Hey guys, what sizing dies do you all prefer to use when resizing 06 brass to the Whelen. My Whelen brass is starting to get spent, occasional neck splits, etc. I have a butt load of 06 brass and figured why spend the money on new Whelen brass when I can just use the 06 brass. Oh and do you guys have a preference on neck sizer dies as well. I currently have the Lee full length sizer but suspect that I may be working the brass more than needed and that is causing the splits. This is all R&P brass that has been resized five or six times.

The LEE FLR dies may not push the neck back far enough to form 35 Whelan. Unlike RCBS and some other dies, LEE FLR dies basically resize for a single rifle. I ran into that problem trying to form 7.65 Argy brass out of .30-06. It won't even allow brass fired in another 7.65 to chamber in a different one. I noticed the sizing ring on the neck stopped about a mm shy of the shoulder. When I called LEE the shop guy told me that those dies are not designed to form brass or push the shoulder back. You could lathe turn the die base and get it to push the shoulder back. LEE can make you a forming die too for around $50 I think. Their collet die will do a great job of neck sizing and really extend the life of the brass. You may need to anneal the case necks too.

Redding

Certainly you can easily make .35W out of the original parent case. Annealing before you do it will help quite a bit. I've found R-P cases expand up a little easier than others, really not a lot of difference.

Lee's die chambers are cut with the same SAAMI spec reamers other makers use so I can't conceive of why Lee's FL die would be any different from any other brand. In fact, their longish expander would be easy to taper a bit and make expanding up easier and smoother. The only way to get a sizer die for a single rifle is to have a custom sizer made and Lee doesn't do that. I've used Lee dies, and a lot of others, to reform brass for many years. Whomever Bobster spoke with at Lee doesn't know what he's talking about. ??

Annealing your present case necks from time to time will extend their life, a LOT.

Lee's Collet neck sizer works necks the absolute minimum. That contributes to very good neck life but eventually even they need an annealing.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:
Whomever Bobster spoke with at Lee doesn't know what he's talking about. ??

I believe his name was Dave. I even shipped the dies back and he sent me some new ones. No case formed from .30-06 brass would chamber in any of my 4 DWM Argentine Mausers(two of which are mint) from either set. I sent them back again and he shaved off .005 and told me they were at minimum SAAMI dimensions(I guess that means they weren't) - still no chamber. Apparently they run the reamer in too far. When I told him I was re-forming brass he said you couldn't form brass with LEE FLR dies; that you would need a special forming die to bump the shoulder back. I ended up having to put a .004 shim between the shell holder base and the cartridge base to even get the bolt to close!

The other problem was the case neck portion of the die was not co-eccentric to the case body portion so that I ended up with bent case necks and 3 mm of run out.

I've got a 7.5x54 French die set from LEE that does a great job of forming. It is a mystery.

I use Redding's 375 Whelen die set with the tapered neck expander. The only cases I've lost were those that I misalined in the die.
Put some lube in the case mouth, graphite, some dry lube.

Jim

I've got a 16 1/4" (counting brake) SSK Encore pistol barrel in 35 Whelen and I use RCBS dies and Remington 30.06 brass to form my preannealed '06' cases.....as a matter of fact a buddy of mine and I fired 50 rounds through the barrel Thanksgiving morning and I just FL sized the cases a few minutes ago and they are in the tumbler now.

It's accurate and a fun barrel to shoot, rigning a 10" steel gong at 200yds shot after shot gets to be somewhat boring after awhile.

I'm loading a good charge of IMR4895 under a Hornady # 3505 180gr. SSP bullet.

Ike

quote:

Originally posted by thndrchiken:
This is all R&P brass that has been resized five or six times.

No worries if you are "only" getting 5 or 6 reloadings with your hulls.

I've always figured this is where the economics of reloading starts to fall off - e.g. no biggie if you don't get 10 reloadings as you aren't saving much $$$ at this point of the game.

Case life can be dramatically, VERY dramatically, extended by doing 2 simple things:

Anneal neck & shoulder area before doing any resizing, and do it again after every 5-10 loadings, even more often if using cast bullets. Annealing every 1-2 loadings is sometimes preferred for best accuracy with cast, according to the more experienced BPCRS shooters.

Use the Lee collet die wherever possible, with a selection of different-sized mandrels for varying the bullet pull.


By using these suggestions it's fairly easy to get dozens and dozens of loadings from each case. But perhaps more importantly, these suggestions will almost always allow better ACCURACY when used in conjunction with other accuracy-oriented handloading procedures.
Regards, Joe