Exact Shooting ultra precision custom sizing die - Got One!

[BallisticsGuy]

While I was in South Africa a few weeks ago I managed to pick up a new sizing die that's made there. I actually got to meet the man behind the magic through an introduction by a mutual friend. I got to see and use the die I was extremely impressed. So impressed I had to have one. They have a standard (though still super precise) die for SAAMI/CIP chambers and a "Custom Collection" version for those of us with more persnickety requirements. I got the custom collection version made to my specs while I was in country. I also got to have a nice chat with Jaco, the man behind the magic, and have a nice long chat with him about how the things were made and some general chit chat. Turns out, the level of precision they craft these with apparently required a ton of effort just in building testing instruments so they could measure sufficiently precisely to hold their amazingly tight tolerances.

The box is nicely jointed and finished wood.

Inside everything is set in custom cut foam. Given the precision, cost and purpose, you'll want to keep things orderly and clean and not bumping into each other.

All of the little bits from the die kit.

All the mechanical stops are in the die itself so it's a little different to use than I'm used to but dramatically different. It does mean the die can move from press to press without readjustment of the die. One tiny bit of note, it's not a standard 7/8" die body. It's a 1"-14TPI body so a different press bushing is on order for my RCBS Rockchucker and I'm having a local machine shop cut one of my Dillon tool heads for it.

The benefits for me are setting of neck tension & head spacing very precisely. It came with 5 neck bushings at .0005" increments so I can now get consistent tension between lots of brass. Normally I neck size only until I have to bump the shoulder back but that causes issues with rounds that decides they won't chamber without a lot of force to close the bolt. Slows me down in a match and breaks my concentration. There are click adjustments on the die for the shoulder bump which I've seen and measured to be extremely accurate. Want to knock the shoulder back .0015, 3 clicks. It works just that easily.

The cost is fairly high (retail is almost $600 shipped to the USA) but real precision costs real money. If I can't magically be a better shot, I can pay to take a little more slop out of my ammo.

It's a little different in how it works to other dies I've used in one nifty respect, the body sizing and shoulder bump happens first without touching the neck, then the neck sizing operation happens as its own part of the stroke and neck sizing depth is controlled by virtue of a shim pack that adjusts it in .0020" increments.

They have a seating die coming out too which I've already asked for a copy of. I have a couple buddies using one of these already and they're reporting very good things. As soon as my press bushing and tool head are done I'll be doing a vigorous bit of comparison testing against my existing redding dies both in group sizes and dimensional consistency.

 

[cape cove]

Looking forward to hear what your testing will give. Great looking dies.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Pretty stoked to try this out. Coach and I have new 6XC barrels coming. His existing 6XC barrel still has a little breath left in it but my .243AI is pretty well done. Certainly not worth starting another season on. So we'll be able to do some direct comparison testing against performance in the new barrels and on his existing barrel with our existing dies and the Exact die. That all means I get to put all of coach's hand written data into a spreadsheet and do the statistics pulling from it (yay) and then compare that to fresh ammo made with the new die on the old barrel for actual ammo performance and then measuring ammo produced with both sets and comparing that.

 

[Mikecr]

"Custom Collection" isn't custom unless they will make it to size my fire formed cases to my specs. Hopefully that would be the case with such an expensive die.

 

[Gord0]

It looks like a beautiful die with lots of features. I'm sure possibly worth the asking price. I do see some marketing BS he gave you though. I have two instruments at work that will measure that die to more decimal places than would even matter. And do it down to a certified accuracy level of .000004" on something that small. Not saying in any way that it's not extremely well made, just don't believe everything you hear

 

[BallisticsGuy]

While my seating die is being engraved I've taken some time to wring out the sizer properly. Accuracy of neck sizing is perfect. Accuracy of shoulder bump has been perfect as well. Both things one would expect from a 550 dollar die.

Actually that precision turned out to be a little bit of an issue in a way. Some of the brass I was working with hadn't fully formed to the chamber (the brass was a mix of 1-fire, 2-fire, 3-fire and 4-fire) and was coming in short. I thought there might be a die issue so I smoked the shoulder on one and found out it wasn't making contact with the shoulder bumping part of the die. Then instead of assuming all cases were uniform length to the shoulder, we measured with the included headspace gauge and figured out what was going on. It needed really 3 firings before pushing the shoulder was going to be required or possible anyway. Hooray! So not an actual die issue so much as a brass issue and a me lumping lots of brass together and forgetting about that detail.

Along the way I had to have some machining done. My RCBS shellholder clearly wasn't parallel between the top face where the die contacts it and the flange that holds it into the press ram. I took that over to my machinist and had him tinker on it. That made setup a little easier even though it wasn't totally necessary. It eliminated me using a feeler gauge around the circumference of the shellholder to verify where "touching" actually was. I still had to use a feeler to verify that I was at "just touching" versus -.0005 or +.0005.

Once we got it set up against the included gold master, then the fun times with lube selection came up. The body section of the die is very tight and the base of Coach's 6xc chamber is not. I was getting a rough time running brass in and out of it with stickiness. Hornady One-Shot case lube was not going to be it. It wasn't slick enough. Fine in my Hornady/RCBS/Lee/Lyman/Redding dies but not in this one. I then tried pad applied RCBS case lube which definitely was better but still not as slick as I thought it should be. Next we tried Imperial Sizing Die Wax which takes longer to apply and is messier but it offered no stickiness on sizing. That was a recommendation from the manufacturer and it turned out to be a good one.

To check neck tension we grabbed a bunch of 6XC and .243AI brass and I pulled the body/shoulder sizer out of the die and ran with just the neck bushing. My .243AI necks are thinner than our 6XC necks by about .003 total. The outside diameters were identical as one would expect but inside diameters showed the expected .003 difference. The little shims that are included for setting the neck sizing depth allowed for coach's neck setup and mine to be accommodated with ease and repeatably. Coach sets his necks up so the last .020 isn't constricted so it rides the walls of the neck area in his chamber. I size my necks all the way to the shoulder/neck junction. Pull one shim, switch sides for it and done.

Everything being so precisely machined is helpful but the real money was the click adjustments for the shoulder bump. It required buying a much better quality micrometer to be sure (I was using cheapies before but they were showing variability so I upgraded) what I was getting but once that came in all questions were answered. Definitely getting .0005" per click of shoulder push back. We'll be running some grouping tests this weekend and then shooting a match with ammo loaded with this die. Between the super consistent neck tension and shoulder push I'm expecting an incremental improvement specifically in SD's and more consistency of chambering ease. No more having a few cases that needed the bump and didn't get it making for hard bolt closure.