Help with Lee dies

[Brother_Love]

I just purchased these 38/357 dies from classifieds. First set of Lee dies. I know the left one is a sizer and right is seater die.

What are 2 & 3 called in Lee terms. I went to the Lee website but could not find a download of die instructions.

Thanks, malcolm

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q225/revrun4/357Leedies.jpg

[Tim357]

#3 is the inside expander/ flare die. I don't own any 4 die Lee sets but I would hazard a guess that #2 is a Factory Crimp Die. These are for pistol, correct?

Tim sends

[Brother_Love]

yes, 38/357. I edited OP. thanks, Malcolm

[Guesser]

Go to Lee precision and down load the instructions, fast and easy.

[Doby45]

1 and 3 are easy

1. Deprimer/sizer
2. FCD
3. Powder thru/expander
4. Bullet seater/crimp

A pretty good way to tell the bullet seat/crimp die from the FCD is, the FCD will have a carbide ring in it to post size the case if needed.

[noylj]

you can go to leeprecision.com and watch videos:
http://leeprecision.com/html/HelpVideos/video.html

As stated, the die on the left is the sizing die. The decapper appears to be sticking down too far. You may need to screw the pin up a little (I am assuming that without instructions, you bought them used?).
Raise your shell holder all the way to the top and screw the sizing die until it just touches the shell holder. Now, lower the shell holder, insert an empty case, and raise the case into the sizing die. If the primer pops out and you can raise the shell holder all the way up, simply tighten down the lock ring and you are set to resize cases. If the case won't go all the up, the decapping pin is too far down. You will need to turn the lock ring on top of the die to loosen the decapping stem and turn the stem up until the case goes all the way into the die (shell holder and die just touch). Lock the upper ring to lock the stem in place. Now you are ready to resize cases.
After you resize the case you will need to prime the cases. Your press may have some way to prime the case on the ram's downstroke or you will need a bench or hand priming tool.
Next, you need to set the powder-through expander die (the second on the right where the top is the powder funnel.Be sure the powder-through expander is in the die and the powder funnel top is screwed on fairly tight. Raise the shell holder up and, while raised, screw the PTE die down until it just kisses the shell holder. Now, raise the die up 1/2 turn. Place a sized, but not primed, case in the shell holder. Raise the ram, forcing the case into the PTE die. Lower the ram and remove the case. Place the case on the bench. Place a bullet on top of the case to see if it sits on the case with the case mouth flared to clear the bullet. If the bullet sits there without rocking and the case mouth will not scrape the bullet as it is seated, the die is adjusted properly. Adjust the die up or down as required, resize the case, and try to expand the case again. When the case has the proper flare, place it back in the shell holder and run the case back into the die. while the case is in the die, turn the lock ring to lock the die in position. Set the unprimed case aside, and you can expand and then charge each case with powder.
If you have the Lee Pro Auto-Disk powder measure, simply unscrew the powder funnel top on the die and screw the powder measure into the die. You will now place the appropriate powder in the measure. Using a primed case, cycle the powder measure about ten times (pouring the powder in the case back into the measure's hopper after each charge cycle. Then, charge the case again and pour the powder into a properly zeroed balance to verify the powder charge is correct. If using the Auto-Disk, you may need to make a slight adjustment to the die since the powder measure and the powder funnel top do not always cycle the same the the flare may change.
Now, you have a bunch of sized, primed, expanded, and charged cases. Inspect to verify they all have the same approximate charge of powder. Toss any questionable ones on the balance and determine the charge thrown. If it is correct, inspect the case to determine why the correct charge did not look right. If not correct, pour the powder back in the measure, inspect the case, and re-cycle the case through the powder measure.
Now, all the cases have the correct charge of powder and you are ready to seat a bullet.
Place the unprimed case you set aside in the shell holder and raise the ram. Screw the seating stem on the top of the seating die (die on the right or #4 in the picture) all the way to the top. This gets the seating stem out the way while you screw the die down. Screw the die down until you feel it make contact with the mouth of the case (this is the crimp rings and we do not want it in our way right now). Screw the die up one or two turns and turn the lock ring to lock the die.
Lower the ram and place a bullet on the unprimed case. Raise the ram so the bullet and case enter the die. Screw down the seating stem until it makes contact with the bullet. Lower the ram a little and screw the seating stem down about 2 turns. Raise the ram so the bullet is seated into the case. Remove the case with the seated bullet and measure the cartridge's overall length and compare to the cartridge max COL. You should be over the maximum (otherwise you seating die is more sensitive than any of mine.
Cycle the case in and out of the die as you make small adjustments to the seating stem until you are at max COL or the recommended COL of the bullet manufacturer. I prefer to find the longest COL that will fit my magazine (or cylinder) and feed and chamber in my gun.
