Reloading 223 Rem cases - I switched from using RCBS dies (adjusted to neck size only) to Lee Collet Dies.

Reasoning for cahnge speed (no case lubing necessary) and extended case life (reduced metal fatique in working cases).

Accuracy seems it may have waned - is this feasible with using collet dies or is it just my imagination/shooting?

Collet dies in general produce very straight ammo, and are highly thought of.

The one area where they are not very strong, is that they don't give you a lot of neck tension - or even varying neck tension. This is worst if you use them with older (work hardened) brass. You can normally feel this when you seat your bullets - some seat without any resistance and some seat noticeably harder. Try a batch of new brass, and see if that works better.

If yes, you can achieve more neck tension by using an undersize decapping mandrel (either polish down the one that came with your die, or order an undersize extra from Lee), or by annealing your older brass before use in the Collet die.

- mike

Bretth,
I've been using Lee collet dies in my .25-06 for many years and in my .223 for several years now and have shot my best groups ever in both using them.

That said, I recently bought a set of Redding S Neck dies for the .223 to use with 69 grain SMKs for 600 yard targets. Also, part of the reason I went with the Redding is I'm going to rebarrel to 20 Practical and all I have to do to convert the brass is use a Redding .223 body die and change the bushing in the neck sizer.

I agree with mho, I had some 338 brass that was better then others, then added several undersize mandrels for diffrent brass.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I have an extra .223 collet die with a broken decapping pin/mandrel.
I think I'll order a .204 Ruger collet die and put the internals in the .223 die and have a collet for the 20 Practical for the PD loads.

I have one for the .223 they are so fast and smooth it makes you feel like you forgot a step. I bought some reconditioned, primer pocket swaged etc G I brass on line. Loading them with the collet die was slick. turned out some of the best cheap ammo I've ever done. DW

mho got it right. I would add that another way of increasing bullet grip would be to get a Lee Factory Crimp Die and crimp them. It would keep the bullet from moving and make bullet release a little more consistant. Then you don't have to worry about having too little bullet grip from the Lee Collet.

In my tests it increased velocity ~10 fps and decreased group size ~1/8"

Thanks for all the inputs - some other advice which I got locally and is in fact very obvious when one thinks about it - with the collet dies it is essential to outside neck turn cases to get uniform case neck wall thickness so that there is consitent radial compression of the neck onto the bullet.

quote:

Originally posted by bretth:
with the collet dies it is essential to outside neck turn cases to get uniform case neck wall thickness so that there is consitent radial compression of the neck onto the bullet.

Whereas this may strictly be a correct statement (for any die using outside neck diamter to control neck tension), it seems a bit much to venture into neck turning to use a Collet die... After all, one of the Collet die's primary advantages is that it is quick to use (no case lubing necessary). Let me tell you one thing about neck turning: it ain't fast! Quite apart from the fact, that in order to be able to use the cheap Collet die, you would then have to invest literally hundreds of $$$ in neck turning equipment. Neck turning is not really a recommended procedure for (oversize) factory chambers.

Given the number of reloaders happily using the Collet die, I think we can safely say that good results can be achieved without resorting to neck turning. But you may well need to try to increase your neck tension in the ways described above.

- mike

quote:

Originally posted by bretth:
Thanks for all the inputs - some other advice which I got locally and is in fact very obvious when one thinks about it - with the collet dies it is essential to outside neck turn cases to get uniform case neck wall thickness so that there is consitent radial compression of the neck onto the bullet.

I would not say it is essential at all. The collet die does compress the outside onto a mandrel but that means that the inside of the neck is concentric and uniform. If there are any imperfections in neck brass thickness they will be moved to the outside of the neck just like an expander ball type of die.

I turn a lot of necks, some because of tight necked custom chambers and some just to clean up the necks, but I have noticed no increase in runout with unturned necks as long as you measure on the bullet for concentricity, not the neck. Turning helps with bullet release but it would help with bullet release whether you used an expander ball type of die or the Lee Collet.

quote:

Originally posted by mho:
Quite apart from the fact, that in order to be able to use the cheap Collet die, you would then have to invest literally hundreds of $$$ in neck turning equipment.

At least with the outside neck cutter attachment for my Forster trimmer, it's more like $50. And that includes one caliber specific mandrel. To cut other sizes costs $10 for each mandrel.

Just playing devil's advocate here because I asked for advice in the first place!

I maybe splitting hairs but someone like Woods with experience in neck turning (I have none) will know better - but

- if one half of the neck has thicker brass than the other then the case stops going up into the die when the collet has squeezed the thickest section of brass between it (the collet) and the mandrel, at this time, the brass where it is thinner has not yet been pressed onto the mandrel, so then there there should be an oval left and not a round hole?

The differance in diameters of the oval (ie, inconentricity) should thus be the differance in neck wall thickness?

Maybe pushing the bullet into the "oval" pulls it back to being round - which would get back to mho's first point of problems arising when the brass gets "hard" and is not as plyable as newer brass?

LEE recommends running up the case twice into their collet dies with 1/2 turn for best concentricity and minimum run out.

Has anyone you know proven better accuracy with competing dies and sent the theirs back to LEE?? We did measure run out after running the cases up just once and it ran 0.002" or less---very impressive.

Neck turning seems to me to be taking handloading to another level.

Hey bret

What you have to throw into the mix is that the mandrel on the Lee Collet is free floating. Thread one into the press and reach up under and you can toggle the mandrel around by diddling the decapping rod. So when the case goes up into the die, the mandrel centers in the case neck and then the collet is squeezed onto the collet.

However, like Burlington says, I always rotate the case and resize again. You will get less runout with the Lee Collet than almost any other die unless you can tune the expander like kraky does and get lucky to boot with a better than usual FL die. If you ever get into chasing concentricity you will find that the Lee Collet solves about 90% of the problem and for hunting purposes you need go no further. I chased it all the way to the end with neck turning and the Bersin tool, but looking back on it, I should have just stopped with the Lee Collet and gone on to other things.

For each caliber I reload for I have 4 dies:

Lee Collet Neck Sizer
Redding Body Die
RCBS or Redding Competition Seater (yes, the expensive ones)
Lee Factory Crimp Die

Another thing you will discover if you chase runout back into it's hole is that new brass or freshly annealed brass is harder to load straight and the necks are so soft you can push on one side of the loaded bullet and create runout. That's why I do not anneal and just shoot brass until it has grown enough to PFLR (shoulder contact) and the neck has hardened enough to hold it's concentricity.

mho and Burlington Red, hit the important things before I read this thread..........took awhile for some one to mention what BR did.......rotate the case 1/2 turn and push it back into the die again.........what Richard Lee recommends in instructions. Then go check your loads (same lot of brass, same number of firings, same load, with same lot of bullets) on a run-out guage................THEN TAKE THEM TO THE RANGE! Your LEE loaded rounds(utilizing collets) will decrease the size of your groups vs. RCBS, Hornady, Pacific, Lyman or whatever else you may have using the same ingredients!BTDT!! If LEE had collet dies available(they'll make you one for about $50.00 if it's not a catalogged item)for all the chamberings I load for, I'd have them! LEE............Best value for the buck in dies!! GHD

quote:

Accuracy seems it may have waned - is this feasible with using collet dies or is it just my imagination/shooting?

I don't think it's necessarily you imagination. I use a lot of collet dies and they've worked fine for me most of the time. There have been a couple of instances where I've found accuracy to be better with traditional full length sizing or neck sizing dies though.

In my view, collet dies are most useful in that you don't need to use lube with them. Except for that one advantage, I see none compared to the usual necking sizing dies.