What dies do I order?

[Manny Clothakis]

Can someone please advise me as to which dies I should use for my 45-70, RCBS three die set which has the full length sizer and also order the neck size only? Or?????? Thanks, Manny

[Kirk]

Hi Manny, just order the RCBS regular dies.

[Jerry Williams]

Manny, You can get by with the Regular RCBS dies. they are pretty good ones. Depending what gun you shoot BPRC in you may not even resize the brass, just bell it slightly, load and hand seat the bullet, or seat with the third die. I shot this way for years. Eventually I bought a neck sizing die only(RCBS) from Buffalo Arms, and I am glad I did. My gun shots better with slight neck tension and the bullets stay in the cases. Each to their own, and only experience and trigger time will tell you what your rifle likes for best accurate load. Good Luck! You have a great bunch of people here to help.

[Manny Clothakis]

Kirk, Jerry, just ordered the Cowboy dies from BA, thought they would be just the ticket for me...thanks a bunch for your input, means alot to me.
regards, Manny

[8iowa]

I load 40-70 SS and 45-70. There are two other dies that I have found indispensible;

Make yourself a compression die by purchasing the compression plug from Buffalo Arms, www.buffaloarms.com. Also purchase a Lyman universal decapping die. Take the decapping rod out and screw in the compression plug - works great, but it takes some careful math to get just the right column depth to gently seat the bullet to the correct OAL.

I've also found that the taper crimp die (Lyman) is the very best way to get rid of the flare on the mouth of the case and to gently crimp the bullet without deforming it. This die is highly superior to the roll crimp on the seating die.

I then bought another Lyman decapping die and put it in a Lee Hand Press in order to decap the fired cases at the range before I drop them intop a bucket of soapy water.

With five dies involved in the loading process, I reluctantly removed my beloved RCBS Rockchucker, and replaced it with the Lyman Mag II Turret Press.

[Timberlake]

Manny,

You need Redding dies. IMO, they are the best for my kind of 45-70 BPCR shooting. Minimal sizing and work superbly for bore size PP cartridges. For run of the mill grooved bullets you can expect to see .003" max on runout for loaded cartridges. They are only slightly more $$ than the Lyman or the RCBS.

TL

[Omaha Poke]

Manny, not to confuse the issue, but for the best value in a set of dies for the .45-70, I don't think you can go wrong with the 5 die set sold by Pat Wolfe. She also sells a book that she and her late husband worked on for years that is really worth having and studying. I don't have her e-mail at my finger tips right now, but I think there are links to her elsewhere. I will try to find it and post it later.

The set comes with a compression die, and I use it for my .45-70, .45-90, and .45-110 all three. It works great!! Hope all the different posts don't confuse you too much. I have a set of the Redding dies for .45-70, and they never get used because the Wolfe dies work so much better. Randy

[Lee Stone]

Here is Pat's website. I has her contact information. And that book is a treasure trove of blackpowder information.

http://www.the45-70book.com/

[Omaha Poke]

Lee, thanks for the helping hand!! Randy

[Ken Hartlein]

It looks to me like Manny has already ordered the dies he wants. 8iowa, that is exactely the same setup I use, even the brand names are the same.

[Timberlake]

Manny,

You've had many good responses to you query. None are bad. You have some deciding to do.

Omaha Poke,

Since you don't use those 45 dies from Redding what do you want for them? I'll be away during Thanksgiving holiday so won't be able to answer you for a few days. Thanks

TL

[IronSight]

To 8iowa,
I've been using the Mag II for a couple years now and its a great little press. While full length sizing some 308 cases a while back, I noticed the sizing pressure was causing the turret to tilt up slightly relative to the ram. Pay careful attention to the stabilizer rod at the rear of the press. I adusted it to zero clearance at the high point of the turret. To reduce friction during turret rotation, I smeared a small amount of grease on the bottom of the turret where contact is made. Maybe you read the instructions and are already aware of this. I probably didn't look at any insuructions because I remember sizing cases a half hour after the carton was opened.

[Lee Stone]

I also like the Lyman T-Mag II turret press. I have seven loaded turrets so far. I got it because I didn't think I could get additional turrets for my old Lyman Spar-T turret press any more. Besides, even though the old Spart-T did .45/70 quite well, it did not have that stabilizing rod in the back like the T-Mag II has. I like that stabilizing rod. It keeps the turret assembly from flexing when resizing the big cases like my .50/90s. And the convenience of leaving the dies in the turrets and not having to readjust everything when changing from one calibre to another is great.

[8iowa]

IronSight:

Thanks for the comments. In the instructions Lyman says that the gap between the turret and the stablizer bar should be 1/64 inches. This seemed to be a rather large gap to me so I will follow your suggestion and re-adjust the gap to around .005 - .008. I did have to use a fair amount of effort to resize my new lot of 40-70 Buffalo brass and the press took it in stride.

In selecting a turret press I looked carefully at the Lyman, RCBS, and Redding presses. The Redding is the strongest, and is the most expensive by far. It has the advantage of 7 openings in the turret, but I didn't really need that many. I read the reviews of Lyman and RCBS on Midway's web site and both had positive and negative comments which I thought was a wash out. The Lyman however is on sale at Midway (www.midwayusa.com) for $108 so I bought two, for both my son and myself. The turret heads are also on sale for $24 and I had better move fast on a couple of those as well.

If any of you out there are getting tired of screwing dies in and out of a single stage press the Lyman Turret press is a great option at a good price.

[IronSight]

After re-reading my post what i meant to say is that i adjust the stabilizer rod to zero clearance at the 'lowest' point of the turret. Dam, it must of been that last beer.