When you get the your initial target COL, you will (I know this sounds crazy, but that's the way it is) have to turn the seating stem all the way up, unlock your die, and turn the die down until the flare is just removed (you DO NOT want any crimp yet, just to remove the flare). Take the dummy round out and press the nose of the bullet against your workbench using only thumb pressure. The bullet should not be pressed into the case. If the bullet is pressed in with just thumb pressure, you will need to see if the expander insert if too large. It should, as I remember, about 0.002-0.003" less than bullet diameter. If that is OK, you may have unintentionally over-crimped the case and you should see that the case near where the base of bullet is will be distorted. You will need to fix whichever condition you have.
You need to take your gun's barrel out (or use your revolver's cylinder) and drop the case (no powder/no primer) into the barrel. If it scraps down, you have left some slight flare on the case. If it "clunks" down but the head of the cartridge is not flush or just slightly below the barrel hood (or the rear of the cylinder), your sizing is good but your COL is too long. If the case head is significantly below the barrel hood (revolvers head space on the rim, so unless you are shooting an auto pistol round in a revolver, head space is already set and you just need to ensure that the head of bullet isn't sticking out the front of the cylinder), the COL is too short. If too short, use a kinetic bullet puller and try to increase the COL (you don't have to remove the bullet, but you probably will).
Again, you will go back, turn the die body up so the crimp area is out of the way and then slowly turn the bullet seating stem down and check with your barrel until you reach a COL that chambers properly.
Reassemble your gun, place the inert dummy round in the magazine. Does it fit in the magazine or is it too long to go down past the magazine lips? If it doesn't fit, seat the bullet a little deeper until it down fit into your magazine. Now, insert the magazine (with the dummy round in it) into your gun, pull the slide back, and let the slide go. Did the round chamber? It should have. If not , you COL may still be too long. Go back and seat the bullet slightly deeper until the round chambers.
Once you have a dummy round that fits your magazine and feeds and chambers in your gun, you are ready to set the seating die and start seating bullets.
Screw the seating stem back up, place the dummy in the shell holder, and raise the ram. Screw the die down until you hit the crimp area. Make very small adjustments (you have already achieved probably 90% to the crimp needed) until the crimped case mouth shows a slight bright surface all around from where it was burnished by the crimp area. The mouth of the case should be at the case drawing case mouth dimension or no more then 0.003" less. When the correct crimp is reached, raise the dummy back into the die so the die is pushed up into proper alignment and screw the lock ring down. Turn the seating stem down until it just contacts the bullet. Lock the seating stem. Your seating die is finally set and you are ready to seat bullets. However, if you want to be sure that your next trip to the range goes right, you may want to disassembly your gun and drop the dummy into the barrel just so you will know that your crimp is OK and the round isn't over crimped and sliding too far into the barrel Nothing is worse than finding you have made some error after loading several hundred rounds, going to the range, and discovering that none of them work.
This is all you need to do.
Instead of seating and crimping simultaneously, you can seat all you bullets and then use the factory crimp die (FCD, second from the left or die #2) for setting the crimp. Turn the top stem up almost all the way out, raise the shell holder all the up, then screw the die down until it just makes contact with the shell holder. Back it off a fraction of a turn (just to not touch the shell holder). The best way to set the FCD is to take a factory round that you know works in your gun, place it in the shell holder, raise the ram until the round fully enters the die, and turn the lock ring to lock the die in place. Now, slowly turn the crimping stem down until you just feel it contact the case. This setting will give you the same crimp and the factory round (that you know works in your gun). The FCD is now set and you can crimp all your rounds. The FCD has the benefit that is will size the case down to maximum case diameter—meaning that it should not resize any case unless there is some flaw that has made the case too large to chamber properly. If you feel a case being resized (more force needed to run it up into the die, pull the case out and inspect it to determine if there is any visible problem that caused it.
If you don't have a factory round, you will turn the crimping stem down until it contacts the flared mouth of the case. Then you will slowly turn the crimping stem down until you have the correct taper or roll crimp for the round.

[Cowboy T]

I just finished up a video series on how to set up and adjust these dies. The example die set happens to be the same as yours--.38/357. It will be on the "sfliberal" YouTube channel by tomorrow morning, as well as on my Web site for those like me who don't have or want Adobe Flash.

[Brother_Love]

Thanks for the help, this is my first set of Lee dies. Malcolm