Competition Seating Die Comparison - Redding vs. Forster vs. Whidden

hey guys mike here with texas precision i wanted to take a little bit of time today to talk about a topic that i see come up on some of the more accuracy oriented forums maybe some of the facebook groups and that's about competition seating dives and you know where they provide benefit and of the competition seating dies what are the advantages and disadvantages from some of the various different makers on the market so that was the inspiration for this video and i figured before we dove into comparing and contrasting between the different brands we would provide a frame of reference and just start with the standard seating die this example is a 204 ruger that comes to us from rcbs i think everyone at some point in their shooting and reloading career probably has used one of these maybe some of you are still using some and wondering about which competition seating die to get to start out with there's there's nothing wrong with one of these they can produce very accurate ammunition very concentric ammunition however there are some some drawbacks especially when you start talking around precision rifle shooting namely at some point within your precision rifle career you will want to start load developing or performing seating depth adjustment in your load development process and you will typically want to do so in very fine increments and with a standard seating die the only way you can adjust your seating depth of around is to loosen this lock nut and screw this in and out and you have no frame of reference for how much you know that much of a turn is versus that much of a turn and so what you often end up with is a trial and error kind of process to the seating secondly on a standard seating die there is no support there's no sleeve providing support to the case and so what can happen again this is not a guarantee but what can happen is when you are seating a bullet if there is no support for the case things can go kind of off-center when it gets up into the die and that can introduce what is known as um run out basically your bullet's kind of cockeyed and it's not sitting straight in the case whenever it's finally seated and so for that reason at some point your shooting career you are probably going to end up looking at competition cedars now that we've gone over the standard seating die and understand why the competition seating die came to be let's talk about some of the characteristics and qualities that are inherent to all competition dies on the market today all competition seeders on the market today will offer two key features that distinguish them from the standard seating dies first at the top of the die you will notice a micrometer adjustment this allows you to finely tune seating depth in increments of one thousandth of an inch secondly you can see in the cutaway of this die there is a floating spring-loaded sleeve that fully supports the case and the bullet as it is run up into the die for the seating operation this sleeve prevents run out from occurring in the seating process now that we've talked about qualities that are inherent to all of the competition dies on the market let's talk about offerings from each individual manufacturer and we'll start with the reading this example is a 260 reading competition cedar it offers all steel construction it is a very hefty die very solidly built you will notice again it being all steel that there's a fine patina to it so you do have to take care of these a lot like you would you know any standard sizing die so no obstacle you're not already having to overcome uh it does offer 50 thousands of adjustment per rotation and there is a lot of rotation built into one of these reading competition cedars i will use my a running competition cedar in 223 as an example i can seat bullets from 40 grain all the way up to a 90 grain burger vld with this die and it offers a ton of adjustment and not all of the the competition seeders will give you that adjustability range so that's one area where the reading definitely excels if the running had any major drawbacks i would say two real things come to mind number one it's great that it has 50 thousands of adjustment per rotation the downside is and i'll try to get this to pick up on camera is that these are very fine graduations and it can be difficult to see so if you're an older gentleman you are definitely going to need glasses to see this and if you're trying to hit just that exact seating depth i mean to the half thousandth it can be somewhat more difficult on the reading versus the other designs uh secondly would be the price i believe the redding is going to be the most expensive die uh on the market today they start at 130 dollars for more common offerings you know like the 260 like the 223 that i have there below and they get more expensive from there so that's what i would say as far as cons reading however they do offer dies for a number of different cartridges this is probably one of the most prolific probably the most prolific competition seating die on the market today a lot of them out there very very good performers and generally speaking make great ammunition what else oh yeah one last thing they do all of these dies and i'll it'll be more obvious on the other examples but all of these dies have a zero adjustment to them so you can basically adjust