21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

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ajvanwyk
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21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#1 Postby ajvanwyk » Tue Aug 29, 2017 10:11 pm

I've been looking into getting myself another seating die setup that could be used while travelling, maybe with an arbor press.

At first I thought about getting a Wilson blank and have it reamed with my chamber reamer, but this seems more trouble than what it's worth. I could always go and buy a pre-manufactured Wilson die for a SAUM but wondering if it will give me the seating consistency I am after.

So with that I came across the 21st Century option of a calibrated seating die. What I like about the setup is that the seating stem is created for each bullet ogive you are planing to shoot.

So for those of you in the know, have you used the 21st seating die ? Should I be considering other options ? Any advise is appreciated.

Albert
Albert
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Matt P
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#2 Postby Matt P » Tue Aug 29, 2017 10:17 pm

Rod has one he'd sell you !
I wouldn't buy one on the one I've seen. The Wilson one will do what you're after, if you want to add some bling add a micrometer top.
Matt P

Gyro
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#3 Postby Gyro » Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:10 am

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/tag/concentricity/

Some interesting reading in the above link.

Read the third article where they guy measures the bushes !!

FWIW I "Blueprint" my sizing dies, such is my lack of confidence the off-the-shelf-dies have been made properly ie. concentrically.

KHGS
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#4 Postby KHGS » Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:20 am

My limited reloading experience (over 50 years) tells me that main cause for bullet runout lies with the sizing of the case, not the seating. This does not mean that bullet seating has no effect on cartridge eccentricity, of course it does. However the main cause of cartridge eccentricity very often occurs with the sizing operation. I personally hate neck turning so I use Lee collet dies for all my neck sizing. my collet dies are modified to only size two thirds of the neck. When I need to full length size I use Redding body dies, so that small section of neck is never sized for the life of the case. If your caliber is not serviced by a Lee collet die then neck skimming & bushing dies will be required, but make sure the bush can "float". With bushing dies do not oversize the neck & case annealing becomes more important with these dies. I have never annealed a case in my life!! I do ultrasonically clean my cases every firing & my bullet pull is very consistent. I fire my cases in order so each lot of ammo loaded will have been fired the same amount of times. I am sure there will be some experts that will totally disagree with me & I am not saying that anyone should follow my formula, but it works for me!!
Keith H.
P.S. I do use Wilson seating dies which I feel are the benchmark of seating dies!! Watch your neck sizing that is where cartridge eccentricity starts in my humble opinion.

ajvanwyk
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#5 Postby ajvanwyk » Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:14 am

Thank you for the responses thus far. Just to be clear I also believe that concentricity come from the resizing process and not the seating process. My issue however lie not in concentricity as my run out generally measure between 0.0005 and 0.0015 as measured on a 21st Century Concentricity gauge.

My issue comes from starting to measure projectile length, from base to ogive. I noticed some inconsistency in length (up to 7 thou) but after batching them out and loading within a particular batch of "the same" length projectiles I still noticed inconsistencies in assembled bullet base to ogive measurement. I seat with a Redding competition die. So further investigation led me to the fact that the seating stem in a Redding is not .284 but much smaller than that. This means that it is not contacting the ogive when seating and therefore any measurement and batching process is rendered invalid and pointless.

So either I am chasing my tail and the variations in consistency I am seeing will do very little down range, or there is some hint of improvement I can squeeze from my setup.

Albert
Albert
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chrisw91
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#6 Postby chrisw91 » Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:37 am

Albert as Matt said they tend to be very hit and miss. I would much sooner have a Wilson chambered with the same reamer before going down that path.

Gyro
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#7 Postby Gyro » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:13 am

As soon as you start to measure something with a sloping 'soft' surface then surely problems start right there ? Especially when you can get a different measurement each time ? But it sure keeps us busy wondering what actually matters or what tool we have to have to check everything's ok.

Gyro
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#8 Postby Gyro » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:35 am

A question Keith : would your comments above give the nod to using a Redding FLS die ? The one that takes the changeable neck bushes ? Then of course you miss the step of sizing the neck separately.

bsouthernau
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#9 Postby bsouthernau » Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:41 am

ajvanwyk wrote: ..... any measurement and batching process is rendered invalid and pointless.

So either I am chasing my tail and the variations in consistency I am seeing will do very little down range, or there is some hint of improvement I can squeeze from my setup.

Albert


You could try seating them a few thou longer than required. Run it up into a dial indicator which measures base to ogive then screw the seating die down the requisite amount.

Norm
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#10 Postby Norm » Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:10 pm

Albert you may need to modify your seating stem where it contacts the projectile. I have done this with most of my seaters including my Wilson micrometre seater.
I modify my seaters so that they contact further down the projectile and hone them to increase the contact surface area. This seems to improve consistency of seating depth.

johnk
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#11 Postby johnk » Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:12 pm

I've found that the Redding comp is not the greatest when seating long bullets or crushing powder. Matter of fact, after they replaced one plunger & floating body, they told me not to do that any more. I believe that it's somewhere in more recent instructions.

The problem is that the tolerances are so fine that the plunger can bell out under load causing inconsistency and/or shaving the channel it runs in.

KHGS
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#12 Postby KHGS » Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:52 pm

Gyro wrote:A question Keith : would your comments above give the nod to using a Redding FLS die ? The one that takes the changeable neck bushes ? Then of course you miss the step of sizing the neck separately.



Yes, provided you skim the necks as I stated in my earlier post. By the way I did not mention in my earlier post that I lap the seating stems on my Wilson seaters with a bullet of the type I will be using.
Keith H.

Gyro
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#13 Postby Gyro » Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:17 pm

Yes, lapping the seating stem with the projectile sounds like a very good idea that could help with uniforming and increasing the contact area of that place in the stem that pushes on the bullet ogive ! Regards Rob.

Longranger
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#14 Postby Longranger » Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:39 pm

I like the Redding competition seating die but mine is going through an evolutionary process. I machined up a new seating stem to engage closer to the bearing surface and this helped but still isn't ideal.

The next project will be to machine a new guide from a section of rifle barrel and ream it using the same reamer as used in my current barrel. The seater stem will be larger in diameter than the original so it will engage the ogive closer to the bearing surface. I feel there is no need to be like the original in terms of diameter for projectile guidance. A carefully made seater stem and a close tolerance chamber should take care of any misalignment issues. Just need the time to do it...

Barry Davies
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Re: 21st Century - Calibrated Bullet Seating Die vs. Others

#15 Postby Barry Davies » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:32 am

You can lap the seating stem for ever and a day but it will still contact all projectiles at the same diameter. Inconsistency in seating length is solely brought about by variations in ogive shape.
Barry has the right idea --seat long, measure, and reseat


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