I am looking for a set of 500 A-Square dies and see that CH4D have them listed. Does anyone have experience with the quality of these dies? They are offered at a good saving over the same type of die from RCBS if they are up to the standard.

Thanks

Fergus

I've had good luck with their products in the past, but used to live only about an hour away from them.

What I DID notice(and I don't know that it would apply to much to the 500A2 - since there aren't that many choices of parent cases...), is there were several "wildcat" dies on the shelf, many in the same caliber - but cut for the specific parent brass the reloader was starting with.

I had problems with a 224 Clark die set, only to find out - since I hadn't specified they gave me the 30-06 parent die set, instead of the 257R.

Be specific when ordering is my recommendation, the more info you supply the better.

Run a search on this forum for 'CH4D'

Experience of forumites with these has been rather variable.
I recall that GG375 from Weipa, who won the Searcy double here a while back, got CH4D's in .470NE. Then had to order RCBS anyway - see this NitroExpress thread.

Another possibility you'll see suggested for 500 A-Square, is custom Redding dies - these are very reasonably priced.

I have ch4 dies in .50-110 and .585 Nyati and thye have worked fine for me. Others hate them though.

I've got a set in .300 Sherwood (where else are you going to find that?), they seem to work ok, but to be honest they are not as smoothly finished on the inside as I would like.

ch4d, the good, the bad, and the ugly...

well, all of them are ugly....

I have bought, 585 nyati, 550 express, (have 550 magnum) 500 jeffe, 470 mbogo, and have 470 ar on the way.

finish - generally better than lyman
function - if you send them the print of the reamer, they WILL work correctly.. but, if you have a non-standard wildcat, you never know

fit.. okay, the seating stems 1/4 the time require me to do 90 second of work on my lathe

I have had their known crimping problem.. and that went away with the big bores when I seated and crimped in two operations.

I have had to send back ONE thing.. an expander plug.. and it was my fault, as that I didn't specify I would be shooting mostly lead bullets and needed a .512 expander.

price is 1/2 or less of rcbs on custom stuff..

good value

jeffe

I agree with the other fellas here. They aren't always that well finished, but they will have you loading and shooting for much less than RCBS in most cases.

I had all kinds of trouble with them on my .470 and old Fred said that Searcy, RCBS, Norma and the others had the wrong deminsions and his were correct so he felt no obligation to make it right, well so what, who cares whos right or wrong I couldn't reload my .470..

After much argueing and Lord knows what else, I finally demanded and got my money back minus a chicken s--t 20% restocking fee for dies that would resize my cases for my Searcy....

I bought RCBS dies and have never had a problem...I sure didn't like the way fred handled the situation, and his specs are dead wrong..

Huntington, RCBS, Norma and Searcy said without going into the details of how they put it, said Fred was simply wrong and his dies were out of spec and it was wrong to charge me the 20% over something that was his fault.....

Fergus,

I bought .470 Capstick dies from CH4D. While I had to send the sizing die back once so it would work with brass fired in my chamber, Dave took care of it promptly and without objection (or charge).

It would be behoove you to either send him brass fired in your chamber, dimensions from a chamber cast, or as Jeffeosso mentioned, a print of the reamer used to chamber your barrel.

Seeing as you live in Oz, you'd want to get the dies right the first time.

George

I have a set of CH4D .404 Jeffrey dies that cost $100 less than RCBS or Redding. They aren't the prettiest things around and I don't agree that they're better than Lyman but I do agree that they do the job and I have had no problems with them. The expander is such that I can take .375RUM brass and neck it up in one pass without any failures. Good enough for me!

I have a set of their dies for .500 Jeff. The sizer is fine, but the seater does not crimp the bullet worth a hoot. I use an RCBS seater now.

Fergus;
speak to Peter Van Meurs, Bob deVries or Alex at Toys For Big Boys and get their slant on CH4D. I personally have never used these dies, so can only offer you the advice that was offered to me. Go with RCBS. I have two sets of their custom dies, .416 Taylor and .470 Mbogo and all I can say is that they are superb.
They are certainly much more expensive that CH4D but dies last forever. What price quality?
Don't deal with Raytrade, they are a non event!

Thanks for the comments guys. That certainly gives me plenty to think about... but doesnt make my decision any easier

quote:

I had all kinds of trouble with them on my .470 and old Fred said that Searcy, RCBS, Norma and the others had the wrong deminsions and his were correct so he felt no obligation to make it right, well so what, who cares whos right or wrong I couldn't reload my .470..

After much argueing and Lord knows what else, I finally demanded and got my money back minus a chicken s--t 20% restocking fee for dies that would resize my cases for my Searcy....

I bought RCBS dies and have never had a problem...I sure didn't like the way fred handled the situation, and his specs are dead wrong..

Huntington, RCBS, Norma and Searcy said without going into the details of how they put it, said Fred was simply wrong and his dies were out of spec and it was wrong to charge me the 20% over something that was his fault.....

Ray, Do you mean Dave? I've only dealt with Dave Davison at CH4D...don't know of a Fred.

Anyhoo, I agree with jeffe on this one, and had a much different experience than Ray.

The dies for my 470 Mbogo were pretty rough, and I had some problems seating bullets, but Dave made it right in a jiff. Sent me a new seating plug free of charge, ended up replacing the sizing die altogether when I had trouble with neck tension and then also repaired the seating die when I had trouble with cast bullets and crimping some Barnes X. Whenever I sent him something to be fixed it was priority couriered back to me within two weeks.

