VLD seating stem?

[MagnumManiac]

Hi all,
Been on hiatus.
Silly question time.
I have just bought a new Redding Comp seating die in 300WM and I am loading 210gr ABLR/210grRDF.
The stem I have appears to be touching the tip of the ABLR, but not the RDF.
I have not disassembled it yet...It is VERY tight in the stem assembly & I don't want to damage anything.

So...do I NEED the VLD stem, or will what I have work?

Cheers.

 

[Ned Ludd]

If the bullet meplat is bottoming out in the seating stem cavity, it is likely to wreak havoc with your seating depth. Oh, you can certainly seat long pointy bullets with a non-VLD stem, but it might also damage the meplats, and drive you insane with unacceptable seating depth variance in the process. In contrast, I have VLD stems in most of my Redding dies and they seem to work quiet well with shorter bullets that don't actually even require a VLD stem.

Use a toothpick (or similar) to estimate the distance to the bottom of your current stem and mark it with a Sharpie. Then repeat the process on the nose of the bullet in question seated in the stem. It should be pretty easy to determine whether the nose is truly bottoming out. If it is, then I would suggest that you call Redding and obtain the appropriate VLD seater stem.

 

[MagnumManiac]

Thanks for the reply.
Looks like I will have to disassemble the die and place the bullets in it to see what's going on.
I really Dred pulling this apart, did the same with my 264WM die and damaged the seating stem sleeve.

Cheers.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I haven't ever had a Redding die where the stem was tight per se, just a very good fit, which can sometimes make it challenging to get it to slide out. Once the dies have been used for a while it may take a bit of fiddling to get the stem out, but it shouldn't actually be "tight" in the channel. Any lube in there creates surface tension and can make it even harder. You could certainly rinse/soak the assembly in acetone if there was any gummy/sticky lube in there that was making the problem worse. Good luck with it!

FWIW - In addition to Standard and VLD stems, Redding also makes different length stems. In one of my dies in which I had to turn the micrometer very far out due to the extremely long bullets I was using, I went with a VLD stem that if I recall correctly was ~3/16" shorter than the standard stem that originally came with it. So if you're using very long or very short bullets, the length of the stem is an additional option by which you can tailor the dies somewhat to the bullets you're using. Any time I buy a new stem, I contact Redding directly to be certain I order the exact stem I want (i.e. VLD, correct length, etc). They've always been very helpful.

 

[butchlambert]

Put the stem in the collet in the lathe. Drill it with a .070 or there about drill about .100 deep. That should fix it for you. On some I also have some mini solid carbide boring bars and reshape the inside to better fit the ogive.

 

[MagnumManiac]

Ok thanks all, will be pulling it apart today to see which stem it has and whether I need to modify this one or buy the VLD stem to suit.

Cheers.

 

[acloco]

Simple fix. Will need to drill the seating stem to make the cavity deeper and slightly larger.

Allows the seating stem to contact the ogive of the bullet and not bottom out the tip on the seating stem cavity.

 

[dogdude]

Buy a Forster seating die...done.

 

[Baer45]

I gave up on Redding and went to Forster for all my VLD seating dies as well...I like it to work out of the box...

 

[snert]

Guys, they make VLD stems for a reason. Buy one. And while you are at it, think about how many different bullets there are (new every morning it seems) and then imagine trying to design a "fits all" stem. ya, ok.

Just buy the stem

But you can make a Hillbilly seater by filling the stem with hot glue then shoving YOUR bullet in. Let it cool. Viola! And if you cahnge bullets, heat up the sleeve and clean out the hot glue.

But don't tell anyone I told you this