What Dies?

For bottle neck rifle cases, the standard die set is a two die set. One is a sizer die, which also expands the neck, the other is the seating die. For the most part, crimping is not necessary except for particular instances like tubular magazine rifles.

Other dies are generally extras to do some other special task like neck sizing or crimping.

For the Garand, you will want full length sizing die. Some feel small base sizing dies are a must and and am beginning to agree with that position.

If your 223 Remington is an AR, I strongly recommend a small base resizing die. many will disagree, but since you buying new dies, it is a good thing to do to avoid any future, potential problems with chambering your rounds.

Neck sizing is a possibility for a bolt rifle where the cartridges will not be used in anothe rifle. But, you will still need a full length sizing die as the case need full length sizing once in a while.

Standard hand gun dies are three die sets, a resizer, a mouth expander and a seater die. the seater die will also crimp. You will want to make sure the seater die you get has a roll crimp for the 44 Mganum and a taper crimp for the 9x19. Again, any additional dies do other specialized tasks. For instance, I prefer to crimp in a separate step from seating and therefore have crimp dies for my handgun cartridges.

There are lots of differing opinions about Lee's hand gun FCD (factory crimp) die. I feel they are a solution looking for a problem but others think they are the best thing since sliced bread.

Get a book or two and read about reloading. "ABCs of Reloading" is a good "how to" book. Lyman #49 has good "how to" information as well as reloading data.

Hope this helps.

For the 44 magum or on any magum pistol ive decided that 4 dies are absolutely necessary. Seating and hard crimping deform the bullet severely when doing in the same step.

For the 44 magum or on any magum pistol ive decided that 4 dies are absolutely necessary. Seating and hard crimping deform the bullet severely when doing in the same step

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Never had a problem using the 3 die. I see nothing wrong with seating the bullet and crimping at the same time. A lot of guys have been doing it successfully for years. I never understood the "NEED" for the separate crimp die.

As far as the op question, use whatever is cheaper. I purchased a lot of used dies on the forums including rcbs, lee, dillon and redding dies. Every single one of them did it"s job they way it was intended.

Constrictor said:

For the 44 magum or on any magum pistol ive decided that 4 dies are absolutely necessary. Seating and hard crimping deform the bullet severely when doing in the same step.

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I don't have any deformation issues seating/crimping oversized lead bullets for my 357. If the bullets are deforming then there is something wrong with the dies or how they're setup.


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If all the .44 cases are the same length, and the die is set up properly, seating and crimping in a single step works just fine.

Another option is to seat without crimping then back out the seating plug and readjust the seating die to crimp only. I sometimes do that so that I can manage the crimp without the need to trim cases.

Dragon,
Perhaps youve just not noticed or not been loading long enough.
Magnum calibers require a strong crimp to keep the bullet from
backing out under recoil. It just stands to reason that if your
seating the bullet depth, and crimping at the same time when the
is just starting to occur, the bullet is still getting pushed deeper,
smashing the head of the bullet making it, in my eyes, worthless.
Of course this is not very visible using hard cast bullets but very
visible using semi jacket soft point and the worst is semi jacket
hollow points. I learned this lesson 30 years ago.
I have done what beatle suggested and seat first with no crimp,
then reset the die for crimp only. Trust me if you do seat and crimp
in seperate stages you will end up with better ammo.

I always choose the 3 die sets for rifles, and 4 die sets for handguns. I like having the optional dies for just a few dollars more. Also, the RGB sets do not include a shellholder, load data, or a dipper, which are all nice to have, especially the shellholder, since the dies are useless without it.

I mostly use 2 die sets in rifles also, but I have a set of dies for each rifle, I don't like to reset my seater dies for each one I load for. You might find that a neck die is helpful also if you load the same brass that was fired from your rifle, not range pick ups.

I also load for my Garand. You'll want the Pacesetter 3 die set, yellow box.

I like the Lee dead length seater die that comes in the deluxe set.I think it aids in concentricity.