OzFclass

Seems the dies are fine, I would have preferred most of the neck sized

That's disappointing. I want to have my necks sized at their opening as well as further down ie parallel. I am very careful with chamfer, I will attend to that as I see fit, and should I wish to shoot flatbase or cast projectiles (very rarely and never in my F Class rifles) I will create a very small flare (much less than 50 thou) using a Lyman M die.

I guess also a good heads up if sending cases to Lee for a custom die. Make the request that all of the neck is required to be sized (unless of course you are happy for their new version). I had intended sending them an Ackley chambering.

I have 3 collet dies. I have checked and all of them size the neck completely. Also checked and with none of them do the case shoulders come in contact with the die shoulder.

Well, we all learn something but I am not convinced it is a good idea. In my experience, with boattails, you do not need to champher every time you use the collet die anyway - sufficient remains from the previous champher. I suppose their comments about seating flat based bullets is true. It would suite cast pistol bullets.

The real problem is that if the collet is longer, it is easy to shorten it. Now it is set the way some blinkered person thinks they know best and almost impossible to change for the average person.

Reminds me of how Lee destroyed their best simple priming tool and replaced it with an overly complicated piece of junk.

At least they answered quickly, and it would seem that you could ask for a longer collet if you want to.

Peter Smith.

Well I can confirm the change.
7 SAUM custom, 308 off the shelf, 6.5 SLR custom.


Can't say I'm real impressed with the arbitrary decisiin made on my behalf. If that were my 308 case poking through it would be usless. I'm willing to give them a go. But also happy to donate a couple of cases to the cause if the decision is to go longer.
My collet is 1.863 inches btw

It seems that the length of the fingers inside has now been reduced. Makes it much harder to modify them to exactly what one wants. Older stock may become highly sought after.

Peter Smith.

I have sent an email requesting full length replacements which should be possible as these are “custom” dies
I’ll let you know what happens.

I agree, these are custom requested collets and they should be made to size the entire neck unless you request otherwise. Or at least advise you of the change in die measurements. Custom die is for a custom setup (not flat based bullets and no crimping)

Having said that I have sized and fired over 100cases with the same collet as Tim N and have had some good results on paper.

But I don’t trim after every firing and don’t want to start (and with 300SAUM brass there is plenty of room to grow)

https://leeprecision.com/custom-service ... -die-sets/

No mention on their website that the dies are intentionally sized to NOT size the very end of the neck. I think it’s only fair that they rectify the issue. No way you could have known they would do that.

Looks like getting the collets replaced shouldn’t be a problem.

I got a headache reading that, I think he is slipping into some form of personal shorthand, is he saying you’ll need to send the whole kit back to replace the collet? I can see some logic in the claim of forming a funnel, but I don’t like it, however it deserves testing, personally I believe claiming that trim length upsets their tolerances is overstating their ability from what I’ve seen and I’m a big Lee fan

This makes little sense. I get the feeling Lee do not understand their small pool of high accuracy clientele. Perhaps most of their sales are to a much lower standard of reloader.

For one thing - I suspect most serious F shooters would not use a Lee seater - opting instead for something much better.

Peter Smith.

I sent an email highlighting the fact we are a fussy lot and they might loose sales because of the change.

I’ll try and get replacement collets off my cases and dies so Ben and Tim don’t have to post theirs to me.

pjifl wrote:This makes little sense. I get the feeling Lee do not understand their small pool of high accuracy clientele. Perhaps most of their sales are to a much lower standard of reloader.

For one thing - I suspect most serious F shooters would not use a Lee seater - opting instead for something much better.

Peter Smith.

But I like the Lee collet die the old type that is.
All the other dies size the outside of the neck, that means ensuring neck wall thickness is the same all the way round and that means neck turning,,,, everything I hate neck turning.

Yes, I agree about the collet dies. It was always the most outstanding Lee product in my opinion. Some of their other stuff is almost substandard but clever. And as I already mentioned, they did have what was the most popular priming tool until they stuffed that up.

Peter Smith.

Perhaps Tim you could direct them to read this topic directly so they understand what we are wanting to achieve.
Seems counterintuitive to decide on our behalf that the end of the case mouth does not need to be sized.

I’m happy to return die sets if you need them and pitch in to mail stuff back. You would think it’s just a matter of taking the dimensions they already have on file and lengthening the collet by 0.100”