In my quest to reduce bullet runout I purchased a couple of Forster Benchrest seating dies. They work great and I couldn't happier. Except for one problem. The seating stem on my 6.5x55 die leaves a deep grove around the bullet after seating, not a scratch , a groove. I checked out the stem and there is no visible signs of tooling marks etc.

I e-mailed Forster about the problem and told them I was using 140gr Partitions. There response was "... the seating stem needs to be machined to better fit the Nosler bullets. We have found that this is necessary with the new longer VLD bullets on the market"

They require a fee and return shipping to machine the seating stem to fit the Partition?? Come on, the Partition has been around for decades, nothing fancy or odd about it's shape. The Forster Seating Dies work just fine in my 300WSM and 30-06 with Partitions.

I know, I know, I'm being an ass. I just couldn't believe they are going to have me send the stem back, wait 3 to 4 weeks, and pay for the repairs for a part that in my opinion is defective.

Weeelll...the Forster dies are BR designs after all. That bullet seating stem is made to fit common target type bullets, Sierra, etc. While a given Nosler may work without problem that's not what the dies were made for so it's not really a surprise they may need to custom "fix" it to match your bullet of choice.

I think I'd just live with the slight ring mark myself, it sure won't hurt anything.

You just need to knock the edge off of the inside of the seating plug where it goes from being angled to parallel with the die. I've taken a drill bit or small dowell wrapped in steel wool and buffed the inside of the seating plug and it's solved that problem for me.

You will be surprised how fast the turn around time is. I sent my FLS die to be honed slightly and it was back in a week. $14 for service and shipping.

Years ago I wrote Forster that my .223 Ultra Seater seater stem was getting my 55 gr Vmax bullets stuck in it.

They sent me a new one that worked better, but not perfect.

I looked under a microscope and saw a tiny burr on the de burring chamfer. I spun the stem in the lathe and polished off the burr with fine wet and dry paper.

I wrote Forster's engineer to tell him about this.

Many years later, I bought Forster dies for a dozen cartridges. They often still have the same problem.

I now polish the seating stem mouth in the lathe with a green Scotch Brite abrasive pad pushed with a tooth pick.

I have called Forster many times to buy things and give them my ideas.
They seem to be a top notch outfit to me.

I recently sent all the sizer dies back to get the necks lapped out on their Hardinge Lathes.

They make the hole fit the pin gauge but not .001" larger.
Contrast this with Redding bushings that will not fit the pin gauge of the size written on the bushing, but will .001" smaller.

What does it all mean?
When you find a size of bushing you like from Redding, but want the better concentricity from a lapped FL die from Forster, order .001" tighter than the bushing.

Yes, the ring around the bullet nose from the seating stem is a classic. Forster's (excellent) seating dies often suffer from this malady, but so do other seaters - even 1'st rate ones like the Redding Competition seaters.

Like the posters above have commented, the best way to deal with it, is probably to polish the seating stem yourself. One way of doing so, is to use the bullet type you want the seater to be used with. Coat the bullet tip in lapping compound and spin it (drill?) in the seating stem. That usually works pretty well.

Btw, apart from the (cosmetic) issue of the ring around the bullet nose, I'm not sure it actually matters as far as group sizes are concerned. You can do quite amazing things to bullet noses, and still get great accuracy results. In contrast damage the bullet heel, and see where you end up then...

- mike

The ring on the nose is common to several types of dies. It doesn't hurt a thing unless the bullet gets stuck in there and want's to start pulling itself back out of the case.

Thanks, I did as many of you have suggested and polished the stem myself. Works great now.

Thanks Again.

Forster and Redding actually have customer service. I prefer Forster. Glad you worked it out.