I was quite excited to find my 500 Jeffrey dies arrived from CH4D. My enthusiam has waned after playing with them. All I had were some loaded rounds I'd assembled with a modified 50-70 seater die.

After running a few of the loaded rounds in the die, and seeing the bullets seated deeper in the case, with the seater stem totally removed, I was somewhat puzzled and p/o'd. Running a ball gauge in the die and checking with the caliper reveals the throat of the die is .505" and quite rought compared to the .510" it should be. There also appears to be no crimp groove in the die as well.

I won't be able to evaluate the sizer until I recieve my action and put a few rounds down range. Has anyone else had problems with the 500J CH4D's?

Paul- My 505 Gibbs expander doen't work either. Sounds like they may have mixed up some 505 Gibbs and 500 jeff dies. Call Dave he will fix it for you. No problems.-Rob

Paul,
Call Dave and talk to him about it.. I got mine, and while the chrimp aint a lee collet, it works okay...

I like mine, for being ch4d... that is to say, i REALLY didnt want to give 400 bucks for em...

jeffe

Thanks for the input. I didn't get a chance to call them today. I was also kinda bummed seing the $130 on their web site, but being charged $150 for the set. I'm have debating just returning the seater and using the 50-70 die for a seater, but I'd like a proper seater. The up side is the 50-70 will put a decent crimp on the cases, so that is an option.

Paul, for what its worth, I have the exact same problem with my CH4D, 500 Jeff dies. My 500 Jeff is on a Ruger 1, so I am not too concerned with crimping. Every time I tried to set the dies to crimp I would buckle the neck and ruin a $5 piece of brass. My dies work well enough to get the shells to work through the gun but thats all. I was certainly not impressed with their machine work. BTW my shellholder also has a high spot down the middle, straight across the flat, and wont hold the shell straight up.

Chad

Chad,

Thanks for your input. I'm still waiting for my barreled action, as I want to see if there is any problems with the sizer, so I'll only have to ship one package. I also want to include a fired case so they can figure out why it won't crimp.

I did call Dave about the problem, and he said to send them back, and that the way they cut the dies is they ream the body, then turn the die around to drill and tap for the seater stem, and that the operator if not paying attention can raise a burr in the throat of the die. After looking at the die, it is not a burr, but extremely rough in the throat, and .505" in dia.

The upside is I found my Hornady 480 shellholder works perfectly with the 500, so I didn't have to buy a shellholder.

Isn't GAHUNTER also having some problems with CH4D dies, in .404 Jeffery?

Paul,

I sent the 500 Jeffery/Schuler chamber reamer drawing to CH4D so hopefully they will have the correct information.

BTW your barreled action shipped last week. Look for an email from me with some details.

Maybe I need to buy a resize reamer and start making 500 Jeffery dies????

John,

If you could build a set of dies for $150, on a 1 1/4"-12 body, then I'd just send my CH4D's back and have a better set of dies.

I'd read Allen's comments about how his 500 AHR dies from CH4D were of poor quality. I'd hoped it was a fluke, but I'm afraid I have the same opinion of my set.

It looks like I have my seater die cleaned up. I used and expandable lap with some clover compound to clean up the neck of the die. I also measured the brass protrusion from the die compared to the shellholder, and it looks like grinding .010-.015" off the base of the die will provide a crimp.

I'm a bit bummed the die didn't arrive correct out of the box, especially for a $150 set of dies. That said, shipping from AK has been extrodinarly slow as of late, and I just didn't want to wait a couple of weeks to get the dies back, especially with the rifle in transit.