So, a friend of mine is an outside sales guy from a big shooting sports distributor and always gets to play with the neatest stuff... Last week, while talking about reloading and long range shooting, he asked if I had used Redding Competition Dies. I told him no, I usually buy my dies based on reviews or price (in some cases) and hadn't ever really considered the high-end dies. He asked if I was going to be reloading anything in the next couple days, and I told him that I was loading .338 Lapua. So later that day, he dropped off a set of Redding dies and told me to give them a try and let him know what I thought.
I go to some extremes when handloading precision long range ammunition. After weighing each case and trimming meplats. I end up with consistant ammo that is within a grain total weight of each other. My .338 LM loads give an extreme spread of around 15fps, DAMN good for such a big cartridge.
This time, I set up the Redding dies and got to work. They come with a body sizer, a neck sizer and a bullet seater. I was only neck sizing, so I left the body sizer in the box. The neck sizer is a bugger to set up (micrometer adjustable to fit the case), but once you get the hang of it, you see just how precise it is. It's designed to support the case evenly so that the sizing is done exactly in the center of the case, keeping the neck concentric. The bullet seater is micrometer adjustable and supposedly accurate to .001. I got it set and turned out 20 loaded rounds. They all measured exact, so I figured I did something right on these unfamilliar dies...
I got to the range on Saturday morning and set up. When I got done logging my velocities, I was shocked: 3 @ 2758, 1 @ 2757, 13 @ 2756, 2 @ 2755, 1 @ 2750. That's an extreme spread of 8...freaking 8...on a set of dies I've never used before. It held, accuracy wise, with my current loading, but I'd need more time to decide if it was really more accurate or not.
Bottom line, they may be worth the $300+ price tag if the groups hold together better past the 1200 yard line. Time will tell.
The rifle got completely torn down Sunday to get a few maintenance issues taken care of (I'm anal with my precision rifles as well...) but when it comes back together, I'll have a couple hundred rounds loaded up to play with.
Can't wait!
I go to some extremes when handloading precision long range ammunition. After weighing each case and trimming meplats. I end up with consistant ammo that is within a grain total weight of each other. My .338 LM loads give an extreme spread of around 15fps, DAMN good for such a big cartridge.
This time, I set up the Redding dies and got to work. They come with a body sizer, a neck sizer and a bullet seater. I was only neck sizing, so I left the body sizer in the box. The neck sizer is a bugger to set up (micrometer adjustable to fit the case), but once you get the hang of it, you see just how precise it is. It's designed to support the case evenly so that the sizing is done exactly in the center of the case, keeping the neck concentric. The bullet seater is micrometer adjustable and supposedly accurate to .001. I got it set and turned out 20 loaded rounds. They all measured exact, so I figured I did something right on these unfamilliar dies...
I got to the range on Saturday morning and set up. When I got done logging my velocities, I was shocked: 3 @ 2758, 1 @ 2757, 13 @ 2756, 2 @ 2755, 1 @ 2750. That's an extreme spread of 8...freaking 8...on a set of dies I've never used before. It held, accuracy wise, with my current loading, but I'd need more time to decide if it was really more accurate or not.
Bottom line, they may be worth the $300+ price tag if the groups hold together better past the 1200 yard line. Time will tell.
The rifle got completely torn down Sunday to get a few maintenance issues taken care of (I'm anal with my precision rifles as well...) but when it comes back together, I'll have a couple hundred rounds loaded up to play with.
Can't wait!
