Which seater die?

[boomtube]

"I'm leaning towards Forester BR as I've heard great reviews and the price seems right."

Redding copied the Forster BR (origianally Bonanza) seater when the patent protection expired so they are equal in performance and no other threaded so-called "competition" dies come close to the average performance of either. Micrometer heads are extra cost Forster option that's sorta fun to play with but doesn't add any "accuracy" to the ammo it produces.


243 WIN: Lee Collet, Redding FL, Redding Seater (thinking of adding redding body)
280 REM: Lee Collet, RCBS FL, RCBS Seater (thinking of adding redding body)
300WSM: Redding FL and Seater (thinking of adding Lee Collet and redding body)

Your choices are quite good but you need to understand that with dies we aren't dealing with things that normally make for massive accuracy differences, we are dealing with small tweeks in groups. No properly made die is going to make a 1.5 moa rifle into a .5 moa rifle unless the first dies are massively out of tolerance. And that's highly unlikely!

The Lee Collet neck sizer is perhaps the best neck die available for factory chambers but the value of neck sizing for accuracy is often greatly over stated. Neck sizing must be tested in YOUR rifle with YOUR load to see if it helps or not.

Conventional dies actually tend to be quite good, on average. "Good" actually means a good sizer match to a specific rifle and the seater tends to load concentric ammo. That fit varies between dies of the same brand as widely as between brands. Getting any "good" individual die to match your chamber well is a matter of pure luck, not how much you pay for the brand.

Unless your accuracy is less than perhaps 3/4", consistantly, a good conventional seater will do about as well as the more costly types.

Ditto body dies, few factory rifles will ever know the difference in performance from a good conventional FL sizer. Nevertheless, sizing with a body die and the Lee collet will produce better than average straight necks and no seater can load bullets straight into a bent neck!

 

[300R]

Here is a pic to help you out,i can recommend any of these.
My three do it all calibers,338LM-6.5-284-6br

 

[Trickymissfit]

"I'm leaning towards Forester BR as I've heard great reviews and the price seems right."

Redding copied the Forster BR (origianally Bonanza) seater when the patent protection expired so they are equal in performance and no other threaded so-called "competition" dies come close to the average performance of either. Micrometer heads are extra cost Forster option that's sorta fun to play with but doesn't add any "accuracy" to the ammo it produces.


243 WIN: Lee Collet, Redding FL, Redding Seater (thinking of adding redding body)
280 REM: Lee Collet, RCBS FL, RCBS Seater (thinking of adding redding body)
300WSM: Redding FL and Seater (thinking of adding Lee Collet and redding body)

Your choices are quite good but you need to understand that with dies we aren't dealing with things that normally make for massive accuracy differences, we are dealing with small tweeks in groups. No properly made die is going to make a 1.5 moa rifle into a .5 moa rifle unless the first dies are massively out of tolerance. And that's highly unlikely!

The Lee Collet neck sizer is perhaps the best neck die available for factory chambers but the value of neck sizing for accuracy is often greatly over stated. Neck sizing must be tested in YOUR rifle with YOUR load to see if it helps or not.

Conventional dies actually tend to be quite good, on average. "Good" actually means a good sizer match to a specific rifle and the seater tends to load concentric ammo. That fit varies between dies of the same brand as widely as between brands. Getting any "good" individual die to match your chamber well is a matter of pure luck, not how much you pay for the brand.

Unless your accuracy is less than perhaps 3/4", consistantly, a good conventional seater will do about as well as the more costly types.

Ditto body dies, few factory rifles will ever know the difference in performance from a good conventional FL sizer. Nevertheless, sizing with a body die and the Lee collet will produce better than average straight necks and no seater can load bullets straight into a bent neck!

buddies of mine talked me into buying the Lee Collet dies a few years back (.223 and 22-250). Could not make them do what they were supposed to be capable of, and found the necks to be distorted. But there's more to this story. I found that if I turned the necks (or used some cases that I would normally run thru a Wilson neck die) the results were fairly good. I still prefer the arbor press for neck sizing if that matters much. I've been working on my own die design that has the case body wrapped before the neck is even touched, but already see that it's going to be a pain to build. But with all fairness to Lee, I did talk with them about these issues and they were very helpfull. I also found out that I'd been better off with one of their custom die sets (still a collet).
The best body die is one reamed with your chamber reamer (as well as a seater die). An off the shelf die is pretty much generic. I do use the Redding body dies every half dozen of so firings, but with some factory chambers I find they size excessively. They seem to do Savage chambers better than most.

I have found that when backing off the micrometer dial on all of my Forster seaters there seems to be about .0015" of backlash (say about .002"), but I've also found the Reddings seem to run about .005". Not a lot, but a good thing to know with each and every seater die you use. Hornaday was so bad that I gave up on them.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

Would I be better off with the Forster Ultra 2-Die Set 260 Remington and a Lee Collet die then the Collet die, Redding body die, and Forster Ultra seater?

What would I lose if I went with just the standard Forster BR Seater?

the real irretating thing about the Forster and the .260 Remington is that the sell a .308 national match die set! And being as the .260 is pretty much a 6.5/.308 it would seem a natural part of the evolution.
Some folks think the standard seater is a tiny bit more accurate than the micrometer dial type. I'm not convinced, but also trust the folks that say this! What I think you need to do is to decide if neck sizing is for you, and if it is then go from there. I like the Forster spindle better (full length sizer) than the others, but otherwise there's not a dime's worth of difference.
gary

 

[boomtube]

"...all of my Forster seaters there seems to be about .0015" of backlash (say about .002"), but I've also found the Reddings seem to run about .005"."

Backlash effects come from the necessary slack in the threads, it can easily be compensated for, on both dies and scopes. There is no backlash at all when a screw adjustment is going in (clockwise) under pressure, only when it's reversed and started out. If you need to back it out, simply go further than needed by perhaps a quarter turn, then turn back it in until you reach your goal from the proper direction.

Neither Lee's collet die nor any other sizer can make non-concentic necks straighter than they are. I lightly skim turn the necks of all my cases simply to uniform them a bit. It's easily and quickly done with most any hand held neck turner if you chuck the cases in a 1/2" variable speed electric drill chuck run at slow speed. My quick turned necks may not be "BR" quality but I don't shoot BR rifles! They're more than sufficent for use in factory chambers and with the Lee collet neck sizer and a Forster seater, I get some very low run out. (I use Forster's HOT-100 neck turner because of it's low cost and a carbide blade that will last forever.)

We can easily use a common FL 7-08 or even a .308 die for a "body die" for .260 or .243. Or use a 30-06 FL for a .270. Etc.

Redding seems to have combined the case holding sleeve from the seating die with a bushing neck sizer to insure complete on-axis alignment during neck sizing. I won't be getting one because I have a good assortment of Lee collets but it might be a great option for those with low mechanical skills but seeking high neck sizing concentricity.