Thread: Dies- Your favourite flavour

What do you consider as the best value reloading die's ?

Value and performance are 2 different things.
For me value doesnt matter - they have to work nicely - Forster and then Redding for Rifle -Dillon Carbide for Pistol

Redding are nicely made for sure, but lack 2 things for me - a vent hole which makes it easy to dent necks especially in some cal's and a sliding seater which means that pills often get shaved on one side when seating (pull some and have a look...)

Forster all the way - I picked up a set of .223's on TM for $30 a few weeks back which just needed a decapping pin: value for money right there

Standard dies and new then its Lee, normally the collet set.Iv all the other brands and overall theres no difference,have better and worse in all brands.Worst for runout is a redding 270 type A,worst for internal finish is a hornady 7mm mag FL.
Match grade dies then Forster first,as good as redding but cheaper,but forster dont have the Cal range that redding do so thats second choice,(they both have a slider in the seating die)

I really love Lee collet neck dies for sizing. Forster works for seating/FL sizing or Redding body dies.


Really I'm not super-concerned about it though, I loaded .243 for like 2 years with a $35 Hornady seating die and it worked fine.

Yep

I own Forsters, RCBS, Lyman and Lee

Lee dies are hard to beat in value for money and performance.

Dont really feel qualifyed to answer the poll as I only have a lyman 2 die set. If I am pedantic about prep and lube seems to load pretty straight ammo however seating depth can be tricky with pointy bullets eg amax as you can actually feel it stick for a moment as you retract.Found lubing the point helped but frustrating all the same.Probably not helped by the fact all my loads are compressed.
Would love a collet neck die to speed things up a bit.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

Dont really feel qualifyed to answer the poll as I only have a lyman 2 die set. If I am pedantic about prep and lube seems to load pretty straight ammo however seating depth can be tricky with pointy bullets eg amax as you can actually feel it stick for a moment as you retract.Found lubing the point helped but frustrating all the same.Probably not helped by the fact all my loads are compressed.
Would love a collet neck die to speed things up a bit.

I have brought Hornady AMAX seaters and modded others - they DO make a difference. Even SST get stuck in most std profile stems

Originally Posted by Spanners

I have brought Hornady AMAX seaters and modded others - they DO make a difference. Even SST get stuck in most std profile stems

Where from Spanners?

US

I use a combo of Forster (Seater and F/L), Redding (F/L and body) and Lee (Collet neck), with a Lyman decapping die thrown in for good measure.

Redding and Lee die lock rings annoy me though, I tend to put aftermarket ones on.

I use Forster Seater and FL with a Lee Collet die too for my .243 and I just got the same for .260. I've used Lyman 30-06 FL and seater and they were ok.

Forster Ultra, Redding Competition or Wilson - all the ducks nuts

I've had good luck with the Hornady New Dimension dies for standard calibers.

However for my 6.5mm SAUM, I went Redding 'S' type neck dies with bushings, a Redding 7mm SAUM body die for bumping case shoulders back and a Forster Ultra Micrometer seater die. Using these dies, I have been able to keep my ammunition runout to very small tolerances which translates to small and consistent groups.

I imported the dies from Sinclair International in the US as they were cheaper and much quicker to obtain than buying from the NZ agent.

Wilson seater, Lee collet neck and Redding body make accurate ammo.