35 Whelen Die Question

[AnthonyB]

I ordered a set of Hornady dies for my 35 Whelen. The seating die has a floating expanding stem that I'm sure works great with jacketeted bullets, but is too small for my .360 boolits. I don't want to go to the trouble of having the die modified; so am looking for recommendations on other brands. Any thoughts? Tony

[MT Gianni]

I cannot help you but note that my RCBS dies accept my .359 boolits OK.

[HORNET]

You could get a stem for the 9.3x62 and polish it down. Should be available as a repair part at fairly low cost and you can ake it down to give the case neck tension that you want.

[NVcurmudgeon]

Tony, my Redding dies work just fine with .360" boolits. It is handy to have a three die set with a true neck sizing die, especially if you form cases from .270 or '06 and fire a lot of light CB loads, say 1600-1700 fps. When I partial FL sized in a FL die, after about ten firings, the cases would be shortened in head to shoulder distance and misfires were frequent. The cure was to use a true neck sizer. Dunno why, but factory RP cases don't seem to suffer from this trouble.

[StarMetal]

NvCurmudgeon got it down perfect. Tony you can get that sliding bullet seating part separate from Hornady and they might argue with you about paying for it. You could then open it up as need.

Joe

[357maximum]

I go out of my way to seek hornady dimension dies. Sure I have had to enlarge a few to accept larger boolits, but then you have a custom seater that comes with THEE best case neck expander available...especially if you use .270 brass in your whelen as I do. With the hornady xpandr and a shot of liquid lanolin/alchohol...it is a 1 pass process from 270 to 35 whelen....TADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I have a set of hornady dies for all of favorite shooters ,some of them even have 2 sets (1 for j-words and 1 for cast).

I neck size only on my whelen after the initial firing and I run full whelen j-word speed with the BRP 360-220 and a bunch of H4350. I am at 5 recharges on some of my 270 RP brass in the whelen...no issues yet. Lastmanout sold me a keeper on that mauser sporter 98 rifle and with the above load it is nutsy-cuckoo crazy how well it shoots.

[Nrut]

AnthonyB,
You said "The seat die has a floating expanding stem"... Are you talking about the floating seating bushing??

If so .357maximum is right about the Hornady's being great for cast boolit loading...You can hone out that sliding seating sleeve or call Hornady and ask them to send you a .366/9.3 seating sleeve..

[Bret4207]

My 20+ year old Hornady New Dimension dies work with boolits up to .360+. I'm sure they'll work if you get the dimensions right. The only thing is the sliding sleeve tends to get sucked out when the lube builds up.

[AnthonyB]

Nrut:
Roger, I meant seating sleeve. Great idea on the .366 sleeve; I'll give them a call. Tony

[SPRINGFIELDM141972]

I bet if you explain to Hornady the situation, they will send you the part you need free of charge. Hornady has treated me better than all of the other manufacturers combined. It defiantly wouldn't hurt to ask.

Regards
Everett

[AnthonyB]

Called Hornady and talked to a guy name Lonnie in their custom die shop. He thought the .366 seater sleeve would produce ammo with too much runout. He also suggested honing the existing sleeve, and said Hornady would make a custom sleeve for $30 if I wanted to go that route. I'll have to think on this one some more - the Redding solution NVcurmedgeon mentioned is awfully tempting.
Tony

[357maximum]

a slit dowel/ electric drill/ piece of wet)(dry paper will fix your issue .........

and it's

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[AnthonyB]

Waited a couple weeks and called back to just order parts instead of explaining the problem to the custom die people. I told the nice lady on the phone what I wanted to order (zip spindle and .366 alignment sleeve) without explaining the problem. Parts arrived today at no charge from Hornady - she put it all to warranty.
Tony

[lmcollins]

I like Hornady dies with the floating seater. It is easy to disassemble them. I'd have taken the original sleevee, and put it in the lathe chuck, or drill press chuck and polished it out a couple of thousands with WD 40 and a dowel, and wet-or-dry paper until your bullet just fit.