berettaprofessor
Member
Some few will remember my recent thread asking about anyone's experiences with the Frankford Arsenal Universal Seating Die. Well, since I couldn't find out much from you all, I purchased one and it came in this week. Today, I was loading up a ladder with H4895 and Hornady 88 grain ELDS in 224 Valkyrie and decided to load a few each with the new Frankford Micrometer and my Lee 224 Valk Seating die and compare them.
Results are in the table below. I loaded 7 cartridges with each die (cases were previously sized with an RCBS sizing die). I then measured OAL for each case with an analog caliper and also using a Hornady Comparator to measure base to OGIVE. You can see from the averages that the Frankford was set slightly longer, but the important part is that there's no difference in standard deviation between the Lee Sizing Die and the Frankford. Both have a very minimal difference (SD=0.001" and range =0.003") in base-Ogive measurements.
Conclusion: You can buy about 4 Lee caliber specific sizing dies (@$21ea) for the cost of the Frankford kit ($75 + tax), which allows you to load just about anything, but my Lee dies are in pre-set bushings while the Frankford would have to be reset for each caliber....so if I figure in time for switching, if you were going to load only a few rifle calibers, the Frankford kit is not worth it. On the other hand, you can't buy most Lee rifle caliber sizing dies separate, so you're really comparing the cost of about 2 Lee Pacemaker sets to the Frankford set.
One other thing; the Frankford kit is kind of neat to play with, and the setup is not difficult, but for 224 Valkyrie, the printed instructions didn't quite work. The instructions say to set the micrometer to the "5" mark, raise the press ram, and screw in the die with a bullet in place until you just feel resistance (bullet barely touches the case mouth), then to lower the ram, screw the die in until you reach proper bullet depth and tighten the locking ring (allowing you to use the micrometer to adjust in 0.001 increments after that). What actually happened with the long seating stem in the die (the correct one), is that I screwed the die in until I realized that it was pushing on the case holder in the ram and it would go no further and still the bullet was still seated WAY too far out and I needed to move the micrometer to make the OAL. It would have made more sense if the instructions were like the Lee die instructions; screw the die in until it just touches a fully raised ram, and then use the micrometer to adjust down to your desired OAL. Much simpler.
Results are in the table below. I loaded 7 cartridges with each die (cases were previously sized with an RCBS sizing die). I then measured OAL for each case with an analog caliper and also using a Hornady Comparator to measure base to OGIVE. You can see from the averages that the Frankford was set slightly longer, but the important part is that there's no difference in standard deviation between the Lee Sizing Die and the Frankford. Both have a very minimal difference (SD=0.001" and range =0.003") in base-Ogive measurements.
Conclusion: You can buy about 4 Lee caliber specific sizing dies (@$21ea) for the cost of the Frankford kit ($75 + tax), which allows you to load just about anything, but my Lee dies are in pre-set bushings while the Frankford would have to be reset for each caliber....so if I figure in time for switching, if you were going to load only a few rifle calibers, the Frankford kit is not worth it. On the other hand, you can't buy most Lee rifle caliber sizing dies separate, so you're really comparing the cost of about 2 Lee Pacemaker sets to the Frankford set.
One other thing; the Frankford kit is kind of neat to play with, and the setup is not difficult, but for 224 Valkyrie, the printed instructions didn't quite work. The instructions say to set the micrometer to the "5" mark, raise the press ram, and screw in the die with a bullet in place until you just feel resistance (bullet barely touches the case mouth), then to lower the ram, screw the die in until you reach proper bullet depth and tighten the locking ring (allowing you to use the micrometer to adjust in 0.001 increments after that). What actually happened with the long seating stem in the die (the correct one), is that I screwed the die in until I realized that it was pushing on the case holder in the ram and it would go no further and still the bullet was still seated WAY too far out and I needed to move the micrometer to make the OAL. It would have made more sense if the instructions were like the Lee die instructions; screw the die in until it just touches a fully raised ram, and then use the micrometer to adjust down to your desired OAL. Much simpler.
