Dies for flat point bullets?

[TripleChris]

For no other reason than the desire for something different, I switched up my bullet order and got 500 Berry's 200gr plated SWC and 750 Berry's 200gr plated flat nose. I have bought and handloaded many 230 gr round nose bullets, cast, jacketed, and plated, and all of them seated fine in my Lee carbide seater die. No problems with the .452 lead bullets after a small bell to the case was done. I made several thousand rounds without incident.

The SWC bullets seat perfectly. The flat points, well, they seem to be going in slightly crooked. No matter how much I bell the case mouth or fuss with the die they are not perfectly seated. Ever after messing with the taper crimp die and bullet seating die for over an hour, I just can't get them where I want them Is it me, or is a die with a clear dome shaped cavity designed strictly for dome shaped bullets?

 

[Kinbote]

If you have RCBS dies you can call them and they usually send you a new top punch. If you have another brand, you can probably order a different punch profile, or send your punch back to be modified. Sometimes you can load different profiles on the same punch, but other times you will have difficulty.

 

[Maryland Hunter]

Odd. I load both round nose and flat nose .45 through the same Lee die, no problems at all.

MH

 

[Rockzilla]

Use different seat stems here also, some will have no issues, others have problems..have several different profiles, RN, WC, SWC, FP..even chucked a few of the older RCBS ones in a lathe.

-Rock

 

[Warpspasm]

It's funny, because I bought 500 9mm round nose plated bullets from X-Treme and really struggled getting them to seat without being canted. I ended up using a pretty large bell before I got it solved. The .38 Special round nose flat top bullets I got from them, seated great with minimal belling in both .38 and .357 mag cases. Actually, at first they were canted a bit because I was using the round nose seating insert. I switched to the flat one and they started going in straight ever time.

 

[TripleChris]

Its odd that the SWC seat perfectly, as they are even further away in shape from a round nose than the flat nose bullets.

In both the Cabelas and Midway catalogs the dies seem to all be offered as generic seater dies with no specific indication of the shape its designed for. I would guess a round nose.

Should I try the manufacturers directly?

 

[Warpspasm]

Didn't the die come with both a cone shaped and a flat faced seating insert? My Hornady dies have both.

 

[Kinbote]

Yes, call the manufacturer; if it is RCBS they will probably send you a set for free. If it is another manufacturer, they might or might not, but they can offer advice.

 

[TripleChris]

Nah this is the Lee carbide 4 die set and it came with no additional inserts. YPFWYG. Although I am extremely happy with all the Lee stuff I own, now that I am using other manufacturer's products I can see why they are more expensive. My Lyman turret is awesome, although my Lee is now set up just to seat primers.

 

[TripleChris]

After shooting some of these at the range today - the FPs feed magnificently and shot fine, in spite of not passing my eyeball test. The SWCs were very accurate but had some snags on the feed ramp, I had 2 FTFs out of maybe 20 rounds.

Going back to 230gr plated round nose. Why mess with what works?