round nose seating screw for lyman dies

[oldbear1950]

Does anyone know if Lyman makes a round nose seating screw for their seating die? I actually have three sets of lyman dies, two I am keeping and one I am selling, and they all have a wad cutter/semi wad cutter seating screw. I tried to seat a round nose lead bullet, and the die left a circle imprinted on top of the bullet. Need help. Do not have any other dies for 38/357 mag

[metricmonkeywrench]

the seating screws more or less follow the same numbering convention as the top punches for the size dies, think some of this dates back to the 410 sets. Your .38 SWC top punches likely have a 429 stamped somewhere on them. The Round Nose would be marked 311.

If you look as the sizing dies they should also have a stamp of 38L (or 38S) stamped on them as well. Those are the basic "M" dies you read about here and there

As they are still in production you can likely get one from Lyman or trade a SWC set for a RN set

I have often wondered why we don't see a seating stem exchange (and top punch) here

[oldbear1950]

thanks, and you are right, as all have a 429 L on top of the seating screw/stem. I was able to order a round nose seating screw/stem from lyman but it took a while for them to find it
seems is not a common request anymore. So they only keep a limited amount in stock at any one time.

[metricmonkeywrench]

Had a similar problem when i was gathering RCBS die sets second hand, most all of the sets i got for 38/357 were all SWC until the last set which came with "spare" RN stems.

I believe that for both manufacturers there were sets that went out with both RN and SWC stems in the box.

Pistols are easy, the same numbering issue also goes for cast Rifle bullets but there are a ton more stems to contend with...