Last year I bought a boatload of new and near new reloading gear from a guy that jumped in head over heels and didn't end up liking to load. I have 7 single stage Lee presses, a new Dillon 550B progressive press and 3 turret style Lee presses.
Its taken a year of sorting the good out, reading and learning to get the point that I am now. This past Saturday I took the reloading class in Sandy Springs and that put all the pieces together for me, except the internal optimum adjustments for the dies. I have the case length, and other prep down along with the other details, but these dies are kicking my ass.
Today I wasted brass and bullets loading up some dummy rounds and got really frustrated. I have Lee and RCBS dies in .308 and I just can't get them set up right. I wanted to start with .308 as I have plenty of nice cases and bullets and I have the most .308 rifles of all. Keeping things simple I have stayed away from the progressive presses and for now I am only focusing on the single stage presses, to learn the basics and build confidence through some fired rounds in. It seems that no matter what I do I can't find the sweet spot for the resizing die or the seating dies.
With the resizing die I make small adjustments to the die in the press and then also to the internal adjustment. The end result is a crashed case or improper sizing of the neck/ entire case. I was able to get the neck sizes right, but then the other end was improperly sized and would not slide into the case gauge or the chamber of a test rifle.
The same goes for the seating/ crimping die as I either get the proper overall length with improper seating/ crimping and the bullet fits too loose and can easily be turned, or the opposite occurs and I crash the case. I make the smallest of adjustments and it just does not work out.
I am not a mechanical dumb ass, I build precision engines on a daily basis and work with mechanical things all day, everyday. I am starting to think that these dies are not right, because I can't get any consistency, nor can I find a sweet spot for them. I was tempted to buy new dies as these are unknown and came with all the gear I got last year, but I'd rather not. I have tried a two die RCBS set and a 3 die Lee set thats pictured here, with similar results in different presses.
From the books I have read and the videos I have watched my situation simply does not respond like what I have seen in the videos. It looks straight forward, but this is a real pain. I hate to waste brass, luckily I have a lot of it. Can anyone shed some light here? What dies are pictured here exactly? One has a C3 on the die and the other has a D3, the center one doesn't say anything. The center one is a multiple piece design that floats internally which I can't find any description of in the books or videos online.
Its taken a year of sorting the good out, reading and learning to get the point that I am now. This past Saturday I took the reloading class in Sandy Springs and that put all the pieces together for me, except the internal optimum adjustments for the dies. I have the case length, and other prep down along with the other details, but these dies are kicking my ass.
Today I wasted brass and bullets loading up some dummy rounds and got really frustrated. I have Lee and RCBS dies in .308 and I just can't get them set up right. I wanted to start with .308 as I have plenty of nice cases and bullets and I have the most .308 rifles of all. Keeping things simple I have stayed away from the progressive presses and for now I am only focusing on the single stage presses, to learn the basics and build confidence through some fired rounds in. It seems that no matter what I do I can't find the sweet spot for the resizing die or the seating dies.
With the resizing die I make small adjustments to the die in the press and then also to the internal adjustment. The end result is a crashed case or improper sizing of the neck/ entire case. I was able to get the neck sizes right, but then the other end was improperly sized and would not slide into the case gauge or the chamber of a test rifle.
The same goes for the seating/ crimping die as I either get the proper overall length with improper seating/ crimping and the bullet fits too loose and can easily be turned, or the opposite occurs and I crash the case. I make the smallest of adjustments and it just does not work out.
I am not a mechanical dumb ass, I build precision engines on a daily basis and work with mechanical things all day, everyday. I am starting to think that these dies are not right, because I can't get any consistency, nor can I find a sweet spot for them. I was tempted to buy new dies as these are unknown and came with all the gear I got last year, but I'd rather not. I have tried a two die RCBS set and a 3 die Lee set thats pictured here, with similar results in different presses.
From the books I have read and the videos I have watched my situation simply does not respond like what I have seen in the videos. It looks straight forward, but this is a real pain. I hate to waste brass, luckily I have a lot of it. Can anyone shed some light here? What dies are pictured here exactly? One has a C3 on the die and the other has a D3, the center one doesn't say anything. The center one is a multiple piece design that floats internally which I can't find any description of in the books or videos online.