Steve H
Member
I searched and didn't find an answer for this. Why are rifle dies not made out of carbide? It seems in the long run carbide would speed up the process.
Carbide rifle dies??
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Blue68f100
Member
Some are but crazy expensive. Dillon sells them for their high volume customers, with the commercial duty AP. Lube is still required. The main use of the carbide is to keep it from wearing out as fast during heavy usage.
ballman6711
Member
Yeah, cost would be pretty high to manufacture, and that would get passed on to the consumer.
chris
chris
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OP
Steve H
Member
Pricewise carbide pistol (straight wall cases) seems reasonable $$. Is the cost of making a carbide bottleneck that much worse/higher?
AJC1
Member
It has to do with design and case taper. Extraction gets a might bit difficult without it. Redding uses a multi ring design that is supposed to help.
Shooterbob
Member
Carbide rifle dies still need lube .So they cost more need lube not many are interested I would imagine
tominboise
Member
A straight wall pistol case carbide die, has one ring of carbide set into the bottom of the die. A bottle neck tapered case requires an entire case length insert. All of which has to be ground to final dimensions.
mcb
Member
A carbide straight wall pistol die is actually regular alloy steel except for a small ring of tungsten carbide inserted into the bottom of the die.
Making a tungsten carbide ring is relatively easy (as far as tungsten goes) and pressing it in a straight forward process. This make them not significantly more difficult or expensive to make than regular all steel dies.
Carbide dies for bottle neck rifle case require that tungsten carbide insert to be full length inside the steel outer sleeve. You cannot machine tungsten carbide with traditional methods so you have to form that inside shape as close as you can during the sintering process (powdered tungsten carbide and a matrix are formed like an injection molded parts and then fused/sintered together in a furnace at high temperatures) and then ground to final shape/finish. Grinding internal ID's especial tapered one as common in rifle dies is not easy especially at the tolerances we want for our dies. This make them much harder to make and thus much more expensive.
Its really hard to find cutaway views of carbide rifle dies
I believe if you look closely you can see the relatively thin tungsten carbide liner in this die, its more visible on the left side in the image than the right.
Making a tungsten carbide ring is relatively easy (as far as tungsten goes) and pressing it in a straight forward process. This make them not significantly more difficult or expensive to make than regular all steel dies.
Carbide dies for bottle neck rifle case require that tungsten carbide insert to be full length inside the steel outer sleeve. You cannot machine tungsten carbide with traditional methods so you have to form that inside shape as close as you can during the sintering process (powdered tungsten carbide and a matrix are formed like an injection molded parts and then fused/sintered together in a furnace at high temperatures) and then ground to final shape/finish. Grinding internal ID's especial tapered one as common in rifle dies is not easy especially at the tolerances we want for our dies. This make them much harder to make and thus much more expensive.
Its really hard to find cutaway views of carbide rifle dies
I believe if you look closely you can see the relatively thin tungsten carbide liner in this die, its more visible on the left side in the image than the right.
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GeoDudeFlorida
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Yes. Stainless cuts like butter. Carbide cuts hard and has to be ground to finish. The costs are higher for a variety of reasons but the cost of additional labor is probably the biggest.
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