send it back but I'd have almost what I paid for the set in it again and I shouldn't seat and crimp at the same time anyway .
Long story short I bought a set of out of spec dies for a really low price and they are nearly perfect for the intended use. Yep some days ya get to make lemonade all day long.