The way I look at is a conventional o ring press has enough slop in the shell holder and get rid of spring clip and add rubber o ring and gain more and if your press needs more than that you need a new press. Add rubber o ring under die and it will allow for some tilt for case not to fight die, coax does not tilt die at all, as long as all surfaces are aligned your fine but a little off not so good. On regular press your bullet sits right on center of ram not on a platform away from the Rams, we know on solid c frame presses that they flex and they are solid one piece, idk but just basic physics?
I drank the coax koolaid
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That makes so much sense. The Lee factory crimp dies all have an o-ring
I wanted to love the coax, it just looked like such a cool piece of machinery sitting on my bench but my head took over and looked at the results and facts. The jaws on the shell holder did not wrap around 360 on the case just some on each side, you could wiggle the case around after it clamps on it so how equal is the pressure when a case is being pulled out of a sizing die, a regular shell holder will pull on a case the same way Everytime, it's a solid piece, maybe that's why guys put shell holder adapter on it. On a regular press as long as the ram is tight in its hole it's not changing anything as opposed to all these linkages on each side of the coax that your counting on to all be perfect.
Yes lee was ahead of the game with their rings, kinda makes me laugh when I hear guys saying they take off those rings and put other ones on, I FL size and body size and check the shoulders and the rubber o rings under die does not give me inconsistencies in shoulder bump, I use rubber o rings under all my dies.
Thanks for sharing. I will give them a try. Did you buy the Sinclair concentricity gauge?
Yes I got the Sinclair, and you can still tweak the runout out of the bullet, I see where the runout is and push it against a rubber pad, don't push too hard and only once or twice, you'll get the feel for it and it will shoot better but not as good as bullet that had low runout to begin with so that is the real goal.
Actually doing the o ring under die and on shell holder was a noticeable improvement on my lee press, I did it on rcbs right away cause the shell holder spring was tight but it's been awesome, big improvement over lee challenger
O-ring on RCBS shell holder? hmm, I'll have to check that. Not sure it would work, but will give it a try
The spring puts tension on the shell holder, take out the spring and put thin o ring on groove where spring was obviously one that will stay tight in there, you will need to roll o ring down a little over ram when you change shell holders, very simple and if you want take your Dremel with polish felt wheel and put a little compound on it and polish ram where shell holder sits on like 15 seconds, brush a little mica on it and it will float nicely. The o ring just keeps the shell holder in enough to keep it centered but allows it to move freely.
Learn something new again! I swear there is no day that I don't learn something new on this forum. Thanks!
Ok, I hate to rant but I just remembered something else about the coax, it relies on your case being perfectly straight like if you set it on a table on it's base that it will sit perfectly perpendicular to the table, and that where that little tilt comes into play that u can do on regular press, coax won't tilt so it will fight against the base, even little Nick on bottom of case as it's ejected can make it not sit straight up and down.
The nice thing about putting the o ring under the die is that if you tighten it down against the o ring pretty firmly enough so you can still screw die in some and back it out some with good tension on it well now if your not bumping the shoulder enough or too much you can just turn the die a little bit without loosening the die ring, just turn the whole die and the o ring will still hold the threads tight.
I highly recommend the Hornady shoulder bump measuring tool, it's around 40 bucks, put on some digital calipers and you know exactly where your shoulder is, bump it back same amount and it will add to your consistency, I use it on every rifle bottleneck I make, really quick and easy
