HELP! Wilson seating die ??

[ToddKS]

I am not using a Wilson die but I did just start experimenting with the 140gr ELD-M as a cheaper (and more readily available) to the 140gr Berger Hybrid in my mighty 6.5 Creedmoor.

My almost immediate observation was that there seemed to be a fair amount of variance in the area where the seating stem on my Redding die is contacting the ELD-M vs. the Hybrid. The base to ogive measurement on the ELD-M was fairly consistent but I had more variance in finished OAL than I did with the Bergers.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

This picture i robbed off of here should show exactly why. Sit your wilson seater stem on a bullet, see where it touches, then refer back to this picture

 

[MislMan]

OK ... Thanks all for the replies. They really helped me confirm a few things. The OAL isn’t that big an issue for me. My concern was the sticky movement when using the arbor press. The press moved in jerky movements while going down and I thought (know) this was causing the larger OAL window (my Lee gear doing better than arbor press/die). I reinspected the die versus the Lapua brass and all appear copacetic. I had to load cartridges for my rifle this morning. I use Hornady brass for this rifle (RPR with 1900 rounds down tube, getting new barrel and brass soon). The Hornady brass is 3-times fired, full length sized in Redding bushing die only. No other brass prep performed. Brass external wipe,Redding type-S FL sized with .291 bushing, primers, powder, seat bullet. Bullets seated with arbor press and new Wilson die. Things were as close to perfect as I was hoping for. Loaded 50 rounds with OAL range of 2.860 - 2.863. Action of press was smooth with no jerkiness and little effort (as I expected originally). Looks like my Lapua brass prep is lacking! Maybe more springback than the Hornady.

Thanks again for all your inputs as it really helped a lot. For now I’ll move ahead and work on better brass prep.