The right diesā€¦

If you're going to touch each piece of brass anyway, you might as well seat bullets with 21 Century Hydro Press and LE Wilson in line seating die. It will effortlessly seat each bullet to .0005 every time. You'll also find by using it who makes uniform bullets and who doesn't. The 21 Century press will let you know how much neck tension your bushings and mandrels are providing, and make tuning neck tension way easier.
 
Your best approach to making selections on dies is to understand exactly how a particular die sizes and what it's control points are that it sizes to. Do not make the mistake of assuming that spending more money is going to produce better results.....as that is not universally true.
^^^^This^^^^ā€¦.VERY MUCH!!!šŸ‘

What say you, wise ones? Just how OCD/aka "detailed" should I get?
Brother, you can get as "hairy" as you want and spend as much money as you want on dies/components THAT'S for sure! If you're just wanting to try something different then I say Go For It!!! However, don't get discouraged if you can't quantify the differences in equipment on paper. As @Bang4theBuck alluded to you'd need a bunch of specialized equipment to test the differences/results. For example, setting "NECK TENSION"ā€¦..there's no way to know what your actual "neck tension" is without knowing the state of hardness of your case mouth. Dies (bushing & non-bushing) are merely setting a "mechanical interference fit" between the bullet and the case mouth. Bushing dies/mandrels simply allow you to have more "control" over that particular variable. So, just keep that in mind when looking at all the "razzle-dazzle" reloading stuff available to you and most of all Have Fun! šŸ˜‰
 
Are you a hunter or longrange/benchrest precision shooter? Stay out of the Rabbit Hole. No need for anything more than the Redding FL sizer with a carbide sizer button and a Redding or any mid priced benchrest seater. All the others are just wasted money. Also stay away from the bushing dies. They are a pain in the *** adding more expense.
Now days, reloading doesn't really help anything but the very long-range precision shooters who are shooting at 300 yards+. The modern PREMIUM factory loads are plenty accurate for <300 yard shooting.

I've been reloading for 55 years give or take. Been up and down this hole many times

Much has to do with the rifle you're shooting. Is it even capable of this type of accuracy?

Save your money for a .25 moa Custom Rifle, then check back.
I'm primarily a hunter and starting to tinker more with a few rifle projects for the winter. I have several very nice custom rifles and while I am certainly no PRS champion, I can shoot well. I have had some success at handloading as well, thus far, finding low ES and SD values with sub 1/2 MOA loads but not for every rifle and certainly not for every load. I primarily hunt with Hammer Hunter projectiles and they've proven incredibly effective. Just wondering what others have found to be THEIR best and learningā€¦ as usual
 
Depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

Some call it OCD, some call it an**.

Starts with fixing things that were not broken to begin with.
Next thing you know, you're sitting there weight sorting primers.
I don't think I'll take it that far but I guess never say never! I have sorted every component for sure but I definitely don't feel the juice was worth the squeeze for ME.
 
Really depends on what your goals are. You can make really accurate ammo with regular rcbs dies. If your hunting and plinking steel at moderate ranges going down the rabbit hole is not really necessary. A good option is a forster full length die honed to minimally work brass and their benchrest seater. They will hone the die pretty cheap. I will say using quality brass does help. Now if you plan on shooting long range and you are struggling with high es going the bushing route will help.
 
I don't think I'll take it that far but I guess never say never! I have sorted every component for sure but I definitely don't feel the juice was worth the squeeze for ME.
You didn't tell us what your shooting goals are.

If I wanted to go shoot with @Alex Wheeler at a match and pretend to be halfway competitive, yeah I'd look at better dies.

Note, I'd love to shoot at a match with Mr. Wheeler, but I know better than to think I would be competitive with him!

The dies I have for my 7mm-08AI are old Pacific dies I found a flea market for $15.
I have hit a 24X24" steel plate at 1,300 yards. Took it to shoot my first F-Open match (600 yards).

So, no. You might not need to get the top notch dies.
 

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Been further down the reloading rabbit hole than where I've ended up. I don't enjoy spending days reloading to blow through it in one range session. Process is often overlooked. Consistent results require consistent processes with consistent equipment, then repeat. There's a lot of good consistent equipment out there. Of you really want to see if something makes a difference you can only change 1 variable at a time. If you buy a new die and also change moving the shoulder back, what creates the new results the die or shoulder movement? Changing 1 thing and testing over and over is very time consuming.

Like others have said what is your goal? Figure out what's good enough for you and when you get there stop chasing cause you can go on forever. Dies are likely not the factor limiting accuracy. Lots of good recommendations here on good quality does without going crazy. Spend your time building good processes and go shoot
 
Been further down the reloading rabbit hole than where I've ended up. I don't enjoy spending days reloading to blow through it in one range session. Process is often overlooked. Consistent results require consistent processes with consistent equipment, then repeat. There's a lot of good consistent equipment out there. Of you really want to see if something makes a difference you can only change 1 variable at a time. If you buy a new die and also change moving the shoulder back, what creates the new results the die or shoulder movement? Changing 1 thing and testing over and over is very time consuming.

Like others have said what is your goal? Figure out what's good enough for you and when you get there stop chasing cause you can go on forever. Dies are likely not the factor limiting accuracy. Lots of good recommendations here on good quality does without going crazy. Spend your time building good processes and go shoot
There is a reason why dies are different prices
 
There is a reason why dies are different prices
Oh I agree and I'm not trying to say there's no difference in them. Just that there's diminishing returns as you spend more and more so you're going to spend a lot more for a little gain in a lot of cases. And if the rest of your process/rifle/ability can't take advantage of the difference you probably won't see a difference.

Just back to the goal, what's considered successful and don't need top end dies to get there
 
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