Buying Lyman M dies over NOE expanders...am I missing out?

[Minerat]

All valid points and exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. I imagined the NOE expanders would be better suited to larger diameter bullets.

I use them for my .17 HH .223 and .22-250 and they work just fine.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Sorry, I meant that the NOE are better suited to oversized bullets whereas the Lyman only cover up to such size. Like in speaking to the Lyman tech, the Lyman M die for my 45-70 covers from .457-.460. NOE Has .461, .462 so a better choice for me.

[Green Frog]

I’m probably taking too limited a look forward into all the new technology but I like the Lyman Multi Expand Powder Charge Die that expands the case mouth and allows powder to be introduced to the case in a single station. The set of inserts are fashioned very much like M die inserts and perform about the same. For pistol cartridges, I find it most satisfactory. I’ve never tried it with rifle cartridges though.
Froggie

[Shopdog]

Slight tangent but,not really....

The ability to fine tune the bullet grip isn't totally a function of expander diameter. You also have depth,annealing,lube interface.

Just saying it's not just an; X/Y(x over y) calc. It's (x/y times A) + Bsquared. Or some such.

However,the ability to test the diameter,and it's effect on say,ignition.... then,you're going to have to be able to obtain different diameters. I make my own, whoop T doo.. If you don't have that available,then choose the company that can provide it. Sorry for the trip into the weeds,carry on.

[Chill Wills]

I posted this about a month ago...
I did an experiment making one expander and turning it down 0.001" smaller each time and pulling the bullets to measure.
This is a small sample and may not reflect the whole range of alloy hardness we casters use.

====================
Starline 45 Colt cases

Bullets sized to 0.452"
The first diameter I expanded the sized cases to 0.452" and as expected, it did not show any bullet reduction. I did this as a baseline.
Bullets tested were two alloys, range scrape and 20-1 Pb-Sn. and were cast Lyman 245gr SWC with an aged hardness of 9.5+ range scrap and 10.5 BHN for the 20-1.

Expander diameter
0.452" showed nothing but marks from being in the brass
0.451" showed little to no reduction in size
0.450" did reduce the bullet to 0.451"
0.449" reduced the bullet to 0.451"
0.448" reduced the bullet to 0.451"
0.447" reduced the bullet to 0.451"
0.446"

This as far as I took time to machine the expander this morning and got an outcome I did not expect!

[uscra112]

Going way, way back to when I was developing competition loads for .38 Spl I realized right away that the one-size-fits-all Lyman M die was a serious liability. Back then there was no NOE, so I wound up making my own expanders for the M-die body. Ended up with no less than four sizes, to be used depending on the bullet, and the resilience of the brass. The gun was a near-mint 9 inch barrelled Colt Officers Model, which was sensitive enough to show me the differences in case mouth size. In more recent times I've made my own "NOE style" plugs for the Lee die body, and also bought NOE plugs when the size was right. Would not buy a Lyman die today.

I've never used "powder through" dies of any kind. My kind of shooting doesn't consume ammo like popcorn at the movies. So can't talk about those.

[Chill Wills]

It appears that with in the above hardness range, reasonable cartridge neck sizes get pushed out (expanded) by the bullet ending up with the same hold on the bullet.

[gloob]

I posted this about a month ago...
I did an experiment making one expander and turning it down 0.001" smaller each time and pulling the bullets to measure.
This is a small sample and may not reflect the whole range of alloy hardness we casters use.

====================
Starline 45 Colt cases

Bullets sized to 0.452"
The first diameter I expanded the sized cases to 0.452" and as expected, it did not show any bullet reduction. I did this as a baseline.
Bullets tested were two alloys, range scrape and 20-1 Pb-Sn. and were cast Lyman 245gr SWC with an aged hardness of 9.5+ range scrap and 10.5 BHN for the 20-1.

Expander diameter
0.452" showed nothing but marks from being in the brass
0.451" showed little to no reduction in size
0.450" did reduce the bullet to 0.451"
0.449" reduced the bullet to 0.451"
0.448" reduced the bullet to 0.451"
0.447" reduced the bullet to 0.451"
0.446"

This as far as I took time to machine the expander this morning and got an outcome I did not expect!

I predicted you'd end up with something like this even before I saw your results.

The factor you're not including is the sizing die. If your sizing die and brass are within spec, the case comes out of the die very close to the correct neck size, already. For a caliber that normally takes a 452 bullet, a case that is sized 1 thous too tight is just about right. This is why a lot of reloaders can shoot cast bullets in many of their guns without ever buying or making a new expander. And the die makers can throw in an undersized "expander" that doesn't really expand, at all. It only flares the case mouth a little.

45 is also a weird caliber, in that jacketed bullets and nominal cast boolits are the same size. So you wouldn't expect much swaging, using a 452 cast boolit, exactly same diameter as jacketed bullets. (452 is the most common size of 45 cast boolits, per my shopping experience. And it's what I use and size to, with no problems in any of my 45's, same diameter as jacketed; other calibers, not so.)

There are many reasons you would want a custom expander. You might happen to have a tight sizing die. You might have a gun that doesn't shoot cast perfectly until the bullet is more than 2 thous larger than jacketed. E.g., a lot of shooters use 358 in 9mm. Or 311-312 in certain "308" cal rifle. In this case, you might see case swaging of several thous, at least towards the base end of the cast boolit.

Seating a 358 cast bullet into a sized 9mm case, using the normal expander, I've measured base of the bullet swaged down to 353. (And the boolits fouled and tumbled). Normal jacketed bullets are only 355, and the 9mm case is tapered. So only 2 thous too small seems pretty optimal as far as the sizing die manufacturer is concerned. But it's far from optimal for shooting 358 sized boolits! It's in these cases where you should pretty much use expander the same size as the boolit.

Your testing shows that an expander even 1 thous smaller than a soft enough boolit will cause case swaging. The fact your swaging stopped at 1 thous should not be comforting; that's because your case only came out about 2.5 thous smaller than 452, so after 1.5 thous of spring, the case could only ever swage a bullet down to 451. The fact that you got maximum swaging at only 1 thous under boolit size is the important bit.

If your cast bullets shoot fine without it, then you don't need an expander. 45 ACP is one of the few calibers where I actually don't need one for cast. But I got one, anyways, because they exist. My 452 sized expander doesn't change the size of my 45 ACP cases, at all (assuming our brass is the same, my size die must be about 1 thous bigger than yours). But it just makes me feel better. I figure I might one day unwittingly pick up some range brass that is half a thous too thick, and it ends up swaging my bullets too much. But I only figure that out after I drop some into a big can of good reloads.