the seating stem to determine where on the micrometer you want it to zero out again going back to the example of the 223 versus the 223 with the 40 grain versus the 90. that could become material so you're not starting out you know if you're trying to seat 40 grainers um and you've got it adjusted to where the die is zeroed you know it you may have to screw this thing all the way out um to see the 90 grainer where you're just barely starting to seat it and what this enables you to do the the zero adjustment enables you to do is to to screw this in so now as opposed to just having to screw it all the way out it's right in the middle of the adjustment range and so that's a basic overview of the reading competition die all right now that we've talked about the running let's talk about the forester a little bit um probably the most material difference between a forster and a redding comes in the adjustment you will notice here that the micrometer up top is significantly larger in diameter than that of the reading it also has 25 thousandths of adjustment per rotation versus 50 thousandths of adjustment so that basically translates into it being much easier to hit an exact value with this die you will notice and i'll try to bring it up to the camera that if you want to go a half thousandth you can do that and you will hit it reliably so that is a very very nice feature of the forster secondly the forester actually comes in a little bit cheaper than the reading i believe these are roughly 100 to 125 depending on the chambering you know 223 be closer to 100 versus like a a 300 prc or something big like that probably up near 125 mark um they zero a little bit differently than reading two they have this knurled lock ring at the top you just break that loose and screw this in or out depending on the bullet you're seating and where you want it to adjust where you want it to zero on the adjustment range what else um you will be by virtue of of this die you will be adjusting this you know more you know you'll be screwing this in or out a whole lot more than you would on the reading it's just because it has 25 thousands per rotation what else i i'm trying to nitpick the downsides here to the to the forester because i really like them but a couple things come to mind number one they are there are less offerings of forester dies out there so they're not going to offer the wide array of cartridges that that reading might directly off of the shelf however you can contact forrester directly and they will sell you i mean if if you have a chamber reamer they'll custom make you one so all you have to do is just send them your reamer just like that and to take them a few weeks but they'll they'll custom grind you a a um a seater for you it's just off the shelf you're gonna have a harder time finding them in all the different calibers um what else oh this is super nitpicky i realize it but i had to i had to hop on a little bit so you will notice that i have no dye box for the forester and that's because i purchased this standalone or a la carte when you purchase it that way it only comes in a little um like a cardboard box roughly the size of the die and so that's why i've got these these dye blocks back here is because i just don't have boxes for these so the storage is kind of lacking and i think if you do purchase them in the the the set they you know the the the two die set that they offer they come in these rather large boxes like the wins but again very nitpicky minor issue you know really if you're if you're a prolific reloader you ought to get some dye blocks like that and make make a big difference in cleaning up all the mess on the bench but i think that about covers it up with the forester so we'll go ahead and jump into the wooden all right go ahead and jump into the wooden die uh the width kind of combines features from both of these and does some things a little uniquely itself so the wooden is an all aluminum die and so you can feel a fairly significant weight difference between say a wooden and a redding definite weight discrepancy between the two secondly the width is 50 thousands of adjustment per rotation however it has roughly the same diameter micro micrometer as the forester so you can see here versus the redding and here versus the forester so it's it's easier to hit exact adjustments with the the wooden than it is um the reading but not as easy as as it is on the forester and the etching the the engraving on here it's it's good it's totally usable i'm not saying anything to the effect that it's not usable it's just not as defined as it would be on something like a forester um the widdens they are i think the cheapest if i'm not mistaken they're roughly ninety dollars so that is a definite plus for the woodens great dies they zero the same way as the foresters so you just screw this you know unlock the the knurled lock ring screw this the stem in or out and that'll adjust where it zeros on that scale right there another cool feature about the widths and you know it's not a huge deal on a sizing guy because really you're using the micrometer to adjust but i really like wooden's locking rings a lot of the cheaper locking rings out there you you screw like a an allen screw into like a lead bb or something and it just kind of locks in place and sometimes that can be real difficult to to get undone it's kind of a set one time and