Herter’s die question

[1moredeer]

I inherited my Granddad's reloading equipment which included several sets of Herter's dies. This morning, I dug out his 25-20 Win dies and a sack full of brass to prep them for loading . It's been years since these dies were used so I started with pulling them (2-die set) apart and giving them a thorough cleaning and inspection. Once everything was cleaned and reassembled, I put the sizer die in the press and adjusted as usual, lubed up a piece of brass and promptly crushed the neck. I disassembled the die and everything appeared to be in order. I left the depriming pin/expander ball assembly out of the die and tried another piece of brass. It resized the brass just fine and it chambered smoothly in the Model 1892. I measured the neck ID at .253 after resizing. I reinstalled the decapping pin/expander ball assembly and gently raised the ram, it stopped solid when it contacted the expander ball. I removed the assembly while leaving the brass in the die. No way is that expander ball going in that neck while in the die. The expander ball measures .258. After studying this for a bit, I installed the decapping pin/expander ball assembly into the seater die and ran a piece of brass that I had run through the sizer die through this set up. It decapped and expanded the neck back to the correct size. I have pistol dies (3-die sets) where you can chose to decap in either the sizing die or the expansion die but I've never run across this on a rifle die set. Anyone else ever seen this situation? Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[3chester]

Lee makes a 3 die set for 25-20 WCF and Midway sells them for $35 bucks. Never had much luck fooling with old Herter's reloading stuff, maybe they just need a bit of polish to smooth them out.

 

[MagnumManiac]

The only thing I have seen was with a BR straight line die that if the expander was too high in the die, the necks had nowhere to go and they would crumple. Lowering the decamping stem quite a way down removed the issue. These dies had no brand, were for 22PPC and were TIGHT in every respect. No longer have them…

Cheers.

 

[Tiny Tim]

Am I correct in understanding that it is the expander ball that is crushing the necks? No way an expander that size should interfere with sizing a case fired in the proper chamber.

It seems your expander is a little oversize ( should be bullet diameter of .257/.258?). What is the neck ID prior to sizing?

Perhaps lube the case neck ID or expander or give more chamfer on the case mouth ID. Maybe polish the expander to make the OD smaller. Seems that a .258 would maybe give a .001 interference fit, which seems loose for a standard factory die.

Sorry, missed the point you could run it through in the seater.

 

[BillLarson]

Good affordable dies......May require some TLC with a wire brush.....

 

[TJH]

Did you try lowering the expander ball/decapping pin as low as possible in the sizing die to get it down in the body of the case?

 

[1moredeer]

I started over this morning, after thinking about it and reading your comments, I knew I had to be overlooking something. I disassembled the sizer die for umteenth time to inspect it again, everything appeared to be fine. I checked the expander ball again for rough spots and made sure it was tight on the stem, it was. I had cleaned and inspected it multiple times, sprayed it and the inside of the die with brake cleaner and brushed it off with a brass brush. After starring at the assembly for a minute on the bench, the light bulb came on. That expander ball assembly didn't look exactly right, too long??? I unscrewed the expander ball from the stem and cleaned both the stem and inside threads in the ball. When I reassembled it, I hit a rough spot on the threads. I worked it back and forth a bit and Bingo! It screwed all the way on like it was supposed to. I reassembled the die, adjusted it and resized/ deprimed a dozen cases perfectly. With the overall length of the stem too long because the expander ball wasn't screwed all of the way on, I was adjusting the assembly up too far to prevent it from bottoming out in the case. With the short case length of the 25-20, this resulted in the expander ball being too high and not clearing the case neck for resizing in the die. Thanks to everyone, I really appreciate your comments and suggestions.

 

[jcno1]

I am old enough to have ordered things from the Herters catalog. In fact I have one of GL Herters loading guides on my reference shelfs. The dies n presses they offered were amazing. I wish they were still around. They had offered bullets swag dies that were offered were top notch. Granted GL Herter thought he was a bit god like but herters produced/offered amazing stuff in the day!