Carbide expander buttons for rifle dies

[megasupermagnum]

I've never tried a carbide expander ball, but I don't think they will help that much with concentricity, which is their biggest issue. It may or may not help with more consistent headspace.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. My preferred method for rifles is a body die followed by a Lee neck sizer. You can make a body die by lapping or drilling the neck portion of a normal expander ball die out, then replace the expander ball mandrel with a straight decapping pin. If on a single stage, you don't even need a decapping pin, as the neck sizer also has a decapping pin. Using two dies like this is both cheap, and gives you incredibly consistent brass. The best thing about the Lee collet neck sizer is you can use any size mandrel. You can make, or even order custom sizes. That is a much better method than using an M die, or NOE plug. I would even argue a collet neck sizer should produce more consistent neck tension than a bushing die, although if you are turning necks, it likely doesn't matter.

[remy3424]

/\ that is pretty solid thinking there/\ The Lee collet dies seem to work the brass less for me, small caliber brass seems to not grow slower. This is great for bolt guns, but in AR type rifles, not having small base body dies, I use the Imperial/Redding graphite to lube the inside of the necks, much less pressure needed to pull the expander through the neck and I think it has to help limit "stretching" the case when using those dies. Now if Lee would add the 17 Hornet to their standard produced Collet dies, I would be ordering that!

[megasupermagnum]

I too lube inside my case necks with imperial lube if using a full length sizer. It feels smoother, but has so-so improvement. I often see headspace variation around .004" from typical full length expander ball dies. It's also next to impossible to get neck concentricity below about .002". I really wish I had never bought that head space comparator, and concentricity jig, I would have been better off not knowing.

Without the expander ball, most dies are pretty dang accurate, and it's much easier to get annealed cases to hold .001" headspace. Then using the Lee collet neck expander, they do a great job, concentricity about as good as you can ever expect, any variation is likely the neck thickness.

[jetinteriorguy]

I've never tried a carbide expander ball, but I don't think they will help that much with concentricity, which is their biggest issue. It may or may not help with more consistent headspace.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. My preferred method for rifles is a body die followed by a Lee neck sizer. You can make a body die by lapping or drilling the neck portion of a normal expander ball die out, then replace the expander ball mandrel with a straight decapping pin. If on a single stage, you don't even need a decapping pin, as the neck sizer also has a decapping pin. Using two dies like this is both cheap, and gives you incredibly consistent brass. The best thing about the Lee collet neck sizer is you can use any size mandrel. You can make, or even order custom sizes. That is a much better method than using an M die, or NOE plug. I would even argue a collet neck sizer should produce more consistent neck tension than a bushing die, although if you are turning necks, it likely doesn't matter.

This has been my experience as well. Using this method my runout is typically under .001” about 90%+ of the time and never over .002”. I also turn all the necks as well and when seating the effort required to seat bullets is very uniform according to my highly tuned sense of feel.

[45_Colt]

This is a good thread, I never knew about the Lee collet type neck sizing dies. Did pick up a .223 carbide expander some years back. But just to help out. Seemed to be a good idea at the time to prevent wear on the button.

45_Colt

[Rockzilla]

carbide expander buttons that I have are from CH Tool & Die Company (CH4D now)
don't know if they still make them but they work great.

M dies for cast bullets and flat base bullets

-Rock

[jetinteriorguy]

This is a good thread, I never knew about the Lee collet type neck sizing dies. Did pick up a .223 carbide expander some years back. But just to help out. Seemed to be a good idea at the time to prevent wear on the button.

45_Colt

Another nice feature of the Lee collet neck dies, you can order smaller mandrels for more neck tension if you so desire.

[Steve Steven]

Does anyone know if there are carbide expander buttons for Hornady dies?

Steve

[David2011]

Another option is to polish the expander ball. I’ve done it many times and can’t measure the metal removed with a .0001” resolution micrometer. Spin the decapping stem in a drill or drill press and polish the expander with 400 grit, going through several grits down to 1000 grit. It only takes a brief polish at each grit. It will take less effort to withdraw and if it was squeaking before, they’re usually much easier and quieter after polishing.

[Milky Duck]

Another option is to polish the expander ball. I’ve done it many times and can’t measure the metal removed with a .0001” resolution micrometer. Spin the decapping stem in a drill or drill press and polish the expander with 400 grit, going through several grits down to 1000 grit. It only takes a brief polish at each grit. It will take less effort to withdraw and if it was squeaking before, they’re usually much easier and quieter after polishing.

yes yes and yes again..this is pure gold and makes a HUGE difference, I dip case necks in powdered graphite in a wee jam jar lid with some bird shot to help move it around.... the 30/30 I resized the other night was the hardest Ive done for a long time and realised I havent polished that expander ball. did my .223 and .270 dies years ago and havent had issues ever since.

[Milky Duck]

Another nice feature of the Lee collet neck dies, you can order smaller mandrels for more neck tension if you so desire.

you could do that before by making expander ball smaller LOL....

[megasupermagnum]

you could do that before by making expander ball smaller LOL....

Sure you can, but you can't just go onto the Lee website and order a set of expander balls in .001" increments like you can with a mandrel. You can't even get oversized expander balls in any brand I know of, only undersized.

[Harter66]

To further the expander, M die , etc difficulties ........

I recently found that many sizing dies grossly oversize , and even more so for our needs . As an example the 2 sets of 6.5×50SR , well known to need at least a .267 dia jacketed , size all the way down to .261 . That is only made worse by my example needing a .272 bullet in a .270 neck size to start with that opens on up to .275 when fired . There's not a suitable 270 cartridge to over size the 27 cal to the super fat 6.5 .
I did find that an 8×57 neck die was perfect for the 7.7×58 as it needs a .317 which works out as the Mauser neck die sizes .316 for the x57J .318 dia .
The .310 expander from the 7.62×39 is great in most of my 30s but again we have the problem of the sizer going down to .304 and back up to .310 .

Bushing and mandrel dies relieve this to some degree but bushings weren't available for the extra fat 6.5 above .

Other work around have included using a 308 die as a neck die for 30-30 , the one I shoot is a bolt gun so no feed issues there .

The 32 Rem has a CH custom die , neat solution but pretty expensive if you have several arms in the same cartridge with fat shoulders , long shoulders , and a near match chamber .

So now we're left expanding separately and adding an extra step .
Every solution has a price ......
I was heired a $150 Type 38 Arisaka , mould , dies , custom, bushings for a bushing neck die , 2 custom bullet size dies , and a 3rd for paper patch cores ....... Just like that $40 bucks more in loading tools than the rifle is worth ...... But I've got it down to 4" at 100 .

Now I've had better cheaper results but I don't have much in the way of target guns , I mean the 264WM took a whole 40 rounds to find a 5 into .750 , prove it , and kill 3-4 hogs . Same deal with the 222 , 30-30 Savages . Others not so much .

I guess basically you just need to try stuff and see what works in each one .