Redding Dies Worth It?

Thank you for the warm welcome.
these Dies work quite well with un turned brass.
Harrell’s Precision has 6 Br and 6 ppc Dies that with your 3-3x Fired brass will send you a Die that closely matches your chamber .002 body reductions Mine is a B-1 $75
Wilson F/L bushing dies are minimum sizing as well .002 Purchased from Brunos for around $59
Of course the bushings themselves are extra $12 at Brunos
Set up is a breeze and sizing is smooth.
Regards
SPJ

edwardware said:

On eBay, for the same money as Lee, yeah probably. For calibers that no one else makes dies for, certainly.

These days, I buy die features, not brand name. Lee makes the FCD, so I buy Lee FCDs. RCBS makes the best micro-seaters, so I buy theirs.

Buy the features, not the brand. When you're squeezing the last 0.25MOA out of a cartridge, then we can talk about brand differences.

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I have to agree here, I only want micrometer adjustable seating dies. I find the forester ones better than the redding ones although I own mostly redding dies, Hornady makes them as well as RCBS. I do not know if Lee makes micrometer seating dies. I do like the Lee factory crimp dies. Redding is also over priced in my opinion.

not worth it, imo. 44mag/44spl is covered with one die set.

luck,

murf

Whatever brand you get think of your purchase for the long run. Even if the dies cost more get the ones you want. Amortize your purchase over 20, 30, 40 yrs. Then you can justify your purchase. Buy once, cry once, but your will know that you have the dies YOU WANTED. If you have to save up another month or so, do it.

TheDomFather said:

I have to agree here, I only want micrometer adjustable seating dies. I find the forester ones better than the redding ones although I own mostly redding dies, Hornady makes them as well as RCBS. I do not know if Lee makes micrometer seating dies. I do like the Lee factory crimp dies. Redding is also over priced in my opinion.

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marchboom said:

Whatever brand you get think of your purchase for the long run. Even if the dies cost more get the ones you want. Amortize your purchase over 20, 30, 40 yrs. Then you can justify your purchase. Buy once, cry once, but your will know that you have the dies YOU WANTED. If you have to save up another month or so, do it.

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I agree on the Forster seating die. I tried a couple others and the Forster gives the best results, and the micrometer feature makes adjusting much quicker, especially when going between different bullet profiles. There are some things I buy and I wonder if I should have spent the money, but the Forster die is not one of them. (Neither is my Dillon swaging tool, or my Chargemaster.) I wish I had bought all of those in the very beginning.

Toprudder said:

I agree on the Forster seating die. I tried a couple others and the Forster gives the best results, and the micrometer feature makes adjusting much quicker, especially when going between different bullet profiles. There are some things I buy and I wonder if I should have spent the money, but the Forster die is not one of them. (Neither is my Dillon swaging tool, or my Chargemaster.) I wish I had bought all of those in the very beginning.

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Somtimes its a bit of trial and error. you buy certain things thinking you will like them and they will help your process and they wind up being crap! I just moved and my new reloading bench is about 99% built not I just need to unpack everything. Stay tuned for a video on the new bench coming soon!

I have both the RCBS and Redding Competition dies in .223

1. I find the Redding holds the lock down and/or set depth better.
2. Redding is made here. I do not think the same holds for RCBS.

I'v used about every brand of die there is, and Never had a bad one. IMHO there all good...My choice is Lee because of the cost.

I agree with buying features rather than brands. For .357 Magnum, Lee dies have the features I want - carbide resizing, factory-crimp, powder-through expanding, and I don't need anything fancy for seating. For bottleneck rifle dies, I like the Redding Type S bushing neck sizing dies. I got a good price on a 3 die set with the standard seater and full length die, so I use those. I want a couple more rifle die sets and I'll definitely but the Type S bushing neck sizing dies. I'll probably get the Redding seaters if they come in a discounted two-die set.

So my answer is the Redding Type S bushing neck sizing dies are worth it. Their other dies? Maybe. Depends on what you're doing. Are the dies worth it just for the Redding brand? No.

I ordered a Redding die today … a competition bushing neck sizing die in 6.5 x 47mm Lapua because the RCBS bushing neck sizing die was scratching the case necks. I have lots of Redding products including a press, dies, powder measures, comparators and more and they are my go to die manufacturer. I also have dies from RCBS, Forster, Hornady, Lee and probably some others I don't remember but Redding are the best I've found. The only bad thing about Redding is their website which is in need of updating.