At one time I was a little down on the quality of the dies, but after it is all said and done I have NO complaints whatsoever about CH4D customer service. I would have liked to have avoided the whole hassle from the start, but in fairness to Dave, we are talking about a non-standard wildcat and he had not made the dies correctly for the non-standard neck thickness (0.010). He did do everything he could to make it right, and that goes a long way in my book.

Cheers,
Canuck

My experience was not so great. While Dave is a joy to chat with on the phone, The dies I ordered were wrong. The shell holders I got were so far out of specs they wouldn't allow the priming tool to seat the primers properly.

As for me I will pay more for RCBS. They are a standard by which all others are judged. There is a good reason for that!

Dave has given me a proper definition of "included arc", a great photo of his 59.5" kudu and a dead-nuts die set for my .505 Gibbs. Thanks Dave!

When I bought my 450 3 1/4" nito dies, they came with a sizing die for the 450 No 2. took me a couple of calls and finaly sent the dies back,, he call me and said nothing was wrong,, after explaining to him, he said he'd fix it, then made some excuse for cutting the call short. About 3 days later got the dies back.. For my money I'd go RCBS

Yes I ment Dave not Fred....I will never do business with him again..my ordeal was totally uncalled for. He simply would not admit he was wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Yes I ment Dave not Fred....I will never do business with him again..my ordeal was totally uncalled for. He simply would not admit he was wrong.

Ray,
my wife has this amazingly annoying habit.. of requiring people to say "i don't know" after a 30 min stream of questions.. she does this to lawyers and doctors (which is kind of funny) but..

she's more than already made her point 10 mins before the person gets really annoyed and gets to the point of saying I don't know.


I'll just ask you this.. the 20% restocking fee, was that more than sending him a couple fired cases and the dies and getting him to adjust them, or less?

his 470 NE dies are what, 160 bucks? that would make your restocking fee $32... i realize it's not the ammount that matter

Me, I would have sent the man 3 fired round and the dies.

jeffe

I have used CH4D dies in 500 NE, 470 NE and 600 NE. All worked fine. CH4D dies are a bit rougher in finish quality than RCBS or Redding or Forester, but for big bores CH4D represents a bargain in price. Also, CH4D likes to keep several sets of dies in each caliber in stock, which is a tremendous service to us in the shooting community who do not want to wait 6 months for custom dies to be made.

I know some folks have had a few glitches with CH4D dies, but CH4D has offered to fix the problems encountered which is what a product warranty is all about. I have had to send stuff back to RCBS, so it would be hard to be upset with CH4D on this point.

Hi Fergus
The only CH4D dies I have are the 50-110 they work great but must admit I was dissapointed with how loose they are in the press - as in the threads are a bit small, no real issue I guess as they do lock down ok.

I also had my dies nitrided by ch4d found them good to deal with. See if you can order direct as I think there agent here is Toys for Big Boys, who over charge and I have had a bad experience with.
Unfortinuately TfBB are also the Barnes distributor which is why I prefer to use any other brand of bullet.

The CH4 seating die for my 10.75x68 will not crimp the bullet. I sent them back, they returned another that's also too big, tell me they are within spec.

Gentlemen (& Ray) if you have cartridge cases or a chamber that is not within accepted dimensions there are going to be problems. For example, Norma 470 NE brass which at the neck is about .011" under the SAAMI drawing. It does not seem proper to amke a standard caliber die out of spec to accommodate one incorrect brand of brass when there are several brands of correct dimensions available. For such cases we do offer dies made to the customer's dimensions at a small additional charge, usually about $30, & will on request supply what we consider to be the "standard" dimensions so the customer can determine up front if they match what he has. I hope this clears up any confusion.

I use CH4D in 470 NE. No problems, excellent service

I bought my .256 and .35 Newton dies from Dave at CH4D and I've been very pleased with the quality of the products and their service. Dave has always promptly responded to my emails or telephone calls. I'll gladly do business with them in the future.

I had Dave ship 2 sets to me in the U.K, absolutely no problem, they arrived in days of being ordered, of the 2 one set was for a friend in his .470 which he says work just fine.
A similar set of RCBS .505 ordered via the U.K agents took 5 months to arrive.

My own were in .600 N.E and they too work well, the finish is not at all bad ( although I never saw early examples) and produce good quality hand-loads, and better still they cost only about 1/3 the price of similar RCBS dies shipped to the U.K. On that basis it is hard to fault them and as has been said, Dave does seem genuinely helpful, although some have found this not to be so.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
I had all kinds of trouble with them on my .470 and old Fred said that Searcy, RCBS, Norma and the others had the wrong deminsions and his were correct so he felt no obligation to make it right, well so what, who cares whos right or wrong I couldn't reload my .470..

After much argueing and Lord knows what else, I finally demanded and got my money back minus a chicken s--t 20% restocking fee for dies that would resize my cases for my Searcy....

I bought RCBS dies and have never had a problem...I sure didn't like the way fred handled the situation, and his specs are dead wrong..

Huntington, RCBS, Norma and Searcy said without going into the details of how they put it, said Fred was simply wrong and his dies were out of spec and it was wrong to charge me the 20% over something that was his fault.....

I had the same problems with my CH4D .470 NE dies that Ray experienced; incorrect dimensions. I finally just bought RCBS and threw my CH4D dies in the trash. I didn't even bother trying to get my money back. No more CH4D dies for me ever again. I've been very happy with the RCBS dies.

Caveat Emptor

-Bob F.

Dave Davison's work is good and the Die's ...Of all kinds he makes... work.. and i understand what happened to Rusty.... But over all the work
from CH Tooling is good .. and a better price then the rest ..Dave does try hard to help out


Martin