Two RCBS dies, what...
- Thread starter tjensen
- Start date
FBecigneul
Member
What does RCBS say?
Ronnie
Factory dies vary by .003 on all dimensions through the years...with tolerances generally held to minus.
Factory chambers run out to the tune of more like .006 through the years..... with many of them wildly over-sized.
None of these are "different".... just ranging thru spec's.
This is all well and good and legal and veritably SAFE. As long as one follows reloading protocol from a manual and throws away one's brass cases after just a few reloads..... it is reality VS "specs" from some book or SAAA'MI chart. The simple reality is that most cases will blow apart after 3-5 reloads with 90% of all "matched" setups as set up according to a reloading manual (and all the innernet advice to "set the shellholder down tight to make the press cam over blahhh blahhh blahhh does nothing to allay this problem! Nor all the crap about "Forster is wayyyy straighter/better/rounder/sweeter than them cheapo RCBS" and "runout" and blah and blahhhh)
The chance of ANY factory resizing die fitting ANY factory chamber correctly is remote. For instance I have 6 un-modified 300WSM dies that have been used in 20-25 different factory rifles through the years. I'm an 07 FFL and can set up loads for customers, I sell ammunition. In other words, I can and do legally load for others but I choose to do this only on rigs I've personally assessed hands-on. 25yrs of checking chamber-to-die matches this way and in all that time I've only stumbled into one serendipitous fitment where XXX die closely matched (matches) XXX rifle. That factory die is permanently marked "John Doe's Rifle".
I wasn't being facetious..... IMO the difference between those two dies is that one has a *3 and one has a Z, and that calling RCBS is a waste of everyone's time and money because the only answer they CAN give is.... well I won't go there as that's a moving target, largely dependent on the caller.
Let's just say that they CANNOT answer that one is "larger" or "smaller" or "rounder" or "squarer" or "longer" or "shorter" or really anything else. Except maybe "the one with the *3 was made after 1996" or such-like. To me, a business owner who deals with liability issues every day this is patently obvious. Plus, 99% of all sales in this world are based on smoke and mirrors, on "making the customer happy" not on facts. A huge percentage of the folks in this world will "send a barrel blank back because it's defective" or call the brass company because they found one with a wrinkle in the neck. I can think of ten people I know personally who have sent "defective" reloading dies back to their respective companies, and 20 people who've sent back "defective" scopes........... And exactly one instance with a guy who recently sent me over a 10,000 CheyTac to find out why it didn't shoot where the scope WAS bad, on the scope checker....and he called the company, told 'em what I'd said and they sent him a brand new 2000.00 scope. Now he has TWO scopes....
(OK, lots of scopes are "bad"... on the scope checker. But NEVER bad in the way normal folks view "bad)
From a BUSINESS and SAFETY standpoint if a die is marked 222 Rem FL.... IT'S A FULL LENGTH 222 DIE!
What can be "different?" A year-code stamp that means something only to RCBS??
LOL
I'd certainly like to hear opposing viewpoints......
Boyd Allen
Active member
If you want to know the difference between any two FL dies of the same caliber, size a fired case with each and carefully measure both.
Good idea.
The rifle (Sako Vixen) shoots good like most 222's and I onlu use one die. Was just curious
And I only neck size.The most direct approach to getting an answer. The phone number to RCBS is, (800) 533-5000.
Glenn
That will allow the rifle to shoot near to it's best but......Keep Them Lugs Greazed!!!
This die thing really gets me going because it's so bloody IMPORTANT, and so poorly understood through the shooting world. And a lot of the "help" available adds to the misunderstanding. To anyone who builds stuff it's clear that we deal with tolerances, with runout and with high/low or +/- specifications. This is true of any industry.
An example of how this can all go awry with innernet "help" occurred a few years back on a shooting forum. A certain fellow we'll call "Steve" was a Bench Rest Shooter. He had never been hunting, had never owned a factory rifle AND he had always had his stuff built and maintained by a BR Gunsmith.
He shot quite a lot by most folks' standards.
And he fired his cases many times.
A guy came on with a question very similar to this one except that instead of asking for the difference between two same-brand dies, he asked "what's the BEST die for XXX?"...... and of course 10 people dogpiled him with opinions, all totally subjective and non-factual. "Forster is straighter" and "Redding is higher tolerance" and "I only use micrometer adjustable hammers" and such blather.
I stayed out of it until "Steve" came into the fray.
"Steve" came in as The Voice Of BR, Thee Answer To All and the Man Of Facts...... and his advice was to "start with the die held high in the press and keep screwing her down incrementally until the round chambered with no resistance and LOCK 'ER DOWN!! She's all Done And Good forevermore!!! You're safe now to fire them cases 'til the cows come to water....."
ouch!
GUARANTEED blown cases.......
and then there were arguments, and "feelings" were hurt and folks's pannies all got in a snit....
And, the thing is, IN STEVE'S WORLD the aforementioned method is perfectly acceptable! Because Smart People had done all the work and made all the specifications match..... whereas out in the real world, the world of mass-produced products VS hand-fitted ones, the chances of stumbling acros't matched spec's is vanishingly small.
But luckily, the fellow did choose to lissen and re-evaluate his "knowledge" and didn't hurt hisself
Lissen to Boyd, he speaks truth. You wanna' know the answer? Measure for yourself.