[Thirties]

I recently bought a Redding "competition" seating die — the one with the micrometer dial for setting the seating depth. Mine is for .38/.357mag revolvers. Well, it really works exactly as advertized. I'm very pleased.

I also just got one of the Hornady calibrated seating stems, but I haven't yet tried it. I have Hornady die sets in .32acp and 9mm Makarov. It looks like it will work just fine.

With the Hornady, it repaces the seating stem in your existing dies and you use the original seating plug(s).

The Redding system has Hornady-style sleeves, but with a coil spring. They use their own "competition" seating plugs. The only bummer with the Redding comp die is they only come with one plug (ogive). I had to buy a second plug for wadcutter bullets. But the darn thing works really well. You must set it up, calibrated for each of the plugs. You write down the setting, say, for your shortest round. In my case it was the 125g flat point Berry @ 1.445". For any COL longer than that, you just dial in the difference, and you are exactly on the number. It's almost boring.

Where have these tools been all my life?

Anyone else have any experience with either of these (Redding, Hornady)?

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[308win]

I occasionally use the Hornady Competition seating die out of the Competition die set. Works as advertised.

[Bullet]

I"ve got Redding seaters with the mic for 223 & 308. They come in handy. Alot easier than guessing.

[BluesBear]

I think they are well worth the extra cost.
Once you get accoustomed to using them you'll never be happy with plain seating dies again.

Now when you start using the Redding profile crimp die you'll really be spoiled.

[Thirties]

"Now when you start using the Redding profile crimp die you'll really be spoiled."

Oh, yes, I'm there already.

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[Timothy]

Thirties:

"You write down the setting, say, for your shortest round...."
Have you ever used the "zero" adjustment to establish a known OAL benchmark so that you are always adding or subtracting to/from zero?

[Thirties]

"Have you ever used the "zero" adjustment to establish a known OAL benchmark so that you are always adding or subtracting to/from zero?"

What I do is not really different from what you suggest. But in my small mind, I feel more comfortable starting at the shortest ogive COL that I would use (125g Berry plated FP), and working up from that. I fear if I zeroed at a median setting, I'd run off the scale at some point, either up or down. The way I've done it, I have well over .300" of upwards (longer COL) adjustment.

So, I prefer to "zero" the mike scale so the shortest ogive COL (1.445") lies down below the engraved "2" mark (at the minus .213" mark). Then I open (raise) the micrometer the correct number of thousandths for any OAL longer than that.

The other reason I "zeroed" where I did (low, below the "2"), is so I could use the wadcutter plug without changing anything. At the setting I made for the ogive, the wadcutter "zero" lies way up at the minus .034" setting for a COL of 1.155". As explanation, the plugs are different lengths. When I use semiwadcutters, I will use the ogive plug to remain in the ballpark.

The way they engraved the scale, you have more than twice the space below the engraved zero than you have above it. It's sort of backwards for my use. One good thing they did was to extend the engraved line slightly below the "2" mark so you have a few thou' settings available below the number. It's the same at the top end as well, but only goes up to "1" (plus extension of line).

Once I adjusted the calibration, though, everything is like clockwork (for me).

All the above is for .38 special. When I load .357 magnums, I will insert a .135" spacer to raise the whole die, and use different "zero" readings. I haven't loaded any .357mags with this yet, so I haven't set my "zeroes" for that ammo. Of course it may turn out I need to readjust my zero setting since I'm right at the bottom now. I'll cross that bridge when I get there. But it's not a big deal to redo the zero and adjust my numbers accordingly.

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[Timothy]

Thirties:

Sounds like you have everything under control!
Thanks for the travel limits, up and down. The Redding Competition Seating dies are definately the way to go.