I’ve been thinking much about trying the RCBS Gold Medal Bushing N/S die, but the Lee Collet Die should be able to do the same without all these bushings but just a simple collet. The only thing that worries me with the Lee is the marks on the neck of the brass from the space between the claws inside the collet. My guess is that they can provoke the neck of the brass to show some crack earlier than with a conventional N/S die.
What’s your experience with the Lee Collet Die compared to other N/S die systems?

quote:

The only thing that worries me with the Lee is the marks on the neck of the brass from the space between the claws inside the collet.

A way to eliminate these marks could be to give the brass 1/8 of a turn (as there is 4 claws) after process and then reprocess

I've used a bunch of Lee Collet Dies and they don't leave any significant marks on the neck and will not make the necks crack.

That said, I would not recommend the Lee Collet Die. They are handy in that you don't have to use lube but at times bullets seated in cases resized by them are loose and/or accuracy isn't what it should be. Also, Lee products only have a 2 year warranty which I think indicates the confidence they have in their product.

I like neck sizing dies from RCBS or Redding but I've never used the bushing type.

I have a Lee Collet in almost every caliber I reload for. They have not lead to neck cracks. I do not use them because they are cheap but because they make the straightest ammo. A regular neck sizing die with the expander ball can and most often does jerk the neck out of line. Not to mention that witht he Lee Collet you don't have to lube inside the neck.

I also have a couple of the bushing type neck sizers which are much more expensive. These work best if used without the expander supplied and only if you are into neck turning.

The Lee Collets do not give a lot of bullet grip and only resize the neck to .001" to .002" below caliber diameter. That is one of the reasons they yield such low runout. A quick fix is to use the Lee Factory Crimp Die. In my tests the LFCD has increased velocity an average of 10 fps and decreased group size 1/8". With the LFCD trim length is not critical and you do not need to crimp into a cannelure.

Lee products are quite cheap so, I'm not too demanding; furthermore they (very) often need some polishing\altering. Nevertheless they give me good results. I had to slightly reduce the diameter of the internal pilot of my 300WM collet die by 0.02 mm, since the neck grip was insufficient and the seated bullets were a little loose. As for the marks on the neck made by the claws, you can reduce them by slightly polishing the inside of the claws as well as their sharp edges with some 400 grit sandpaper, as I've made on all my 4 collet dies; I don't think that those small marks can reduce the case life. Of course, it's a good idea to slightly rotate the case and repeat the neck sizing. I have no experience with other brands of neck sizing dies, though.

quote:

Originally posted by woods:
I have a Lee Collet in almost every caliber I reload for. They have not lead to neck cracks. I do not use them because they are cheap but because they make the straightest ammo.

You took the words out of my mouth.

Many of mine are over 10 years old and continue making good ammo without problems.

This has been a come to Jesus year for me and Lee Collet dies.

I polish the parts that rub inside the die.


Ever notice the Lee Video uses brown cardboard under the bench as part of their set?
http://www.leeprecision.com/ht...0die%20install-1.wmv

I wish Obama would run the federal government frugally like Lee Precision runs their operation.

IMO Lee makes the best product on the market, bar none. I began reloading for my first rifle at 14, back in the very early '60s, and have used every brand of reloading dies since then. Probably loaded extensively for more than 3 dozen different rifles over the years, somewhat less for a couple of dozen more, still load for more than a dozen.

If a Lee collet die is available for the cartridge, I buy it. If one isn't available, I alter another one to fit. New smaller central clamp rods are easy to make in various diameters to experiment and ensure the proper bullet pull, and case life is unbelievable!
Regards, Joe

IMHO you can shit can most of the lee stuff but leave the collet dies alone they work great on my 338.

I also turn the case a 1/4 turn and some of my brass has been loaded 7-8 times and still fine.

quote:

If a Lee collet die is available for the cartridge, I buy it. If one isn't available, I alter another one to fit. New smaller central clamp rods are easy to make in various diameters to experiment and ensure the proper bullet pull, and case life is unbelievable!

