Comments on: Intro to Full-Length Dies, Neck-Sizing Dies, and Small Base Dies

By: karl day

karl day — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 20:29:21 +0000

outstanding , helped a lot

By: Philp Hoham

Philp Hoham — Wed, 06 May 2015 13:00:29 +0000

Full length and body dies DO NOT return the cartridge case to its ‘original dimensions due to “spring back”. The cartridge case will always try to spring back to what it was fired too. The full length and body dies size the cartridge case so that when the cartridge case does try to spring back to what it was fired to in your chamber that it is still undersize slightly (depends on the internal dimension of THAT DIE) to chamber easily in most cases. There are times however where the die may have internal dimensions that are to the large side of SAMMI specs and the chamber of the rifle is to the small side of SAMMI specs where the cartridge case is NOT SIZED ENOUGH so that when it springs back as it comes out of the die that it now MAY not chamber ( when it did before sizing) or chambers hard.Using once fired range brass can be the main culprit here also. What happens is that the case body is sized but the shoulder area of the cartridge case is either not touched or not touched enough to move the shoulder back or move the shoulder back enough so that when the cartridge case springs back it is till oversize in head space for the rifles chamber. In this situation you can have material removed from the bottom of the die to shorten it or contact the manufacturer, send them the die and some fired cartridge samples and have them hone a new die for you if they offer that service. Small base dies MAY not solve this issue either as they are made to a smaller case body sizing dimension but do not always have a smaller shoulder sizing dimension.
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet tech

By: ELR Researcher

ELR Researcher — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 18:15:17 +0000

When going to the “bump gauge” link I noted some odd info for the 40 degree shoulder gauges. I inquired and Sinclair/Brownells responded, “…disregard the cartridge ID of 280 Remington. 749-011-482 is for AI up to 6mm with 40° shoulder, and 749-011-483 is for 6mm up to 338 AI with 40°.”

By: Art Bosco

Art Bosco — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 15:03:41 +0000

“Neck-sizing dies resize only the neck of the case. The benefit of sizing only the neck is that the brass is “worked” very little, …. ”

Disagree. When neck-sizing, the body of the case continually expands until the case can no long be chambered. At that point the entire case must be resized to ensure seating once again. To bring the case back into its original dimension now requires “over working” the brass because it has moved its farthest from the original design. “Overworking is a function of distance” not frequency. Full Length sizing each and every time ensures the brass is worked very little [moved a short distance] and restores the original dimension. There will never be a problem chambering it. Shooting a morphing [continually expanding] case body is never conducive to consistency or accuracy.

Ask members of the NBRSA Hall-of-Fame how many shot themselves into the Hall by neck-sizing.

By: Guy

Guy — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:43:00 +0000

Always a lot of talk about overworking the case neck with anything but a bushing die. I find the primmer pockets go well before the neck. Never had any overwork problems with standard FLS dies.