7.62 Nagant Lee dies

[White Horseradish]

There's a guy in eBay selling what he calls Lee dies for 7.62 Nagant. I looked in the Lee catalog and I don't see any dies for that caliber.

So, what is it that he is selling? Should I buy it?

Alternately, does anybody know if any 7.62 Nagant dies are made by anyone? I haven't heard of any.

 

[Stinger]

Yes,

I think almost all die manufacturers make 7.62 x 54 dies.

Most call them 7.62 Rimmed Russian.

Regards,

Stinger

 

[bakert]

Think maybe you're talking about the 7.62 Nagant pistol dies. They are available a Midway USA. Might want to go to the Midway web page and take a look. www.midwayusa.com
Baker

 

[White Horseradish]

Them's the ones. 7.62 Nagant, AKA 7.62x38R, revolver cartridges.

I just thought it's a bit weird that he sells Lee dies that aren't listed on the Lee website.

 

[Cortland]

Lee, like all die makers, will make custom dies (for a price, of course). It's possible that Midway asked them to do a special run.

 

[bakert]

It also seems to me that I remember reading a small article by Richard Lee a few yrs ago describing how to load the 7.62 Nagant with one of his .32 dies but to be honest my memory kind of fuzzy about it and I may be wrong. I do know that RCBS lists that particular die set. I've never seen one of those Russian revolvers. Seems like more people shooting some of the older cartridges now not only for Cowboy Action but also for older imported guns.
Baker

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I shot several rounds of this today. About 25% of the Fiochi brass split at the mouth (not consistant to the cylinder so I think it's an ammo issue). Do you guys reloading it have much life out of the brass? Or is it just a fragile design?

 

[Dave Rishar]

The basic concept behind this revolver is rough on brass -- no way around that. There are some other issues at work as well.

It's safe to say that the M1895 wasn't designed with handloading in mind.

 

[ojh]

You'll find lots of discussion about reloading Nagant with Lee dies in here: http://www.gunboards.com/forums/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=21 .

Basically, Lee dies for Nagant are designed for making shootable ammo using 32-20 brass. They can also be used with Nagant brass, but there are some quirks. See the link above.

I've just loaded my first rounds for this caliber, using Lee dies and new Starline Nagant brass. Midway sells them too.

By the way, I've shot more than 150 Fiocchi factory loads, and not a single case mount have split. Maybe there's something wrong with my gun

 

[Marnoot]

I've been loading with Starline .32-20 brass and the Lee dies. 94 grain Meister .32 H&R (.312) RNFP bullets over 2.7 grains of Titegroup. Accuracy hasn't been great, I need to slug the bore to see where that's at and possibly use a different diameter bullet. I've heard good things about 3.0-3.4 grains of Unique under a 98-100 grain bullet.

 

[Firehand]

My understanding is that Lee made the dies specially for Midway. They work well with .32-20 brass. I've been using those with 3.7 grains Unique and a Hornady hollow-base wadcutter; easy shooting and quite accurate in mine.

I've been experimenting with resizing .223 cases to make full-length cases for this pistol. Working out pretty well.

 

[Cosmoline]

Yeah, they're basically just .32-20 dies with a modified resizer. They're far from perfect and don't work so well on actual 7.62 Nagant shells, as my thread details. But they can be made to work. .32-20 brass functions OK if it's resized properly, but doesn't form a full gas seal.