RCBS or Redding competition dies

[nebhunt]

Hi everyone. I have been reloading for about 15 years and am thinking of stepping it up a notch to get a little tighter groups. I was thinking of getting better dies to cut down on the chance of the bullet not seating straight. I know the brass neck thickness can cause problems and I would just measure the case neck and cull the bad ones. So any thoughts on which set of dies you like the best. I guess that RCBS has a new set out called the Gold Medal Die Set.

I am a hardcore RCBS guy, but those redding's are very nice. I have had both sets of comp dies, and can say, I like the redding better. As you mention however, if your neck thickness varies, it won't matter what dies you buy.

With those seaters, if you use the dial indicator with them, they are dead nuts on. If you measure 3.4" COL on your comparitor and want to go to 3.32", if you dial your seating indicator .08, its going down to that.

[nebhunt]

Thanks for the input bigcountry. Do you turn case necks and if so is it worth the trouble?

ORIGINAL: nebhunt

Thanks for the input bigcountry. Do you turn case necks and if so is it worth the trouble?

Depends. For the 300RUM, I had trouble finding quality cases. The remington was crap. So I neck turned them down to .014". They varied some times .011 to .019". If you turn down anymore you might have trouble seating a bullet and getting it to hold.

Its alot of work, and really works the necks and really should anneal after doing it. Let me go thru what I had to do to get any benefit.

I would have to use the expander mandrel to expand the necks to properly fit my turning tool. I would have to turn each neck. After that, they are too loose to hold a bullet, so I would have to Neck size (or FL size but dont' want to overwork anymore than I have too). Now all that working knocks the necks out of concentricity, so now only way to make straight is to fireform or shoot one time at least. Now after all that, I have a straight case with a straight neck, that is decently concentrisic.

Its easier just to cull brass. Thats alot of work.

I have had good luck with rest of my calibers with neck variance. Only my huges cases do I have issues like STW, and RUM.