Bought some Hornady 458 Lott dies. The sizer die
sizes them down about .0010 smaller than brand new brass! When you push a bullet in the case it looks like it's necked up! Trying to crimp with the seater die is another project. It seems like it goes right from no or very little crimp to way too much. This is the worst die set I've ever bought.

moved to reloading

Gurn,
when you size the brass, what's teh OD and wall thickness?

on this big taper crimps, it's genearlly best to attempt to "crimp" an emptry case, that was you can get a perfect reading of what the ID changes to and WHEN/WHERE in the die it hits.

jeffe

Jeff

Wall thickness is .0017
OD at mouth sized is .472
OD at mouth new brass .481

Thanks for the tip on crimping but I have loaded for years at least 30 or 40 different calibers, straight wall rifle cases, bottle necks, pistol rounds, and have used many different brands of dies. There is definitely a defect in both of these dies. The seater die must be cut at too sharp of an angle where the crimp is formed. I also have a set of Hornady 375 RUM dies that I'm not real impressed with either. In order to set the bullet corectly you can only have it turned into the press like one thread!
Just wondering whats up with thoses guys?

Maybe they should stick to making bullets

Have you attempted to query Hornady about this?

Gurn,
reling what i learned when I went to serious crimp bullets... soryr to hear of the trouble.

hornady's number is
800 338 3220

jeffe

I'd also like to know if you called them and gave them the chance to fix what may, or may not be a problem? Or did you just start bashing them?

I used a friends Hornady dies to load some 450 Marlin. There was no way to crimp them in that set of dies. I bought my own RCBS set then got the bright idea to pull the collet out of my Lee 45/70 factory crimp die, and put it in the lathe and turned a relief in it for the belt on the 450 Marlin. Now I can get a real crimp on them.
Lyle

I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. The Hornady 458 Lott dies are crap.

They're too short and the expander die's 'plug' is non adjustable. The expander die is a 'generic' .458. I was using a rock chucker supreme and had to have a buddy fabricate an adaptor to get the dies 'tall' enough to get them to work. even then I had a hell of a time not over belling the case mouths.

If you do a search you'll fiind a few other's here that have had the same problem.

I called Hornady and basicly was told that I was the first to ever complain about it. I don't remember the exact conversation but I recall that I felt that I was getting blown off. Later at SCI I stopped by the booth and they said that they'd had a few complaints.

Now in all fairness I have a buddy that's not had a problem with his.

I ended up upgrading to a Redding set and never looked back. Haven't had a single problem with them. Do you self a favor a get a set. I got mine from Lock, Stock, and Barrel.

-Steve

I've had good success with Hornady's pistol dies but when I need a pipe wrench and a box/end wrench to lock down a set of .270 dies I decided to not buy more Hornady dies.

I have several sets of the Pacific dies (pre steve) and like those very well.

I like their bullets but reloading tools seems to not be a strong suit there.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:

I like their bullets but reloading tools seems to not be a strong suit there.

I agree with you about Hornady bullets and should add that their 458 brass is very good.

-Steve

I am with vapodog all the way on this one!

quote:

I'd also like to know if you called them and gave them the chance to fix what may, or may not be a problem? Or did you just start bashing them

Am I missing something here? The stuff is junk!

I did call them and after they found out I wasn't going to take "Oh thats normal" for an answer, from two different people there. They agreed to let me send them back at my expense. I guess paying for dies that don't work right twice is no reason to start complaining.
I havn't decided if I should send them back and take a chance that they still wont work or just buy another set from a real die maker.

Gurn,
Agreed, my Hornady 458Lott dies did the same, ammunition still went "bang" though which was good enough for me.
Cheers...
Con

I bought a Hornady New Dimensions neck sizer in 6.5mm. Absolute piece of crap. I will never use it again. Matter of fact I almost threw it at the neighbours dog who was at my garbage again. He got the jump on me though.

I have mixed success with their dies. For example, a .308 neck sizer scrapes the sides of WSM cases and a .40S&W set is going strong. My distributor sent me the wrong neck sizer when I first bought it, and Hornady changed it out at no charge...even though it was the distributor's fault.

