HOW TO SETUP PISTOL DIES ON A SINGLE STAGE PRESS - HD

hello everybody welcome back recently I've gotten a lot of emails and a lot of comments regarding how do I set my eyes up so I thought I'd make this video as a response to all those questions hopefully I'll be able to give you some good information and that you can find useful and I'm gonna try to shoot this video in four different parts the first part I'm gonna talk about how to set up the decapping and resizing dye the second part I'm going to show how to set up and how to use the case mouth expansion dye the third part I'm going to show you how to set up the seeding diancie bullets and the fourth and final part I'm going to show you how to use that bullet seeding die to establish a crimp a lot of people when they go out to buy dyes they look on the internet to purchase them maybe they're at their local gun shop to purchase them it doesn't really matter where they're going to purchase the dyes the big question that I find a lot of people asking me is okay I want to load 38 special do I need to get a three die set should i get a four die set to me that's a very simple question to answer reloading to me is all about raising the ram on this on this press okay I'm doing this over and over and over and what reloading to me is about the most amount of progress that I can get to this single bullet with the least amount of RAM strokes so for me to answer that question do I need a three day set or do I need a four die set to me if you're going to be on a single-stage press I highly recommend a three die set and that's because the third die which is the bullets eating die will also be used to you to to crimp the bullet so it'll serve as two functions if you were using a progressive reloading press I would recommend to you to get the four die set and set those to you know the bullets eating and the crimping independent of each other since you have the progressive suppress so today since we are on a single stage press I'm gonna be using the 357 Magnum dies made by RCBS it's a three die set you see the word carbide right there carbide means you don't have to lube your cases but in our case today I went ahead and lube anyway it doesn't hurt you so I'm gonna go ahead and set up my press by installing the appropriate shell holder and we'll see you on the next step and that's going to be D capping and resizing okay now I have in my hand I have the first die of the sequence this is the D capping or resizing die it's noted by the small pin that comes out of the bottom of the die this pins job is to knock the old primer out of the case and also what this die will do was it'll it'll resize the diameter the case so I want to start to insert this into my press and I'm gonna raise the RAM all the way up I'm gonna thread this die down until the die body itself touches my show holder so I'm going all the way down once you fill it touch your shell holder take you something and go ahead and lock your diet lock ring this lock does not have to be real real tight just lock that thing up doesn't have to be gorilla type I'm gonna take some previously lubed brass that's been fired and you can note that it's been fired by the firing pin indentation on the primer that'll tell you that it's been fired now one more thing I want to talk about is in this video the rounds that I'm gonna be loading are not real bullets they're not real rounds they're gonna be dummy rounds okay they're not gonna have any powder they're not going to have any primers they are just dummies okay so from here I've got my die set I'm gonna raise the RAM if you watch very closely right around here you might see the primer fall it'll go in did you see that that just knocked the primer out and it also resized the case so the hints the term decapping meaning knocking the old primer out and resizing the divertor the case since this guy's already said if I had a bunch of brass to do I could continue the operation and watch again you might see that primer primer got stuck when it does that I can usually catch it down below in my hand there's the old spent primer so this is basically all there is to it to the decapping step the first die in this operation okay now we're ready to set up the second die this is going to be the case mouth expansion die and you can see that I have a bullet in my hand I'll talk about that a little bit more here in a second so first thing is first I need to take out this decapping die cuz I'm done with that operation and I'm gonna get my case mouth expansion die which is also known as a belly die you can notice that I have all my settings backed out all the way what this die does you see I took the inside out of it what this does is it forces this plunger down into the case and when there Kate when it gets low enough you can see that beveled area let me put it in front of my shirt so maybe you have a contrast of colors to see it that little beveled area when it starts going deeper it'll get up into that beveled area and it'll expand the case now the reason we would need to expand the case mouth I'll explain her in just a second so to insert this die I want to raise the RAM all the way to the top and thread the die body down until it touches the shell holder again exactly the same setup as the first die once you fill it touch just go ahead and lock the lock ring and again it does not have to be gorilla tight just snug okay so what I was talking about earlier is if you try to take this case and you try to put the bullet in there it won't fit because right now they're about the same diameter I hope you can see because of all these colors let me step in front maybe you can see it against my shirt see I try to put that in and it won't fit so that's why I need to use the second die so I'm going to insert my case into the press raise the RAM and I'm going to lower this down a little bit at a time and in each time I'm taking this bullet and I'm checking it I want the bullet to just barely barely fit in there I'm taking the walls of the case mouth and I'm stretching them outward make very small