As mentioned in other posts, about a year ago, I received, as a gift, about 100 rounds of 9mm Parabellum brass. This was subsequently followed by more brass until I had 991 rounds. Since it seemed a waste to just throw this in the recycling bin and nobody that I knew reloaded, I decided to reload it myself. I also bought a 9mm pistol in which to shoot the reloaded ammunition.
Figuring that I would not long be involved in reloading the cartridge, I bought a 3-die set of reloading dies from a company that was a Lee "Master Reseller" and set to work. I had bought and used Lee "Speed Dies" (no longer made) for .39 Special and .45 ACP with good results, so I had high hopes for the 9mm Lee dies.
I set the dies up following the included instructions TO THE LETTER.
As noted in earlier posts, the Lee carbide resizing die often required extraordinary force to resize cases (even when they were lubricated) even though some were easily resized. This difficulty occurred regardless of whether I was using the Lee resizing lubricant, the RCBS resizing lubricant or Hornady Unique. The resizer also left vertical lines on the resized cases even after a through cleaning.
As noted in earlier posts, the Lee Powder-Through expander die either expanded the case so little that seating the bullet caused the case's sidewall to collapse or made the case mouth look like a Pilgrim's blunderbuss.
And as noted in earlier posts, no matter how carefully the bullet was aligned on the top of the case or how slowly the ram was raised, the Lee seater inevitably seated the bullet off-center leaving a bulge in one side of the case. Further, the sharp start of the crimp ring in the seating die regularly caused cases to hang up during the seating operation even though the die had been adjusted to not crimp the cases at all.
I worked on this for about six months and finally gave up. I bought a set of RCBS dies. All of the cases (so far) have all but "jumped" into the sizer which ran as smooth as silk with or without lubrication.
The expander dies allowed me to make changes in the diamter of the expanded case mouths at the rate 0.001 inch increments easily.
The seating die has a long throat to align the bullet with the precisely expanded case necks and allow the bullet to be seated without a bulge on one side of the case.
All in all, the problems with my 9mm reloads that I couldn't resolve by tinkering with my Lee dies were all fully resolved within the 30 minutes it took to set up my RCBS dies according to the instructions that came with them. The cases virtually "jumped into" the sizer die. The expander allowed adjustment in the amount of expansion within 0.001 inch and the cases didn't hang up on a sharp ridge at the start of the crimping throat.
I know the Lee enthusiasts are going to blame my problems with the Lee dies on my own incompetence. And that's fine. Despite nearly four decades experience reloading, I will accept that my problems are attributable to my own incompetence. But, when I accept that, the fact of the matter remains that in spite of that incompetence, I was able to set up dies from RCBS and resolve ALL of my problems within 30 minutes. Somehow, RCBS has developed a "fool proof" system for letting incompetents set up dies as accurately and precisely as experienced experts.
My only regret in all of this is that I didn't spend the extra $18 to get the RCBS dies in the first place.
Figuring that I would not long be involved in reloading the cartridge, I bought a 3-die set of reloading dies from a company that was a Lee "Master Reseller" and set to work. I had bought and used Lee "Speed Dies" (no longer made) for .39 Special and .45 ACP with good results, so I had high hopes for the 9mm Lee dies.
I set the dies up following the included instructions TO THE LETTER.
As noted in earlier posts, the Lee carbide resizing die often required extraordinary force to resize cases (even when they were lubricated) even though some were easily resized. This difficulty occurred regardless of whether I was using the Lee resizing lubricant, the RCBS resizing lubricant or Hornady Unique. The resizer also left vertical lines on the resized cases even after a through cleaning.
As noted in earlier posts, the Lee Powder-Through expander die either expanded the case so little that seating the bullet caused the case's sidewall to collapse or made the case mouth look like a Pilgrim's blunderbuss.
And as noted in earlier posts, no matter how carefully the bullet was aligned on the top of the case or how slowly the ram was raised, the Lee seater inevitably seated the bullet off-center leaving a bulge in one side of the case. Further, the sharp start of the crimp ring in the seating die regularly caused cases to hang up during the seating operation even though the die had been adjusted to not crimp the cases at all.
I worked on this for about six months and finally gave up. I bought a set of RCBS dies. All of the cases (so far) have all but "jumped" into the sizer which ran as smooth as silk with or without lubrication.
The expander dies allowed me to make changes in the diamter of the expanded case mouths at the rate 0.001 inch increments easily.
The seating die has a long throat to align the bullet with the precisely expanded case necks and allow the bullet to be seated without a bulge on one side of the case.
All in all, the problems with my 9mm reloads that I couldn't resolve by tinkering with my Lee dies were all fully resolved within the 30 minutes it took to set up my RCBS dies according to the instructions that came with them. The cases virtually "jumped into" the sizer die. The expander allowed adjustment in the amount of expansion within 0.001 inch and the cases didn't hang up on a sharp ridge at the start of the crimping throat.
I know the Lee enthusiasts are going to blame my problems with the Lee dies on my own incompetence. And that's fine. Despite nearly four decades experience reloading, I will accept that my problems are attributable to my own incompetence. But, when I accept that, the fact of the matter remains that in spite of that incompetence, I was able to set up dies from RCBS and resolve ALL of my problems within 30 minutes. Somehow, RCBS has developed a "fool proof" system for letting incompetents set up dies as accurately and precisely as experienced experts.
My only regret in all of this is that I didn't spend the extra $18 to get the RCBS dies in the first place.
