Best Vintage or older Dies

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CRM284

CRM284

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Being that I’ll be 36 in a week, tells that I haven’t been around reloading nearly as long as most. With that being said, eBay can be a good source of picking reloading equipment, sometimes at a fair price. I’ve noticed a lot of “vintage” dies for sale there. Who made good dies through the years? Who’s were bad? What companies quality has diminished over time?
 
I have a Weatherby .240 mag set made by Pacific. It's 1st class. I especially like the cut-away seating die. I wish RCBS or Redding would copy it.
 
i have a set of 3006 dies made by hollywood that i paid 4.00 for in 1958 and shot several barrels out useing them and they are still in good working order.
 
Hollywood dies, along with their related equipment was once considered the Rolls Royce of reloading equipment, and with good reason. They are now widely sought by collectors and often fetch high prices. Here is the powerful Hollywood Sr. press I keep for display and still occasionally use.. Hollywood Sr..JPG
 
My 2 cents on used dies--
Assuming they came from the factory in spec
Good dies were kept clean and taken care of.
Bad dies were abused
IMHO, condition is more important that the name on the die.
 
eastbank said:
i have a set of 3006 dies made by hollywood that i paid 4.00 for in 1958 and shot several barrels out useing them and they are still in good working order.
Click to expand...

My barbell weights are marked Hollywood. I wonder if they are the same outfit.
 
I asked this initial question because part of me likes looking at older dies. I like to see how things have changed over the years. Yes most companies have refined their products, but newer doesn’t always mean better. I can apply that to many aspects of life. At any rate, even if I wouldn’t use these dies, they make cool talking pieces, and I know I enjoy seeing people’s benches and what kind of odd, old, cool new gadgets, whatever it may be, lying on their benches.
 
I still have a usable set of Herter's .243 dies that go back to '56, the year the .243 came out. My father bought them the year he bought a Model 70 .243. If you've ever seen an old Herter's catalog, they assure you their stuff was the very best.

Some of it, actually, wasn't so bad.
 
i have two hollywood universe 12 station turret presses sitting in the celler, i just never used. they are built like a tank. herters and sears didn,t make the items they sold.
 
Avoid Lyman dies. Just assume that they have coronavirus germs all over them. They truly aren’t terrible, but as cheap as better dies are there is no sense in fooling with a weird decapping system.
 
Most of my dies are RCBS. Most date from the 1970's. Never had an issue with them. Still using them. Would not hesitate to buy them again.
 
I recently purchased 357RemMag, 44RemMag, and 45Colt tapered steel dies made by RCBS off Ebay. All were made in the 70's.

They all work great. Very nice fit and finish. Took a minute to get use to decapping with the expander die, but no problem.

I was tired of the coke bottled, over worked effect that carbide dies produce with these cartridges.
 
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