So I'm working on my first set of swage dies (that I've built) and I'm trying to work out some of the math. This is going to be a .308" 6-S ogive bullet with a large meplate for shooting in my .308 win and .30-30 win. The meplate comes out to .107 on my cad drawing, so I was going to use a #36 drill blank for the nose/knockout punch. The big question on my mind is what size the bleeder hole should be. On the dies I currently use, the bleeder is a tapered hole, not sure if it was made by first drilling one hole, and then counter boring most of it to a larger size. This makes the sprues that come off drop out of the hole easier.
So what size bleeder hole should I use? Is there one of those rules of thumb that allows me to calculate this?
The other question is bleeder hole placement, should it be at the base of the ogive? or should it be further down into the shank?
I think I'm probably going to take some of buckshot's advice and use 12L14 for the dies. If that doesn't perform I may end up going with A2 tool steel, we'll have to see which one I can actually cut to proper tolerance.