I need help with reloading die selection

[Lonestar]

I'm new to reloading and I'm wanting to buy some dies I've been looking at the wilson dies I have a arbor press already so these would be ideal in the fact that I can save some money buy not buying a foster , rcbs ect presses and the portability of the wilson die set up is awesome in my opinion . I will be loading the 7mm mag ill be reloading for hunting and target Shoting I guess my question is how good are the wilson died vs redding comp or dies should I save the money or spend the extra and get redding dies
Also what would be the pros and cons of the wilson dies and the other conventional dies

[trebark]

Can't say I have any experience with Wilson dies. I do however have lots of experience with Redding Competition dies. I reload for 260rem, 280rem and 300RUM. I use Redding neck and full-length sizing dies and competition seating dies (the ones with the micrometer on top). They are great. It's the micrometer on the top that makes the seating die so great.

[boomtube]

Wilson dies are neck sizers and using them will still require you that you Full Lenght size from time to time. Any potential accuracy advantage over conventional (threaded) dies and common press is quite small and no new guy using a factory rifle is ever going to see any benefit from anything else. Nor will he see any meaning full difference with costly dies from Redding or Forster. Your 7 mag is not a target cartridge and you won't be shooting BR grade bullets so any difference you might get with the costly dies - or press - would likely be invisible.

Buy a good single stage press and a die set from Lee, RCBS, Lyman or Hornady - they are all quite capabile of producing better ammo than many reloaders can produce or their rifles benefit from, certainly not for a very long time. If you ever exceed the potential of your first press and dies you will have the experience to judge for yourself what you might wish to try.

You can spend more money on a press but you won't find a better single stage than Lee's Classic Cast; it's big and strong enough to load .50 BMG for a lifetime, it's precisely machined and it has the best user features of any press of it's type.

[Bullet bumper]

+1
Wilson don't make a Body or Full length die for an Arbour press in 7mm Rem Mag .
You would eventually end up bending or breaking something on the light press if you tried .
If you want more portability than you could go with a Harrels Compact press magnum model. Compact Reloading Press
Buy a Redding body die 75136 to use in the press as it will take far less leverage.
Neck size with what ever you want .
If expansion above the belt gives you chambering trouble then buy the belted magnum collet die from this site Innovative Technologies - Reloading Equipment

[FUBAR]

Wilson? About the best you can buy, unless your using fired brass from another rifle or shooting the same brass in another rifle you may never need to full length resize...

I have several rifles that I only use Wilson dies, including my bench and F class rifles, and that brass gets loaded over and over....

The Wilson seating die is just F'ing Outstanding! I do have some rifles that there are no Wilson dies for, and a couple of ARs that I just load to many rounds for... I do use Redding comp dies for those I can.

I would advise an annealing device over a full length sizer.....

[Lonestar]

How often should I f/l size my cases I'm not going to shoot this brass in any rifle but my Sendaro

[trebark]

Originally Posted by Lonestar

How often should I f/l size my cases I'm not going to shoot this brass in any rifle but my Sendaro

It depends.

For some rifles you can neck size only and it will load just fine reload after reload. For other rifles you need to full-length size sometimes or all the time. My 260 I can neck size twice, then on the third reload, they have to be full-length resized. For my 300RUM, they have to be full-length resized every time. You won't know for sure until you get a couple reloads done for your rifle.