Hornady Custom Dimension Dies

[Flybuster]

Hello,

I would like to hear about Hornady's Dimension dies. The FL has an elliptical expander that is supposed to be easy on necks, do they make straight ammo? I see they have some nice features for the price, there are even accessories to make them better like a micrometer seating dial and A-Max/VLD seating stems. Am I better off just paying for Redding again? Thanks, any input on these dies would be great.

 

[Preacher]

Hornadys dies are good to go for the majority of cartridges, and I use a lot of them when a Wilson is not called for.........

 

[Flybuster]

I was noticing the .284 die selection was getting scarce, it could be taking off in popularity, I guess I am getting on the bandwagon too.
Hornady offers 284 dies, but not the bushing style. To be honest I usually buy Redding bushing sizing dies and normally don't try alot of bushings, so I was contemplating on a non-bushing die.

Since the expander mandrel is already built into the Hornady die it would do two things for me: Save me ten dollars on an K&M expander mandrel and save me the step of actually sizing up the 6.5 x 284 brass to .284.

I was just wondering if I would be sacrificing any precision by going with the expander on these die sets. I don't want to be a cheapskate since I have spared no expense anywhere else on this project and don't need my reloading dies to be the weak link.

 

[Preacher]

Hornady can and will open the neck on one of there dies to be perfect for your neck size if you can tell them what that is.. .002 or less on neck tension is the place to be these days.... One nice thing about bushing dies, is you can play with the neck tension and see where it likes to be.... but still most be do good around .002 or less.

 

[Flybuster]

That sounds like a good plan, most non bushing dies use way too much tension. I will probably just order factory direct, honed to my specs with A-max/VLD stem and micrometer dial.

Too bad I couldn't send them 3 or 4 fired cases to get dies matched that match the chamber. Don't have the dies to the load 3 or 4 cases.

 

[Preacher]

You have a PM about this...

 

[Flybuster]

Thanks.

 

[k80skeet]

What about the seating die in this set ? Is it better than others?

 

[Flybuster]

Preacher, I appreciate your help here and you've helped me out before. The Redding dies are starting to show up again so I purchased a set, the price will be similar to the hornady by the time I add the features like the microseater and custom stem for VLD.

I haven't given up on the idea though, I have two more projects besides the .284 in the works (308 and 22-250). This rifle I don't want to wait for customs to be made, I wanna shoot it now. I've only heard a couple of stories otherwise.