Lee Collet Die

[FLHTC]

Has anyone modified a collet die to work with K Hornet brass? I believe that the collet can be opened inside to accommodate the new location of the shoulder but I wanted to ask here to see if anyone tried it.

[dudel]

Lee will make you one for $70. http://leeprecision.com/collet-necksizing-dies/

Don't know what their present turnaround time is. When I needed a custom sizing die, a year or so ago, they were not taking any custom order. A member here, Buckshot, made me a sizing die for about the same price, and had it out to me in a couple of days. The workmanship was EXCELLENT. Don't know if he can mod a collet die for you; but it might be one place to start.

[5Shot]

One thing I have done is to glue a spacer on top of the shell holder so that I could leave a small portion of the neck unsized to add more support and center it in the chamber. I just used a bronze bushing and gorilla glue then ran it up under a die so that it was square and tight. Then I used a dremel to remove the portion I didn't need. They come in all variety of thicknesses and ID/OD.

[fryboy]

i use a temp fix,i use two 3/4" washers on top of the shell holder , if i ever get a second shell holder i've though of doing much like 5shot has done/suggest, i originally thought of grinding the collet part of the body down and then i got a regular 22 hornet barrel lolz , the two washers work albeit it does slow the process down a tad ( not being in a hurry while reloading has saved me many headaches/worries [shrugz] )

[FLHTC]

Thanks and Merry Christmas

[W.R.Buchanan]

The problem is that the chamber of the collet is formed before the collet is split. IN order to further machine the interior of the collet you would have to put shim stock in the splits so the collet can't close when you chuck it up.

You would also have to hold it some way and I would put it in a 5C collet entering from the back.

Then you'd bore the back end out until it was close or slightly bigger than the K Hornet case.

So it is doable if you have the machinery.

Randy

[FLHTC]

Yes I figured I'd have to shim the cuts to maintain the symmetry. I think I'm going to go with acraglassing a riser on the shell holder. Sizing won't require enough force to ever become an issue with epoxy. I still come across regular hornet brass and it would make more sense to leave the die as it is.

[dragon]

Isn't the shoulder moved up and the neck shortened? Perhaps I'm not remembering the k-hornet dimensions but I think the mod would be easy...

I wanted a collet neck size die for 7.62x54R. What I did was to use a .308 Win die. From the factory, the 308 die will hit the top of the shoulder on the 7.62x54R since the neck on the 308 starts just a bit lower on the cartridge. Instead of spacers on the shell holder, what I did was to remove the collet and put a hose clamp around it and tightened till it was approximately straight (wouldn't really need to do this even). I then took a stone on a die grinder and touched the bottom of the neck portion. I just kept placing a cartridge in a shell holder into the collet and looked through the slits untill I removed enough that the shoulder was no longer touched when the shell holder contacted the collet.

The neat thing here is that I still use the die for 308 Win. It simply doesn't size the bottom ~.020" of the neck is all. Some day I will get another die just for the 308 so that I can trim and bevel the top of the 7.62 collet for cast bullets (the neck lenghts are different), but in the mean time I haven't seen any accuracy issues. ;)

I plan to do the same for the 30-30AI once I have the chamber reamed.

-Dragon