LEE DIES?

[minnesota]

Have any of you had any problems with lee dies of any sort? My buddy is ordering some for his 308 win. I have had some issues with the hornady sizer dies before for the bottleneck cases. I normally get redding or rcbs dies and told him he could not go wrong with them, but he had a hole burning in his pocket and they were sold out of the rcbs dies. After trying the hornady dies I am a bit leery of buying a different brand and was just wondering.
Thank you for any info positive or negative.

 

[14dandy]

I have a few sets mostly pistol dies, but my first set of 308 dies was Lee. The finish is not as nice/good as rcbs or redding. I do recommend that he polish the inside of the dies. I used a 9mm bore mop on a drill with Flitz.

 

[fdshuster]

I buy Redding and Forster. No need to polish anything.

 

[RonAKA]

In Canada there is a boutique gun supplies dealer that I have bought Berger bullets from. He built a rather unique gun for F-Class that was featured in a 6BR gun of the week. It seems to shoot rather well.

But, the interesting part is that he sells both Forster and Lee reloading equipment, but mainly uses Lee. Have a look about 3/4 of the way down the article for his comments on what he uses for Reloading and why.

6.5 Mystic

Also this article on his thoughts about reloading.

Reloading for Benchrest and Varmints

 

[Larryh128]

I have all brands of dies & honestly I can't tell the difference between Redding & Lee. Yes, the finish might be slightly better on the Redding but I see no difference in runout etc. As with a lot of things, Lee has come a long way ahead in the last 10 years due probably to automation. Same reason you can buy a scope for $500 that will give a hand ground $1200 scope a run.

 

[2506]

I have used about every make of dies and to tell you the truth I can't tell any difference between them all. I load accurate ammo with them all. I have a bunch of lee dies and really like them.

 

[rain164845]

I think the lee dead length seater is a good seating die. It seats from the shellholder and based on my limited experience and the lack of tools to measure COAL to the ogive, it seems to be a good system.

Joe

 

[Shynloco]

Minnesota,
I use primarily Redding & Wilson Dies because I'm an accuracy freak, shoot exclusively paper because I no longer hunt. I'm no Lee fan, mostly because their CS treated me poorly when I ran into some defective parts they sent me when I was new to reloading. But in fairness, I will say their dies are the only thing you MIGHT be able to talk me into buying. I still have my .308 dies from when I first started reloading a few years ago and they actually work very well. Perhaps they don't have the precision that Redding ot Forster gives you, but for the money, their dies are pretty good.

 

[strobes]

Have experience with dillon, redding in .308 and lee in 7mm-08
Lee dies OK, but seating die causing excessive runout compare other two i mentioned above.

 

[Forum Boss]

In principle, the Lee neck-sizing die which uses a collet to reduce neck diameter over a central mandrel should give repeatable results with low run-out. Some guys have experienced these good results. However in my personal experience with three Lee Collet dies not only did they NOT perform as advertised, they chewed up the brass badly, and they would NOT neck-size consistently from case to case. The issue was basically poor manufacturing -- the "fingertips" of the collet did not form a circle, and were not uniform. I had to polish the mandrel and hone the inside of the collet to get even marginal function. Also the internal components would bind and hang up inside the die when I dis-assembled the dies for cleaning. I was so disappointed that I called Lee and told them that these dies were the first pieces of reloading equipment I had encountered in the last 15 years that were so bad I wanted to toss them in the trash. Out of the box, without heavy modification, they were worse than useless because they would square off the necks and leave deep gouges. That said, I've had some luck with Lee pistol dies.

 

[260Ravage]

Yup..I hate those lee collet dies. I get fliers using those dies in my store bought/factory remington 700.

 

[lightman]

Minnesoto,I've never owned any Lee dies,but I'm of the opinion that they all will work well.The only set that I have ever had that would not work was a Herters set that Grandpa bought for a 22 Hornet.That was 40 years ago,and I don't remember exactly what was wrong.I think they were missmarked,but would not size the little Hornet case.
I use RCBS 2 die sets on my hunting rifles,Redding 3 die or bushing dies on my custom varmint rifles,and Wilson on my match rifle.I'm happy with them all.
Just out of curiosity,I would like to hear about your problem with Hornady.I don't own any,so I don't have a dog in the fight.Just curious.A lot of people defend the products that they bought,because they bought them.Would like to hear how your buddy likes the Lee dies. Lightman

 

[cheek9075]

i bought a set of lee dies, 7mm-08, they where cheap and i needed something fast. didnt really want them, but they where there.
went to the range and tried to work up a load. sizing went ok, but when i went to seat the bullet, the case would not go in the die. i have a 7mm-08 sizing die, and 30-30 seating die. brand new never opened die. just my luck....