stocker
09-30-2006, 02:04 PM
After a bit of trial and error I found that my M-64 of 1949 or 50 vintage really prefers boolits sized .323 (RCBS 32-170FNGC.
My dies are an older Lyman set and I found the expander button only measured .318 which led to collapsed cases when seating the .323 boolits.
The available solution was to get an RCBS expander/ flaring die with the expander dimensioned to handle .323 boolits. This solved part of the problem .
The Lyman seating die however was tight enough that it promptly removed the flare and sized the brass almost back to where I started again resulting in collapsed cases once more.
I measured the depth in the seating die to the crimp shoulder and marked a dowel at that depth. The dowel was split lengthwise for an inch and a bit in a band saw to take a section of 320 grit emery paper which was slid into the slot and wrapped on the dowel to a tight fit in the die.
Chucking the dowel in the drill press and with oil in the die I hand held the die and proceeded to lap it out, finishing with a 600 grit polish. By not going deeper than my mark on the dowel I was able to retain the crimp shoulder.
The end result is a die that works and my rifle likes the results. The whole process took less than an hour including a couple of tests which indicated more metal had to be polished out of the die.
If I had better sources of getting reloading tools quickly this probably wouldn't have been done at all but if you have similar problem the process works just fine.
My dies are an older Lyman set and I found the expander button only measured .318 which led to collapsed cases when seating the .323 boolits.
The available solution was to get an RCBS expander/ flaring die with the expander dimensioned to handle .323 boolits. This solved part of the problem .
The Lyman seating die however was tight enough that it promptly removed the flare and sized the brass almost back to where I started again resulting in collapsed cases once more.
I measured the depth in the seating die to the crimp shoulder and marked a dowel at that depth. The dowel was split lengthwise for an inch and a bit in a band saw to take a section of 320 grit emery paper which was slid into the slot and wrapped on the dowel to a tight fit in the die.
Chucking the dowel in the drill press and with oil in the die I hand held the die and proceeded to lap it out, finishing with a 600 grit polish. By not going deeper than my mark on the dowel I was able to retain the crimp shoulder.
The end result is a die that works and my rifle likes the results. The whole process took less than an hour including a couple of tests which indicated more metal had to be polished out of the die.
If I had better sources of getting reloading tools quickly this probably wouldn't have been done at all but if you have similar problem the process works just fine.