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Wilson vs ScrewIn Seater - Why is Wilson Supposedly Superior?

I often see how the Wilson bullet seater used in conjunction with an arbor type press can give decreased bullet runout vs a typical screw-in die in standard press. I am wondering why that it. If using something like a Redding or Forster bullet seater, it seems to me it would hold everything pretty straight. Really any better than the Wilson? If so, how?

I also wonder about this with regards to my Forster press. The dies don't screw in, they can move in a horizontal plane as they please. In addition, the case can move the same way due to the design of the case jaws on the press.

I get a fair amount of bullet runout on my Forster press, but the necks are also tweaked, no doubt due to at least in part, the fairly severe neck sizing going on with the Redding FL die and expander I have. Going from .239" to .248" by way of the expander is quite a bit (223 Remington).

Phil
 
If you are trying to fix your runout, start with the FL die. A seater will not fix the damage that it does. One option is to replace with a Forster FL die, and have them hone out the neck, or you can use a bushing FL die, or a combination process with a Lee collet die followed by a body die. I have a Redding FL die that has a similar problem to yours, in a caliber that I do not shoot much. I found that if I did not use the expander ball to open the necks back up after sizing, but instead used an expander die and mandrel from my neck turning setup, my brass was significantly straighter.
 
Boyd,

It is that very reason I pull the expander ball out of all my sizing dies. And use a expander mandrel. I neck size, then body size and then use the expander. Works pretty good for me, the 223's are holding 4" elevation at 1K.
 
Why do you split the neck and body sizings.....collet? Otherwise I can't see a reason. BTW I have a one piece die that is a good fit for my PPC (no expander required, tight neck, turned necks, talk about straight brass..
 
Boyd,

Don't have a collet die in the reloading room. It is just the way things progressed for me. I can't say that it reduces runout, but the process has worked for me for years and I like to keep things consistant, so I never changed. May be a lil more work, but I do it now on a Dillon 550B, so it speeds up the process a bit.
 
FroggyOne2 said:
Boyd,

It is that very reason I pull the expander ball out of all my sizing dies. And use a expander mandrel. I neck size, then body size and then use the expander. Works pretty good for me, the 223's are holding 4" elevation at 1K.

Assuming from your post that you body size with a fl-die minus expander, can I ask why you neck size first, then have the neck size 'shrunk' by the next step, to then having to expand it with a mandrel?

I've changed my routine (based on what I've read by BoydAllen, yourself and other contributors whose opinions make sense) to FL-sizing (minus expander) to -.002 and then I do the neck with a collet die (touched up on a lathe). I'm considering having the fl-die honed to further minimize the working of brass on the neck, but have postponed this. What would prior necksizing add to the routine?

Would a body die without 'neck'-anything not make sense so you could eliminate a step?
 
I don't run the expander ball in any of the dies I have. I use a neck die first then a body die, then come back with the expander mandrel. This has been my normal way of doing things for a while.
 
..and FWIW, if you don't BEGIN with brass that has uniform wall thickness all around the perimitter of the neck, killing run out can be an exercise that will put you in the rubber room!!

I went bonkers messing with some poor brass...

with poor brass here's wht you get:
1) If you neck size with a collet die (or FL size and keep the FL dies's expander) you will push the runout to the OD of the case neck, and the ID (that bears against the mandrel) will be "good"
2) If you neck size with a bushing die, you will push the runout to the ID of the case neck, and the runout on the OD of the neck will be "good"

In either case though, the concentricity of the bulet after seating will be a crap shoot.... IMHO.

Good, uniform wall thickness will eliminate much, much sorrow!! Norma, Laupua, and Nosler for me.
 
The discussion has migrated to case necks, and think I probably should research THAT topic further or start another topic. But, to my original post, I still don't know why the Wilson seater would be superior than a screw-in type seater on a press. ???

Phil
 
Depends on the cartridge, the Redding seater might start seating the bullet before the brass is completely into the sleeve. There are a few tricks to using a Wilson seater successfully, they aren't magic.
 
yeah,, sorry, I never answered the question.

As I understand it from their literature (and yes, I use Wilson seaters) the merit of their seater is that it duplicates a chamber, and the bullet is strictly controlled through the insertion/seating prosses ie., it is maintained erect and centric as it is pressed into the brass.

The thing I never got is... aren't the others (normal type) duplicates also?? I'm dry on that one... I do know that the wilson does it for me. But not if the brass is not uniform.

Though I use the Wilsons, I've not gone back to the normal style seaters since acquiring good brass. Perhaps with good brass they are just fine??... I know several folks are very happy and make centric ammo with Lee seaters, which to me seem rickety as heck to me??
 
Amongst the fact that the bullet and case are supposed to securely held (don't Forster and Redding do the same?), I found this on the Wilson website.

16. What is the advantage of chamber type seating verses threaded dies?

Chamber type dies use the idea that straight-line seating is the best way to align the bullet with the case before it is seated in the die. Because the threads are left out of the equation, and the die is set on a flat surface, we believe it will give you a more accurate and consistent seating of the bullet.
------------------

Ok, this assumes then that threaded die is NOT straight. Maybe. But, in a Forster press, the die floats, but do recognize that with pressure on the floating die, it will press itself against a flat machined surface on the press, which might not be flat or perpendicular to the axis of the case.
 
First of all, we need to define the task. If you are seating BT bullets into necks with tension that falls within the normal to light range, your runout is most likely going to reflect an extension of how straight your sized brass is, and something fairly simple will work. On the other hand, if you are seating a short flat based bullet, into a case that has neck tension in the mid to high range, you had better be holding things in line if you want the straightest ammunition. Having said that, there is more than one way to skin this particular cat. You mentioned Forster and Redding seaters. I presume that you were referring to the ones that have sliding sleeves, since that is the only style that Froster makes, and it would be the style of choice, for more critical work using Reddings dies. If the sized case fits these dies' sleeves as well as it fits the chamber of the Wilson, then I believe that the ammunition will be as straight, but there is another criterion that often gets overlooked in these discussions, consistency of ogive to head length, and this is the area where the simplicity of the Wilson seater shines. I have talked to friends who have the Redding Competition seaters, and they tell me that they are getting more variance in this dimension than they expected or would like. On the other hand, even though we may automatically assume that prettier and more expensive works better, a friend tells me that his Forster seater gives better results than his Redding in this respect. Going further, I have another friend that has a lathe, and after he made a couple of minor modifications to the sleeve and seating stem, his Redding produces results that are on a par with any die. The reason that I launched into the discussion of dies was that some shooters seem to be under the impression that a seater can fix what the sizer has messed up. It cannot. The best that can be achieved is that it not make a round more crooked than it would have been if the very best seater was used. As an example of this difference, I have a custom arbor press type seater that is a very close fit to the sized cases of my 6PPC. I also have a threaded seating die that came with a one piece sizing die that is very good. The seater has a short sliding sleeve that does not fit the die body or any part of the case closely. Comparing the results obtained with the two dies, the threaded die produces exactly twice the runout, with the same bullets and cases of high quality and straightness, that were sized to a fairly high neck tension. When it comes to the rest of your reloading kit, almost anything that does the job will work, but when it comes to dies, that is where you need to spend your money, they are the most important part.
 
Boyd,

Thank you very much for your always informative response.

I am currently seating flat based bullets, but some others I intend to try out are boat tails. The neck tension is high (from what I know).

The case when sized in a Redding FL die sizes the necks to about .245”. The necks of the Winchester brass average .012”. The inside diameter of the neck is .221”, which for a .224” bullet, leaves .221” tension. Is this correct? So, it looks like it may be tough going trying to get this FB bullet in straight. I have at times felt unusual resistance in the press handle, but perhaps wrongly chalked it up to insufficiently chamfering the inside edge of the neck.

Yes, I have the Redding micrometer type seating die with sliding sleeve. I really can’t know how the Redding and the Wilson compare to one another in how securely they each hold the case and bullet without a good cross sectional view.

I took apart the Redding seater. I wanted to see just how far down the bullet the seating stem contacts my Sierra 53 grain flat based bullet (#1400). The tip does slip over the cone of the bullet tip, but how far? The bullet is .6955" long. The stem is 1.1915" long. Together that is 1.8870". But the actual measurement is 1.6915" long. This means that .1955" of the bullet is inside the stem, or the stem contacts the bullet .1955" back from the tip (I do believe the inside "side" of the stem contacts the bullet side, not the stop of the stem on the meplat).

On this bullet, the diameter is small, and would not expect this portion of the bullet to ever touch the rifling. Most certainly, the die seating stem could afford to contact the bullet further down. But it doesn’t. If the Wilson contacts the bullet closer to the ogive, I would certainly prefer that.

I checked two cases, and getting the case necks straight is the first order of the day. Running 1x fired cases through the Redding FL die without expander pushes the necks down to .240”. but these little necks are pretty straight, with runout around .001”. But, run the cases through the die again, this time with the carbide expander, and necks lubed, run out jumps .003 -.004, sometimes more.

It would appear then, that the Wilson seater is not going to do much, until it has straight brass to work with. Right now, fixing the necks is first priority.

Phil
 
They superior because.......Wilson says so. BS. They are nice but there will always be variances. Perfection does not exist in this very imperfect world.
 
Phil,
The way that I determine neck tension is by measuring the OD of the neck before a bullet is seated, and then again with the bullet seated, over the largest diameter of the bullet, such as the pressure ring, that is common on custom FB bullets. For example, if my sized neck measured .2573, and the same neck measured .2598, subtracting one from the other, I get a neck tension of .0025. No one that I know of finds ID measurement a reliable method.

The Wilson stem touches high up on the ogive as well. If you decide that you want to modify your Redding seater die like my friend did, PM me.

If you want to FL every time, I would consider getting a Forster FL die and having the neck honed out.

Contrary to popular opinion, if you are not turning necks, there can be advantages to keeping the expander ball, as long as it is doing so little work, as it is pulled back through the neck, that it can hardly be felt.

Boyd
 
Back in the garage, I used a Sierra 53 grain flat based (FB) bullet and inserted it into the recently FL resized Winchester 223 Remington cases. I used two cases. Both necks measured .2455" O.D. I then used the Redding seater to seat to an OAL of 2.250". The necks now were .247" to .248", depending where on the neck I measured. I expect that variation is due to the neck wall thickness variation of approximately .002". Assuming an average loaded round neck diameter of .2475, that is a neck tension of .002" (difference between .2455 and .2475). Do I have this right?

And what would be the advantage of a light pass with the expander ball?

Thanks.

Phil
 
Yes I would say so. Are you getting .002 neck tension without using an expander ball? Is it a bushing die? The reason that I asked is that with one piece dies, and unturned necks that would not be the typical result. Also, what are you measuring with?
 
The .002" was achieved WITH expander ball. Given how far the Redding FL die sizes down the neck without expander (.240"), and with .012 neck wall thickness, there is no chance the bullet could even be seated. With a .224 bullet, that would be .008" tension!

The die is a Redding full length resizing die. It is not a bushing type. I would think that a standard FL die would give neck tension that is expected to be safe and reliable in as many firearms as possible. I don't think you are saying that a standard FL die, with expander and used as instructed, would provide inadequate neck tension or too much. ???

My measuring tools are digital calipers and a standard 0 - 1" micrometer. I used both to confirm readings, and they do agree to under a half thou, which is probably closing in on my my own ability to measure consistently.

Phil
 
Seldom do I get such articulate responses to questions. If I were trying to make do (and achieve better concentricity) with your die, I would size without the expander ball, and then use an expander mandrel and die to expand the necks. In my experience this gives significantly straighter brass. Beyond that, a new die will be required.
 

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