MCMXI said:

The only bad thing about Redding is their website which is in need of updating.

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The website is pretty old school. The products are US made and top quality. Their beam scale and powder trickler are phenomenal. Trickler is solid steel and weighs over a pound. No scooting, slipping, or tipping with this one. Scale has a cast iron body and solid as a rock. No plastic junk.

.40

Yes,
Used Redding dies for a while and in my humble opinion they are worth the higher prices we / I pay for them.
You can “ feel “ the difference in workmanship when you pick em up and I believe the machining is better than most manufacturers out there.
Just my thoughts guy’s.

It seems that most reloading equipment manufacturers have good customer service based on posts here, and the few times I've had to deal with one of them it's always been good. I called Redding about a month ago to see if I could buy a replacement hopper for my 10X powder measure since I'd left Winchester WSF powder in it for an extended period which turned the plastic a deep cigar brown color. A very nice lady I spoke with sent me a replacement with a cap for free despite my being willing to pay for it since it was entirely my fault. didn't even have to pay for the shipping. Needless to say, Redding makes excellent products and I've spent literally thousands of dollars on their competition die sets, bushings, powder measures and presses and they have me as a customer for life.

Hey Redding if you're listening. Please quit with the ridiculous notion that your die boxes can be used as reloading trays! Many of us have figured out that it requires more than three dies to accomplish what we need to do, and the "jack of all trades" approach to your die box causes a problem when trying to close the lid on four dies. Yes, people are starving, animals are going extinct, ocean levels are rising, an apocalyptic event from the heavens is imminent, but this stuff is important to me. WE ALREADY HAVE RELOADING TRAYS!!!! (see photo below). P.S. I like the color of your boxes but you need to understand that RCBS figured this out a long ways back.

I’m with @MCMXI and @Walkalong here - Somedays I look at my stack of Redding boxes and ponder:

Part of me thinks, “I want to meet the reloaded who makes use of the mere 20 positions on that box as a loading tray.” And then the other part of me realizes, “nah, that dude’s gonna be the type of weirdo our mothers warned us about.”

I actually brought my dies and press to the range the other day to do load workup in one session and I forgot my loading trays! The Redding tray feature has been used at least once by yours truly.

There is a definite pecking order when shopping for dies.
1. They must be made in the caliber you want to buy.
2. They must be available for purchase.
3. They should fit your budget
4. They should have the good features you want and exclude the features you do not like.

If you are buying some common caliber die set you can pick what ever brand you like.
If you are looking for an odd caliber or wildcat you are going to be limited.

There are certain features on some die sets that I dislike a little and some I dislike a lot.
A. I dislike most things about Lee dies including the large O ring lock rings, the decapping stem and the entire seater die. The case expander die for straight wall cases does a poor job of expanding the case compared to a Lyman M die.
B. Redding dies often have rough and poor quality 7/8 - 14 threads. The 40-65 Redding FL die is .416 in the neck making it too small for modern rifles that use .408 to .410 bullets.
C. The Lee rifle type collet factory crimp die is excellent
D. For some rifles the best cast bullet dies are the RCBS Cowboy dies for others Lyman Legacy dies are very good.
Unfortunately there is no general rule. You almost have to buy multiple brands and try them all to determine which die set works the best. Many times you wind up liking one die from 3 different sets.
I like the Redding or Forster benchrest seaters the best by far.
I like the Lee expander die body with custom expander plugs for cast bullets.
I like both RCBS and Forster FL dies but I prefer they have a Redding carbide expander button installed.
Redding FL dies are usually pretty good too.

However when it comes to price and availability you often cannot find USED Redding or Forster dies in every caliber. RCBS are by far the most common dies for many odd calibers.

Varminterror said:

I’m with @MCMXI and @Walkalong here - Somedays I look at my stack of Redding boxes and ponder:

Part of me thinks, “I want to meet the reloaded who makes use of the mere 20 positions on that box as a loading tray.” And then the other part of me realizes, “nah, that dude’s gonna be the type of weirdo our mothers warned us about.”

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My stack of Redding boxes reside in the gun safe with instructions, Allen wrenches, alternative seaters etc. Dies are on their own tool head also residing in safe.

I wish the Competition micrometer seater and neck sizer didn't look so similar, don't ask why! Lol

Russellc