RCBS 44 Magnum die: 2-in-1 decapping / expander unit?

I searched but nothing came up, unless I'm failing to use the proper adjectives and nouns.

Ok, so in December 2018, I purchased a used RCBS 44 Magnum 3-die carbide set on ebay. It came in an older rounder shaped green box and 79 marked on each die. Two of the dies had the older knurled lock ring style while one had the newer style lock ring (no hole for the little brass lock screw, odd). This set sat in my drawer for the past year.

Fast forward a year later and I've finally decided to reload for that cartridge. I disassembled the dies and proceeded to clean them prior to using and noticed the following: the carbide sizer die has no decapping rod and the expander die has a decapping unit integrated into a mouth expander unit.

Here's a photo of the sizer, expander and seating dies from left to right:



Questions/concerns:
So, it seems this manufacturing style has been revised to not integrate both the decapper and expander? Am I missing pieces? Can I process my brass using what I have and just use the middle die to do two steps in one, safely? Am I going mad?

Thanks everyone,
Alemaniac

Thanks everyone, after your explanations, I don't feel silly or crazy nor am I lacking parts for this 1979-made set. I think what confused me a bit was the fact that nothing threads into the sizer die so there's just naked threads exposed when sizing. Just now, I resized and expanded 102x 44 magnum cases with ease...and all of them were below 32.512mm length (thanks Starline).

I guess the only thing I need to discover...is this a taper crimp or roll crimp set. The label on the box has been long gone so there's no part number present. How would one determine this?

I have a box of 50x Speer deep curl 270gr (part 4461) that I picked up for cheap at a local gun shop and noticed there's a cannelure present.

Thanks everyone for the continued and appreciated education.

-Alemaniac

jmorris said:

Unless the case is like a bottle neck or fairly long and tapered case, you can’t expand and size at the same time.

If you tried to tried to expand and size at the same time with a 44 mag case, you would lock it into the die as you crushed the brass into the expander.

It works on bottle neck cases because the expander is below the neck when it is sized and drawn back through once it is no longer in contact with the die.

View attachment 876969

That leaves you with another operation to do on pistol cases to expand and flare. Most do that while not decapping because that’s also a good time to charge the case (assuming you primed after sizing and decapping). Yours is just another way to “skin the cat”.

Click to expand...

Err yeah, that was ignorant on my part and it makes sense now while the bottle necked dies can decap and resize while straight wall require a separate unit. If only dies were made transparent

Thank you all for the clarifications; I was able to successfully load 50 rounds using some Speer 270gr Deep Curl bullets and yes, after following the instructions I have for adjusting for a roll crimp, each round turned out as per specifications.