Anybody ever had to have a resizing die ground shorter?

[Lefty Trigger]

I have found some issues with my FL resizing die from RCBS. No matter how I set the die I cannot ever get it to bump the shoulder back to where I want it. My fired brass comes out at 1.622 as measured with the Hornady comparator. I have been fighting this die to push back to 1.620 and it will not happen even if the die is screwed down so far it locks up the press at 3/4 stroke. I finally had a friend grind the bottom of the die off by .020 and that did the trick. I can now go well beyond 1.620 with ease. This don't seem normal to me??

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Its just differences in die and chamber. Usually in that situation i take it off the shell holder then leave it in that die box

 

[Steve Donlon]

That's what I had to do with my RCBS FL sizing die in 30-06, take some off the top of the shell holder so the die would go down more or get a Redding body die. I did both for my Remington 700 LR.rifle.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

The reason i prefer the shellholder mod (besides being cheaper) is you can do it on a lathe real quick with simple tooling where it would take a little longer with a surface grinder to get the hardened die down

 

[rwj]

Had same issue with Redding body sizing die...

 

[NorCalMikie]

Chuck the shell holder in a drill press chuck. Run it down on a well oiled sharpening stone. Take off as much or as little as you want.

 

[RDA72927]

I have found some issues with my FL resizing die from RCBS. No matter how I set the die I cannot ever get it to bump the shoulder back to where I want it. My fired brass comes out at 1.622 as measured with the Hornady comparator. I have been fighting this die to push back to 1.620 and it will not happen even if the die is screwed down so far it locks up the press at 3/4 stroke. I finally had a friend grind the bottom of the die off by .020 and that did the trick. I can now go well beyond 1.620 with ease. This don't seem normal to me??

I see that everyone else has replied "take it off the shell holder". But I have taken .020 of the bottom of my Redding S dies and RCBS dies to fix the shoulder bump adjustment problem on most of my dies.

 

[ireload2]

Now your dies can set the shoulder back an excessive amount if you or another reloader uses those dies with the standard procedure. So you have the potential for a different problem now.

I see that everyone else has replied "take it off the shell holder". But I have taken .020 of the bottom of my Redding S dies and RCBS dies to fix the shoulder bump adjustment problem on most of my dies.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Its just differences in die and chamber. Usually in that situation i take it off the shell holder then leave it in that die box

+1 for grinding the shell holder

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I see that everyone else has replied "take it off the shell holder". But I have taken .020 of the bottom of my Redding S dies and RCBS dies to fix the shoulder bump adjustment problem on most of my dies.

You have to be careful with that because if you take too much off the bottom of the die you can lose proper sizing on the base of the case. Which may already be the situation with the die not going low enough. Better to take it off the shell holder and allow the die to size the entire case body as it was designed.

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

With my Forster press I had to have a couple Dies “shortened”.

A Redding 300WM DIE I use for a normal hunting rifle I just took a angle grinder to the bottom of it and went on with my life

 

[Lefty Trigger]

I never thought about turning down the shell holder? However I use that shell holder for other rounds like my 45acp and my 7mm Mauser seemed like the obvious choice was the problem part,... the die.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I never thought about turning down the shell holder? However I use that shell holder for other rounds like my 45acp and my 7mm Mauser seemed like the obvious choice was the problem part,... the die.

You grind down the top of the shell holder. Ground shell holders don't change anything on how other dies work with them. You dont bottom your die out on the shell holder and your die position in the press or stroke of the ram doesn't change so it makes no difference if the top of the shell holder is shorter. If you use a shortened shell holder with other dies and brass, you'll just have a little extra space between the shell holder and the bottom of that die. Other than that nothing will change. It just allows specific dies to be set down closer to the holder if required.

 

[DumpHollow]

Its just differences in die and chamber. Usually in that situation i take it off the shell holder then leave it in that die box

Shell holders are so cheap, I don't see why you would comromise a good die.

 

[LHSmith]

I never thought about turning down the shell holder? However I use that shell holder for other rounds like my 45acp and my 7mm Mauser seemed like the obvious choice was the problem part,... the die.

S/H's are $5 -$10. Paint the modified one and keep it with the die. Redding S/H's are hardened so I always use another brand to modify.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

S/H's are $5 -$10. Paint the modified one and keep it with the die. Redding S/H's are hardened so I always use another brand to modify.

Great idea on the paint. I'll have to do that with the couple I have ground

 

[LHSmith]

Great idea on the paint. I'll have to do that with the couple I have ground

When you become memory challenged like me, painting is mandatory...I even write a note on the die box.
Actually I take this one step further- on my dies I use for competition I dedicate a S/H to that specific die knowing that S/H's have a +/- tolerance in their deck height as most often I leave my comp dies set-up in a dedicated press for 0.001 shoulder bump.

 

[rwj]

Had same issue with Redding body sizing die...

The Redding body die had a very generous lead in chamfer. Removing .025” from the bottom surface did not remove any material from the tapered working surface that contacts and sizes the case. Had it, the shell plate modification would have been executed.

 

[FatBoy]

we took a little off a Redding body die for my 300WM in a lathe. I couldn't co-headspace with the die longer. Taking some off the bottom allowed me to not only co-headspace with the belt, it allowed me to size all the way down to the belt. Now, I can run .005" HS on the shoulder (where I like it for a field rifle) and I got 7 firings out of Win bulk brass with 230gr Bergers at 2800 before the brass stopped sizing down and became hard to close on.

A shell holder may have fixed this, but it would have been one damn thin shell holder. Of course, the belt does change things a bit.

 

[Steve Donlon]

Another thing to consider is that the Hornady shell holder is thicker than the RCBS shell holder. At least the 30-06 Hornady shell holder I have is. It's .013 thicker. With my situation. I only had to take my RCBS shell holder down a couple thousandths. If I was using a Hornady shell holder it would have been much more and taken longer because I used sandpaper to take it down. I went slow and kept measuring. I don't know but maybe all shell holders are different in this respect. edit; I did some more checking and all shell holders are NOT the same height from bottom of deck to top of shell holder. Yes the Hornady is .013 higher than a RCBS and the Redding shell holder is in between the two. So if you have a Hornady shell holder and you only need to come down a few thousandths just get a RCBS shell holder. And don't mix different brand shell holders once your dies are set.