Cheese,
Were you using mixed brass, such as commercial brass mixed with military brass? If the die was properly adjusted with a thinner necked brass it may be misadjusted with the thicker necked brass (such as mil brass).
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Cheese,
Were you using mixed brass, such as commercial brass mixed with military brass? If the die was properly adjusted with a thinner necked brass it may be misadjusted with the thicker necked brass (such as mil brass).
There are so many better choices than Lee. One should not have top overhaul new equipment to make it work. I tried some of thes collet dies for .222 years ago. What a waste. Each time I break my resolve and buy a "cheap set of Lees" just to get by or experiment, I end up having to buy again. I have taken the pledge. No more Lee.
I've been using Lee dies & molds for a over 40 years
and have had no problems with any of them. I can't say the same
for RCBS. Just because it costs more, doesn't always mean it works any
better.
Hey Dan, next time you get the urge, just go ahead and order both brands. Send me the LEE and we'll both be happy.
I have and use all brands without any problems caused by brand names. The savings on LEE equip. sure buys a lot of powder and primers.
I also have a lot of brands of presses and dies in my loading room and find they all work very well if I use them correctly. I don't care what tools anyone chooses but I do care if they attempt to put down any other brand unfairly.
I would actually pay extra to obtain Lee's collet neck sizers and FCD crimp dies. There is a moving part in both dies so there's a learning curve to using them. Those not willing to take the time to learn to use them properly would do well to stick with simpler designs but that's not a valid slam against Lee.
Lees die's and presses of compariable design to others seem to work at least as well as the others, at least in my experience.
A lot of people seem to think setting Lee's light alum alloy presses up side a cast iron RCBS Rock Chucker is valid; I don't. But, compare both company's alum alloy and cast iron (or cast steel in the Lee Classic Cast) presses and any perceived differences will vanish. For sure, the RCBS Partner press is much weaker than a Lee Classic Cast but that's not a fair or honest test, is it?
Seems the fact Lee's stuff is inexpensive is a side issue, some of their designs are actually superior to many competitor's tools of comparable function! I like that.
I have a lot of different brands of stuff, RCBS, Lyman, Ideal, C-L, and more. I don't think that with TODAYS money you can do better than Lee tho. I have a ton of their stuff as well and it is absolutly as good as all the other equipment, at 1/3 the price.
The thing I really like is they are Americans making everything at a family owned and operated company.
And if you do get the occasional bad part, they bend over backward to make it right for you which it sounds like they did.
As an aside, I picked up a new Lee Auto Prime at a gun show recently because I always wanted one and had 15 bucks burning a hole in my pocket at the time. About the 5th case I primed broke the thumb lever. When I called, probably the same girl with the funny Wisconsin twang awensered the phone and yep, 2 days later a new one was on the front porch. I couldn't ask for more than that.
They do? Then why did they charge my dad for a replacement due to the poorly designed handle linkage breaking on one of their O frame presses? The junk aluminum casting broke while resizing .308 brass. IIRC, the replacement part cost as much as a new press.
Lee makes a few decent items. The rest, including their dies IMO, are good enough to get you by, but not much better than that. They make it cheap and sell it cheap...but as a machinist I can tell you that precision costs money.
I've never had to pay for any replacement parts from Lee, or anybody else for that matter. They even sent me a replacement pin for a HP mould last year. I think I get good service because I don't call people up and insult them, or their products. I have never broken "the poorly designed handle linkage" on my turret press. Then again I tend to take care of my equipment. I grew up on a farm and learned early on to pay attention to what I was doing. If I broke something, it meant I worked more hours, and had less time for me.
With this logic the Yugo should have been the bigest hit in the auto industry since the model t.Quote:
Lee makes a few decent items. The rest, including their dies IMO, are good enough to get you by, but not much better than that. They make it cheap and sell it cheap...but as a machinist I can tell you that precision costs money.
My bad for trying to save some money. I first had a FL RCBS die set and should have bought the neck sizer in addition to the set (or ordered a neck die set). But I returned them to Cabelas and opted to try and save a few bucks and get the deluxe set with collet die. Now after buying the parts because of my foolishness, I should have bought RCBS, as are all of my other dies. My bad trying to save a few $$$.
But that is not to say that all stuff by Lee is junk. I prefer their molds and melters.
They shipped the PAID parts quickly and I went by the instructions. I could feel the die working and learned not to over do it again. The collet die worked as advertised. One decision for the collet die was I was told by others that you can feel and only apply enough force to suit your needs, where the regular neck sizers such as RCBS are all or none. I bought these to reload either FMJ, cast, and paper patch loads for an oversize chambered Ishapore 2A and could adapt the sizing for different diameters.
When it comes to reloading, I like black and white-not a gray area when it comes to "feel" and what you think is about 25 pounds of pressure. These dies have taught me that. I tried them, learned I don't like them.
I will use this Lee die set until I find someone willing to trade for a RCBS neck sizer set or find a nice set of used outright.
In fairness, I have tried them, learned I don't care for them (dies), and learned on my own what I like and don't like.
This is not against Lee products as a whole, just the dies, IMHO.
If you like them, I highly respect that.
Chevy, Ford, Dodge, Toyota, Honda, yada, yada, yada!!!
I dont mind lee for pistols but refuse to use them for anything else ie rifles.
My grandfather swears by that factory crimp die but I've never seen any rifle round that came from any factory that had any crimp that looked like that. I imagine that can't be good for the brass over the long haul either. Just my $.02
I should also mention that I've had absolutely no problems with my challenger press though. I have a lot of diffeent equipment gathered from over the years and the only Lee product I've ever broke is the part inside their auto prime tool. I am getting ready to purchase a hornady progressive though because I hear Lee progressives are really finiky but other than rifle dies no real complaint on the Lee company.
I am at a loss to understand why a fellow should have to deburr, polish and grease a die to get it to work, when it should have come from the factory in working condition.
I find these threads about Lee equipment very intresting. All to often they are Lee fans sharing secrets on how to modify and others wise work on Lee stuff to get it to work properly. And then they brag to the heavens on how great Lee equipment is.
This is a mystery I will never understand!
I can polish and de-burr a hell of a lot of equipment for 50% off what the others sell the same thing for,
Storydude.... I guess that is true, if a man places no value on this time and doesn't expect something to work when you buy it. I guess they consider it some sort of "kit" to be assembled and finished before it is put to work.
On the other hand, I do value my time and I do expect things to work out of the box. I am not into die kits.
Different strokes for different folks.
I find it funny that most of my equipment is Red...and has needed little if any work to produce functional ammo.
do you own any Lee molds?
in 50 plus years of reloading, I have about every make of die there is. The only dies I have had to wok on bore the name of Lee.
The only Lee molds i have are the six hole group buys we do on this site. The rest of the molds (over 150) are Lyman, RCBS, SAECO, NEI, Hoch, Cramer, Mountain Molds, Old West and a few others makers.
I find Lee dies are the easiest to modify for cast bullets reloading.
I use the collet die with different size mandrels for different size cast bullets.
Then I modify the seater die to fit the bigger cast bullet.
I've used the cast bullet sizer die to neck size cases.
I also find it easier to clean the lube out of the seater die than RCBS dies.
For condom bullets I use RCBS.
I got a Lee Classic Cast on sale and to me, it's as good as my Rock Chucker.
ive had good luck with them. As a matter of fact there my favorite handgun dies. Only set i ever got bad was the 50 beowulf. the sizer was cut wrong but they replaced it without question and the replacement works fine.