you better leave it there kind of thing but with the winds you just there's a top i guess a top access allen screw that you you screw in and it really nicely locks the die in place and it's completely reusable you can you know it's it's not one of those one and done type things at least that's that's been my experience with with several of the lock rings and why you see hornady lock rings on a lot of these dies anyway that's that's a a great feature um as far as cons for wooden you know i struggle to find cons there i would say the the adjustment it feels like it rides on an o-ring so i mean it's very smooth don't get me wrong it's just not as smooth as the the forster or the sorry the forster or the redding but it it just it has like a an o-ring feel to it which isn't a big deal secondly would be again huge die boxes but it comes with a bunch of stuff when you get one of these wooden dies you're going to get a headspace comparator here and it comes in you know to the caliber so this is a 6 gt die it came with a 375 comparator so that's pretty cool also comes with some nifty uh waiting stickers so everyone loves stickers what else as far as cons sometimes this this neural locking ring this is a complaint on all wooden dies like the machining on these things is outstanding it is far and away the i'm just going out of tangent here but the machining on wooden dies is far and away better it's a step above writing it's a step above forster i'm sorry if that offends you but it just is um however and these the machining on these these neural lock rings is no different like it's it's it's very nice very smooth especially for something as simple as a lock ring however these things come undone sometimes and it's kind of annoying you just gotta you know each time you use it just keep it locked down but just make sure that you pay attention to it won't be a problem um the widdens of course wooden is known for their custom dies so if if they don't offer something you know they can custom grind you um whatever product same thing you know same with reading same with forester cinema reamer or i think with whitney he has a bunch of reamers on site so that shouldn't be a big deal with them however they much like forester they don't offer a ton of different options really what you're going to see wooden offering dies for is is competition specific cartridges so you know if it's being shot in short range a long range vr he's going to have it it's being shot in f class he's probably going to have it if it's shot prs he's going to have it but outside of that you know he's not going to have your typical hunting caliber so i you go look for a 30 out six competition cedar over on wooden site i don't think they make it so they're just they're more competition oriented again not a big deal but it's just just how they operate so uh overall great die all right and then we'll jump into a summary here and i'll give you my personal thoughts but before i do i want to preface it by saying that i am not trying to start a flame war here i think all three of these dyes are are darn near on par with each other um they will turn out exceedingly accurate ammunition and you would be extremely hard-pressed if not potentially impossible to tell the difference on target between any one of the three three dies we've reviewed so um very good very good dyes all around but if you force me to choose i would probably pick forster first then whidden and then reading and the reason for doing so is very simple um the forster and the widden are cheaper so that's always nice we're hemorrhaging cash in this hobby but it is always nice to save money whenever you can but the main reason is the simplicity of dialing in exactly what you want and the forester is just the best at that followed by the wooden and then the redding i do think i say that but i also think you have to ask yourself how important is that to my application you know if you're banging steel in a pasture using a very forgiving like sierra match king it's probably not all that important to hit exactly on a thousandth but if you are shooting a burger vld it's a whole different story and there are some bullets that that are are punishing if you are you know two or three thousandth outside of their their ideal seating depth range and so um for that reason i like the forester because you can hit it down to the half thousandth if you want and you can do it repeatedly repeatably and uh it's just it's just easier than others but otherwise i think they are very similar and you really can't go wrong with any one of the diet choices uh so with that said that's that's all that i had uh on these on these dies um i tried to put together the most comprehensive and informative summary that i could uh if if i've misstated something or i got something wrong feel free to drop me the comments and i'm happy to go back and correct it but otherwise if you liked what you saw please drop me a like let me know your thoughts i really appreciate it and i hope to see you guys on the firing line thanks

Channel: Texas Precision

Views: 17,008

Rating: 4.9138756 out of 5

Keywords: whidden dies, Forster dies, redding dies, competition seaters, micrometer seaters, die reviews, seating dies, threaded seating dies, redding vs. whidden vs. forster

Id: I16uvNWT7-w

Length: 17min 45sec (1065 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020