Joined
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225 Posts
Hey Duke Nukem;
I looked at the Buffalo Arms custom expanders as you suggested, and after talking to their friendly rep, I learnt their normal 'dies' are tapered, leaving only the last/top portion of abut 1/8" at the max listed dimension. Discussing the matter further, I was instructed to look at their "straight" expanders, and that seemed to be the ticket at .461" for my home cast lead. Now the reality of only having 4 stations in my Dillon 550 is forcing me to add another separate operation to the process in another single stage press. Then I asked him to start another product line for Dillon owners, by offering custom powder funnel/expander pieces to help those without 5+ stations. He graciously declined. If I had a lathe, I'd be offering them up for sale tomorrow!
After further review & measurements, I'm going to forget that whole expander thing to prevent the resized case from resizing my bullets & just back out the "case resizer" die sufficiently to hold the bullet for seating & crimping, pretty much in "as fired" brass condition. Sounds like a strange approach, but my chamber & barrel are not on the small end of SAAMI specs. Thanks for your reply to my quandary, which got me to make a call & think a bit harder on the issue.
Trouble Crimping---Another issue I've been having is the inability to adequately crimp with the Redding or the Lee Factory Crimp dies. After much playing & 4 double Popsicles, I removed my Lee FCD, turned it upside down on my bench, inserted a dummy round & smacked it with my mallet. Walla, a very nice looking factory crimp at the end of the case, and the bullet cannot be pressed in with thumb pressure. I'm sure I'm the only reloader in the world with this problem, but I'll try to be patient with those nice folks at Lee. Seems like the FCD collet needs to be 1/8" shorter, the same dimension of the turret plate thickness...go figure. The Lee FCD collet I have is about 2.155" long.
I looked at the Buffalo Arms custom expanders as you suggested, and after talking to their friendly rep, I learnt their normal 'dies' are tapered, leaving only the last/top portion of abut 1/8" at the max listed dimension. Discussing the matter further, I was instructed to look at their "straight" expanders, and that seemed to be the ticket at .461" for my home cast lead. Now the reality of only having 4 stations in my Dillon 550 is forcing me to add another separate operation to the process in another single stage press. Then I asked him to start another product line for Dillon owners, by offering custom powder funnel/expander pieces to help those without 5+ stations. He graciously declined. If I had a lathe, I'd be offering them up for sale tomorrow!
After further review & measurements, I'm going to forget that whole expander thing to prevent the resized case from resizing my bullets & just back out the "case resizer" die sufficiently to hold the bullet for seating & crimping, pretty much in "as fired" brass condition. Sounds like a strange approach, but my chamber & barrel are not on the small end of SAAMI specs. Thanks for your reply to my quandary, which got me to make a call & think a bit harder on the issue.
Trouble Crimping---Another issue I've been having is the inability to adequately crimp with the Redding or the Lee Factory Crimp dies. After much playing & 4 double Popsicles, I removed my Lee FCD, turned it upside down on my bench, inserted a dummy round & smacked it with my mallet. Walla, a very nice looking factory crimp at the end of the case, and the bullet cannot be pressed in with thumb pressure. I'm sure I'm the only reloader in the world with this problem, but I'll try to be patient with those nice folks at Lee. Seems like the FCD collet needs to be 1/8" shorter, the same dimension of the turret plate thickness...go figure. The Lee FCD collet I have is about 2.155" long.