Ditto! I will NEVER go back to conventional neck dies, nor bushing dies either.

Necks work harden and spring back more as they are used, the same thing occurs with conventional neck dies. That reduces neck tension slightly no matter what die they are used in. An occasional ammealing, done right, corrects that.

All of Lee's tools are good for the market and purpose they are intended. Some of it is the best available, at any cost and for any reloader! But then, NO maker has a lock on the BEST of anything so we need to know what we are doing and then what tool is best for our needs.

Bonanza's Co-Ax press is perhpas the "best" easily available press but buying one just to reload 9mm handgun ammo would be silly. We need to match the tool to the intended use, not the brand.

One little mod I've made to all my Lee Collet neck dies has been to lightly champher the top of the collet fingers with a cone shaped gringing wheel held in my electric drill. In use, the resulting cone leaves a small part of the case mouth unsized, automatically flared a little. The flare helps ease bullets into the neck and seems to help loaded round concentricity. Can't say that for sure, the loaded ammo was good before, but it does ease loading and it sure hasn't hurt anything. Try it!

Lee collet dies plus a redding body die make WONDERFUL BRASS. That said I have a new forster bump die on order. If it works like some say I think I will be in heaven....neck sizing and a shoulder bump with one pass AND NO LUBE NEEDED!!

The Lee collet dies have some limitations that keep me from using them much.
With thick brass they may get a decent grip on a bullet. With thinner Winchester brass they might not produce a good grip when the same die produces adequate results with Remington brass.

The lack of grip is a problem for lever actions, pumps and autoloaders. I am not so sure I trust it in a hard recoiling rifle either.

For autoloaders, lever and pump actions I would not use a collet die anyway; a FL die is a better option.

+1, wildboar.

Nor would I collet resize ammo meant for hunting dangerous game.

Only a fool goes after dangerous game with ammo he hasn't run through the rifle at least once.
Regards, Joe

Love my collet dies! If you want a little more bullet grip - chuck the sizer stem in a drill press and polish it with 600 grit then crocus cloth. I have and use them for all my bottle necks! I experimented with collet die and one 35 Rem brass and my Marlin lever gun. Took one brass and reload/fired 10 times with as much Reloader 11 as I could stuff in the case. I did not anneal case. After the 10th time I cross sectiond case and the area at the head where case separations usualy happen looked like it was fresh off the assy line. Case was still with in length specs. Case fit chamber perfect and action closed easly just like the first time. For a "no shoulder" cartridge and an action "prone to flex" I was quite happy with what I found.

I cycle EVERY CARTRIDGE through lock up in the gun before ANY hunt--PERIOD

The WORST dies I ever got were from Hornady for 45-70. They were so rough and crude I sent them back to Hornady. They mangled the bullet crimp, scratched cases on the resize and the case expander looked like an old phonograph cylinder and oversize to boot!! These made Lee stuff look like a Swiss watch !

quote:

Only a fool goes after dangerous game with ammo he hasn't run through the rifle at least once.

My words exactly, if it works it works, and if you need space for sand etc, the question would be how much sand do you really need space for?

quote:

Originally posted by wasilla:
Love my collet dies! .... I experimented with collet die ... Took one brass and reload/fired 10 times with as much Reloader 11 as I could stuff in the case.

A few months ago I was doing a series of experiments with Redding FL "S", Forster honed neck, Forster not honed, RCBS small base, RCBS, Lee RGB, and Lee collet dies and with loads [SAAMI registration for 223Rem is 55kpsi, these tests were at 66kpsi] while checking for:
1) Brass life
2) Concentricity
3) Brass length growth

Lee Collet wins.

What an eye opener that was!
I have had Lee Collet dies sitting on my shelf for years, and I was not using them.
This reminds me of a joke:

quote:

Q: Have you heard about the woman who went to Alaska to seek her fortune?
A: When she got there, she found that, all along, she had been sitting on a Gold mine.

Collet dies on my loads.

