Redding 223 Competition Seating Die and 90 grain VLD bullets

[HPC]

With 90 grain VLD’s and COAL’s at 2.700+, the Redding 223 Competition Seating Die does not function as designed; that is, the sleeve does not fully encapsulate the cartridge case before the bullet begins its journey down the case neck during seating. For it to function at all, the die must be raised three turns, or more, from its desired position, and the micrometer knob unscrewed until it is practically floating. As an aside, the VLD seating stem exacerbates the problem, because its length is longer. All in all, a very, very unsatisfactory arrangement, but the die was never designed for bullets 1.250+ long.

Redding die bodies are in families: 223 Rem, 6 BR, and 6 PPC are all 2.750 long, while 260 Rem, 284 Win and 308 Win are 3.500. Simply swapping die bodies will not work without modifying the longer die body.

I have not measured the effect of this problem on TIR, but I am looking for a solution, because the micrometer knob does not maintain its position.

What I do not want to do is chamber a longer sleeve to put in the longer die body, but it is an option.

Wilson is my backup, but the seating stem is barely in the die body and my die does not have the micrometer top.

Does Forster suffer from the same malady as Redding? Or am I missing something?

 

[NZ_Fclass]

I'm guessing that Redding have not caught up with 90g VLD's yet, and need to make a different die to accomodate the longer pills.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I've used Redding Type S dies with VLD stems for my .223 Rem F-TR loads from the beginning, and never had any issue with loads having COALs in the 2.6"-2.7" range.. Redding offers more than one stem length. I went with the shorter VLD stem, which might make a difference. IIRC, there is about a 3/16" difference in the available stem lengths; something like that - Redding can tell you exactly what it is. With the shorter VLD stem, I was able to set the dies up exactly as Redding suggested. That is, they were screwed all the way down with the ram in the uppermost position before setting the locking ring. It has not been necessary for me to unscrew these dies any farther than all the way down to accomodate 88 ELDMs, 90 VLDs, or even the longer 90 SMKs.

With regard to the seating die micrometer, you can always use one of the locking collars like those that come with the die as a spacer underneath the locking ring on the die itself. I have done this with one of my .308 Win dies when loading copper monolithic solid bullets that are stupidly long. The mic setting for a given seating depth went from being screwed almost all the way out (~3.5 or so), to around 0.5. It's a simple approach to put the mic back into a more usable range.

 

[HPC]

Made a 0.250 spacer, which was one of my original ideas, between the die body and micrometer barrel, and ensured that the threaded rod was all the way in the micrometer thimble. The combination, in tandem, gave me the necessary additional adjustment (0.300) for the die to work properly; and doesn’t look bad.

If those two approaches were not enough, the next move was remove the micrometer thimble threaded rod and reduce its length.

There is enough of the seating stem, still in the sleeve, with the bullet not seated, to ensure it doesn't migrate out; which was one of my concerns.

 

[ronemus]

The Forster Benchrest Seater (I use the Ultra Micrometer version) works properly with VLDs in .223. I routinely load very long and have no issues. The standard stem works properly with VLDs. The only limitation I have found is with the longest monolithic solids in .338 - the nose of the bullet contacts the end of the cavity in the stem. Switching to Forster is probably the least painful solution to your issue.

 

[Hohn]

2.665” oal with 88s in my Redding. Die contacts shell holder (sleeve fully compressed) at full ram stroke.
Mic as shown: