Hello, longtime lurker, first time poster lol. I am new to reloading but have been hunting night yotes for years. I’m in the process of building a .243 AR10 for my new thermal gun. I will be reloading for it with a Lee Breachlock single stage. I hope to dial up a load with Sierra Varminter 60gr HPs, I do save some fur in the good ones. What type of die set would you all recommend? I was going to get some standard RCBS full length dies. Should I go with the AR set of shorter dies? I have read that I need to be crimping shooting the AR. Just curious what some of you guys are using?
New reloader question
- Thread starter ScottyP
- Start date
Plant.One
Well-known member
you shouldnt need a small base set of dies unless your brass is coming from suspicious locations and was fired in a nearly out of spec (oversize) chamber. a regular set of dies should suit your needs just fine.
re crimping: you shouldnt *need* to crimp, but if you find you have any bullet movement on chambering from insufficient neck tension, get ahold of a Lee Factory Crimp Die and use that as a separate step to crimp after the seating die. not that you cant roll crimp with the seating die, but if you set it up wrong - youre' gonna crunch some brass. The lee FCD is much easier to setup and utilize for this kind of application.
i use them on most of my calibers with just a light kiss (maybe 1/8 or so of a turn past making contact) to normalize the neck tension, even though i usually dont feel the need for it. but i have a progresive and its an easy set and forget die for the final station before they dump in the hopper.
just remember - if you're gonna crimp - make sure you do so during your load testing. Doing a load workup without it and then deciding after to put one in is a bad idea. you can potentially set yourself up for an over-pressure event (read KABOOM!) depending on just how much crimp you put on there.
hth
re crimping: you shouldnt *need* to crimp, but if you find you have any bullet movement on chambering from insufficient neck tension, get ahold of a Lee Factory Crimp Die and use that as a separate step to crimp after the seating die. not that you cant roll crimp with the seating die, but if you set it up wrong - youre' gonna crunch some brass. The lee FCD is much easier to setup and utilize for this kind of application.
i use them on most of my calibers with just a light kiss (maybe 1/8 or so of a turn past making contact) to normalize the neck tension, even though i usually dont feel the need for it. but i have a progresive and its an easy set and forget die for the final station before they dump in the hopper.
just remember - if you're gonna crimp - make sure you do so during your load testing. Doing a load workup without it and then deciding after to put one in is a bad idea. you can potentially set yourself up for an over-pressure event (read KABOOM!) depending on just how much crimp you put on there.
hth
I have purchased 100 rounds of Nosler premium brass and 100 cases of Hornady brass. I have an extra little Lee basic singles stage I was thinking about using for depriming and crimping. The Lee factory crimp die is cheap so I will snag one. Sounds like I can just roll with the RCBS full length dies. I have Varget, H380, Superformance, CFE223, IMR 4895, and H335. I’m really hoping to find a decent load with the Sierra 60gr hps. We will see.
