Thread: Case base separation

Bushing neck sizing dies are another way to avoid this. I used to use the Lee collet dies, but they can end up making your cases necks look like they've been through the willi wonka chocolate factory and fell into the striped candy machine. It doesn't seem to affect anything but I just found the visuals a bit weird... Also a bit harder to adjust neck tension with the collet type setup, whereas the bushing dies you can swap bushings in and out in 1thou increments.

I would second the competition shellholder suggestion, pricey but worth it. Start with your full length sizer die setup on the longest shellholder, and if you end up with a bit of resistance on bolt closing drop back in four steps until the bolt closes with no resistance.

The cheat way here is what I did, use the competition full length bushing die and get the best of both worlds - bushing neck sizing with the control of shoulder length with the die set up to just bump the shoulder back if it's needed. I think (I'd have to check my notes now) but I think I was getting away with the FL-B die set up on the longest shellholder and running on the middle one. Also I recall a 333-sized bushing for what thats worth. With the bushing out, the FL die becomes a handy body and shoulder bump die leaving the neck alone. I've used this a couple of times for bumping the shoulder on live rounds where some crap got caught up in the works leaving to a couple of rounds that were too long to comfortably chamber. Just a quiet little bump with everything cleaned up, and problem solved back to chambering easily. Saves pulling the rounds apart and decapping a live primer with a standard full length die to run the case over the expander ball.