I like their inline seater. Their nitride pistol sizer is not my favorite tool!

For the money, RCBS has been more reliable and consistent. YMMV!

Gern, I know the feeling. My one Hornady 3 die set with mic. seat adjuster in .223 is great.
After reloading for about 47 years I now have started reloading for a 458WM. Talk about troubles. Using a Lee 3die set I hadn't got into my brain how things were going to work.

First up the Lee FLS scraped brass into a sharp ridge just above the belt. Fixed that with emery. (On the die edge.)

Next I reckoned it was sizing the neck area down too much and got the necked up effect on seating a bullet. Fixed that by partial FLS"ing, until I discovered I was only using the neck expander part to get a slight bell.
Heck, for a long while I didn't even know the neck expander was part of the bell die.

Next problem was getting the crimp right. I couldn't tell by feel as the powder compression needed was horrendous.

Jeffe is spot on to set the crimp up first then re bell the crimp out.
Fixed the compression problem by only using Part FLSizing.

Again like your Hornady, to seat my 500g softs the Lee seating stem was only holding by a couple of threads, and being aluminium or such it soon cut out. Fixed that by throwing the internal floating seater away to get more space.

So basically I found some adjustments to be very sudden, (esp. the crimp) but with practise and patience, I'm getting there. What fun!
John L.

Gurn: i am not certain that the problem is in the die. i have had this problem on literally thoudands of cases in 357 Mag and 44 Mag. the dies i was using were RCBS. the problem was made even more confusing because not all of the cases showed this "swelling". most of them did, but not all. however, i noticed that, even though the loaded rounds looked odd, they did not show any lack of accuracy or consistency. on the other hand, i have loaded many hundreds of 45-70 rounds using Hornady dies and have never had this problem.

so, in my experience, the only dies i have had this "problem" with are RCBS. i have used Hornady dies on probably 15 other caretridges and have never had the problem you are experiencing. however, all of the cartridges i use Hornady dies on are bottle neck design except the 45-70.

Steve: i have bad news for you about the overall length of the Hornady die. i happen to have a set of Hornady as well as a set of RCBS dies for the Lott. the Hornady dies are slightly longer than the RCBS dies. i am talking about the external dimension. i understand that this is the dimension you are concerned about. the threaded portion is also identical or slightly longer on the Hornady die than on the RCBS die. so, if the Hornady die is too short, so will be the RCBS. the difference in the 2 sets is that the Hornady cost me ~$25.00 at a gunshow and the RCBS cost me $200.00 from Huntington's.

as far as the crimping problem is concerned....i learned a long time ago to use a Lee Factory Crimp die if one is available. i own one for the Lott. i cannot remember if i had it made by Lee or if it was readily available. if you have to ask Lee to make you one, it costs ~$25.00 i believe. if it is already available it costs ~$10-$15.

good luck boys.

quote:

Steve: i have bad news for you about the overall length of the Hornady die. i happen to have a set of Hornady as well as a set of RCBS dies for the Lott. the Hornady dies are slightly longer than the RCBS dies. i am talking about the external dimension. i understand that this is the dimension you are concerned about. the threaded portion is also identical or slightly longer on the Hornady die than on the RCBS die. so, if the Hornady die is too short, so will be the RCBS. the difference in the 2 sets is that the Hornady cost me ~$25.00 at a gunshow and the RCBS cost me $200.00 from Huntington's.

Not sure about the 458 RCBS dies as I am now using a Redding set. The Redding set is $61.00 from Lock, Stock and Barrel.

I do use RCBS in other calibers in the Rock Chucker Supreme with no problems, however.

-Steve

Steve: the reason my RCBS dies were so expensive is that i bought them before Hornady started loading 458 Lott ammo. as soon as Hornady started to produce the ammo, they came out with their own dies. until then, RCBS was making the Lott dies as a custom set. in any case, Redding is certainly high quality stuff.

like you, i have used RCBS dies with no problems excpet the issue i mentioned on the pistol cartridges.