I have both, and while the Hornady works fine, I do prefer the Redding. You'd be well-served by either, though.

But if you could find an older set of Pacific Durachrome dies...well, then you'd have Redding quality without the price. These were very well made and are my favorites for the TCUs as the tolerances were very tight and the interiors smooth as silk. Perhaps give Ed Kirkpatrick a call. You can look up his # on the site at www.edstc.com

I am going to be ordering a new 6mm T/CU Barrel from On Target Technologies tomorrow. I need to get some dies ordered so I can size some the the fireformed brass I have and make a couple dummy rounds to send to Mike. In looking at various sites that offer both Burris Handgun Scopes and Reloading Dies I noticed that about the only companies that offer dies for the 6mm T/CU anymore are Redding and Hornady.

The Redding Dies are $21.60 more than the Hornday Dies. I have used Redding Dies in the past, and have no complaints what so ever. However I have not used any of the new Hornady Dies. Are the Redding Dies worth the extra $21.60 ?

Thanks

SD Handgunner

Larry, did you go for the 6 JDJ from Ron? Saw he had it on "hold" on his website. I'll see him on Saturday at a local gun show.

Actually NO. I am getting a Stainless-Steel 6mm T/CU barrel from Mike at On Target Technologies. I found a bunch of formed once fired 6mm T/CU Brass that I had from a previous barrel.

Yea I noticed Ron had the barrel marked HOLD. I haven't phoned him to see if it is gone yet, but figured someone is getting it.

SD Handgunner

From what I have seen of the Hornady dies I have had, their tolerances in the seat die are rather putrid and do a poor job of maintaining concentricity of bullet to case.

My bud and unofficial test lab in Missouri, Howard Tilford, had to have his machinist son make a new seat sleeve for the set I supplied him. Accuracy was not up to snuff at all with the stock Hornady seat die. With proper tolerances in the custom made seating sleeve, performance was as expected. Super.

I have little regard for Hornady dies. I'd buy Lee before Hornady.

From a quality standpoint, NO ONE makes a better production reloading die than Redding.

I have taken exception with Redding over size die dimensions, but for overall quality, Redding is far and away the best on the market. Period.

The quality of the Lee dies in many regards is better than either RCBS or Hornady.

CH is sort of in the middle.... good..... fairly priced, but not up to the consistent quality of Redding.

Eventually, when I get back into the machine work more, in the back of my mind is the necessity of allying myself with Redding. That, or if capital, facilities, and manpower permit start making production reloading dies myself.

Hundreds of the reamers I have are Ackley's old size die reamers, just itching to make size dies again after being salted away all these years.

One man's opinion after 25 years in the trade.

Mike

Thanks all. I ordered the Redding Dies on Thursday morning so they should be here next week sometime (I hope). I never have had a problem with Redding Dies, just was curious as to the quality of the Hornady Dies.

My only experience with Hornady Dies was many years ago, and from what I understand they are not the same dies they make today.

SD Handgunner

I mentioned I would buy Lee over Hornady, and if you think Lee is junk, you know where that puts Hornady.

Granted, some of Lee's little innovations are somewhat funky, sort of like some of the designs on Savage rifles. But the overall precision with Lee dies is not bad.

The only issue I ever had with Redding was the fact that they use size die dimensions that are meant for sloppy chambers. I cut chambers smaller than many of their size dies size do, especially at the web. But there are ways to work around this in most cases.

In the instance of the 6mm TCU, if the Redding dies do not size small enough at the web, get a Lee carbide .357 Mag. pistol size die to run the cases through. They will usually size the case webs small enough.

All depends on who cuts the chamber and how closely matched it is to new cases whether you need "Lee to the rescue."

I gave up trying to influence Richard Beebe, owner of Redding, to make his size dies smaller. I had to concede to the fat chamber majority out there and backed away from Redding. But with RCBS what it now is, Hornady what it is, and Lee looking better than both, it is about time for me to have a chat with Rich again.

BTW, when you start carefully measuring the variations in headspace caused by expander balls pulling case shoulders forward varying amounts, you will see why among other reasons the bushing dies Redding brought out are the best thing to come along in decades!

For the break open guns DO get the FULL LENGTH bushing dies whenever you can.... PERIOD! They are far and away the best way to go.

Mike

www.bellmtcs.com

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Mike, how's things going for you and Dee ? I sure hope everything is OK.

I had my hip replacement surgery on Jan. 13th, and am now back to normal, well better than normal I guess. I wish I would have had this done 10 years ago. No more pain, and now both legs are the same length without any spacers in my shoe.

Anyway, thanks for the help guys.

SD Handgunner

I was going to say what Mike did about the Redding bushing dies. You can neck turn and still get the proper tension if you are necking brass up or down and have concentricity problems caused by varying neck thickness (or are otherwise anal about your brass).

A big thumbs down on the Hornady seating dies as well. My experience has always been poor concentricity.