1. No, Collet dies do not induce neck cracking.

2. Collet dies are shipped with mandrels (decapping rods) that are sized maximum. Most require sanding them down very slighty by chucking in a drill and polishing with emory cloth. Use a micrometer or good caliper and watch what you're doing -- it is easy to reduce the diameter too much.

3. If you like (as I do with some calibers) run them back into the die after the first sizing after rotating the case 22.5 degrees (just pull it far enough out of the die to turn it a notch with your fingers without removing it from the shellholder). This will (can) make the bullet grip a little stronger and might make the case mouth a tad more uniform. Sizing twice with a Lee Collet die is still half the work of sizing once with a conventional die.

4. Take them apart before you use them to clean up the petals and die interior. Lee has a great design, but to make and sell them inexpensively they don't spend a lot of time on detail.

5. For some guns you may need to FLS after a few neck-only sizings, or if you are shooting brass previously fired in another chamber. Don't fret about it -- this just goes with the territory.

6. I have an acquaintence who was convinced that he had to FLS everything to assure it would chamber. He turned up on a hunt with plenty of FL-sized ammunition that his bolt wouldn't close on (he bulged the shoulders in the seating process). FL sizing doesn't assure anything -- chamber a large sample (if not every cartridge) if you are in doubt.

i use the lee collet dies - haven't yet shot anything with them except three or four "practice rounds. they hit a 200 yard "gong" about the size of a coffee can. not too bad.

not enough to make an evaluation of their accuracy, but as far as ease of use - they are a joy to use!

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:
The Lee collet dies have some limitations that keep me from using them much.
With thick brass they may get a decent grip on a bullet. With thinner Winchester brass they might not produce a good grip when the same die produces adequate results with Remington brass.

The lack of grip is a problem for lever actions, pumps and autoloaders. I am not so sure I trust it in a hard recoiling rifle either.

I can answer that, but knowing how smart the other SR4759 posts are, I must be overlooking something.
But here goes...

The grip on the bullet comes from; 1) the neck tension times coefficient of friction of bullet to neck and/or 2) the crimp.

1) The neck tension is a result of the interference fit between the bullet and the inside of the neck.
The elastic limit of necks is .001" to .002".
The max neck tension is then possible with the mandrel at .004" smaller than the bullet. That is the neck is collet compressed to .004" smaller than the bullet. The case comes out of the die and springs back to .002" smaller than the bullet. The bullet is seated and the is stretched to .000" smaller than the bullet.
If the more tension is wanted and is possible, the mandrel can be polished down to a smaller diameter.

2) The crimp can be made with Lee Factory crimp or conventional seating dies.

I have different brands of brass for many of the rifles I shoot. The softer thicker Remington brass works well with the collet dies. The thinner harder Winchester brass does not get a good grip. I am not inclined to have multiple mandrels for different brass. I get excellent accuracy with standard dies so the main advantage of the collet dies is not having to use any lube.

A lot of the rifles I shoot are iron sighted so any accuracy improvement would be lost due to the sights. These rifles are tube magazine pumps & lever guns and autoloaders which are ill suited for use with collet dies. Others are single shot BPCR rifles for which there are no collet dies.

If your brass is of different neck tempers (hardness) then you may find neck annealing to be beneficial. I do, and most serious BPCRS shooters have also reached that conclusion. I find that annealing the necks about every 5th loading is sufficient with collet dies but many BPCRS shooters get better accuracy by annealing every time.

If I didn't use collet dies then IMO I'd need to anneal more frequently or else my brass probably wouldn't last more than 5-6 loadings before neck splits began showing up.

One of the major advantages of the collet dies, especially for the brass scrounger, is their ability to size all thicknesses of case neck to a similar acceptable bullet-pull dimension ID. Of course this works only if the central compression shaft is the proper size, that is, a little smaller than most new ones as they come from Lee.

If you don't like 'em then don't use 'em, but it helps to understand their application and a few simple improvements before condemning them.

It's a long-proven fact that Lee dies in a Co-Ax press produce straighter loaded rounds than any other combination tried. And I found that their use speeded my loading process to the point where I could do much more shooting since I didn't hafta spend all that time lubing & degreasing.
Regards, Joe