adjustments on this case mouth expansion plug don't go like five turns or anything because if you go too much what will happen is you'll be shortening the life of your brass because you'll be stretching it out putting it back stretching it out and the result would be like I said the the life of the brass would be shorter you'll be able to tell when you're starting to get close and right now I'm doing about quarter of a turn increments we're getting really close you want it to just barely fit in there another quarter of a turn you know I look at this a lot of the same way as I look at woodworking if I cut a board too short it's just flat out too short you know so if I cut it and it's not the right length and but it's too long that's still okay I can cut it a little more see now there you can see that the bullet is starting to fit into the mouth of the case it's barely starting to fit from here I'm gonna go just a very mild very conservative amount I'm gonna turn this case mouth expansion stem clockwise about a sixteenth of a turn raise the RAM and now let's see what we have here that's perfect let me zoom in and show you that okay you can see that how easily the bullet fits in there it's not tight it's not loose that's really you notice the variances are very tight the tolerances are very tight that's perfect if we don't want to go too excessive in our case mouth expansion okay so once you get the desired amount that you're looking for I recommend that you raise the rim because we've already established the amount of Belling that we want the reason I raise the ram is because it'll lock this Belling adjustment screw down so that I can lock the lock nut for that this die is now set to complete the process on the rest of the brass so I would take all my brass and go through this process spanning the case mouth and that's all there is to it to setting up the second die of the sequence now I would like to take some time and talk to you about seating a bullet but before I can do that I got to remove the case mouth expansion die from the press and I'm gonna get the bullets eating die and what this does is this this is the bullet seating plug and what this part does is it comes down and it meshes against the top of the bullet and as the ram is raised this little part here they meet okay so as I screw this down into the die more the result would be that as I raise the ram the further down this is the deeper the bullet would seat okay so even though these are dummy rounds that we're dealing with we'll pretend that they have a live primer and that they have powder we'll go ahead and insert a case into the press and we want to raise the RAM all the way up while the die is still just barely in we don't want to go in all the way with the die yet it looks like I'm gonna have to move my go back a little bit so you can see so bear with me here there that's much better okay so again just to clarify I have a case in there this is backed out all the way this is backed out all the way I'm gonna raise the RAM all the way up and again I'm gonna thread the die body down until it touches the case mouth okay not the shell holder the case mouth thread it down until it touches the case back once you fill it touch the case mouth lower the RAM slightly or all the way down and back this die out counterclockwise one half of a turn from here lock the die lock ring and hold the die body while you lock the lock ring because if you don't hold the die body while you lock the lock ring there's a chance that you might turn that die back in and you don't want that the reason I backed it out half a turn was because I wanted to take the crimping feature out of the die at this point I just want to see a bullet in my hand I have a bullet here this bullet does not have a cantaloupe it's a it's a Rainier bullet it's a good bullet doesn't have a camel over here I have a cast bullet that I've made use an alignment cast mold it has the the candle or or crimping groove here so depending on what kind of bullets you have like this Montana bullet also has the cantilever we'll talk about that a little bit more here in a minute when we get into the actual crimping so I've got my bullet in my hand I'm gonna insert the bullet into the brass and I'm gonna raise the rim all the way up from here I'm gonna turn the bullets eating stem clockwise downward until I feel it touch the bullet then I'll lower the ram just slightly and give it like another couple turns raise the RAM and what that'll do is that'll start to seat the bullet for me I'll keep this up where you can see it okay now what I want to look at is I want to look at the distance between the crimping groove and the top of the case mouth and since there's a little bit of distance between the two I'm gonna need to go deeper with my bullet okay so to do that I'm gonna go another turn or two on the bullet seeding stem clockwise seat the bullet a little more and look again to see where I'm at now just like I mentioned earlier just like cutting wood you don't want to go past it you don't want to seat your bullet too deep you want to go just deep enough to where you got that bullet where the candle lures lined up with the case mouth so I'm gonna start making my increments a little smaller because I'm getting closer right now I did it about an eighth of a turn now we're getting really close the cantaloup were is still mildly high see that still a little bit high so I'm gonna go like a sixteenth of a turn and there we go let's go a little bit more another sixteenth now that looks good that bullet seating depth looks really nice again you want to make small adjustments let's go a little more these little increments that I'm doing are like sixteenth of a turn now I have the desired bullets heating depth that I want from here and I back out so you can see what I'm doing up upstairs here from here I've established the bullet seating depth that I want I'm gonna raise the RAM and what that'll do is that'll lock the bullet seeding stem in place so that I can lock the bullet seeding stem lock nut take my crescent wrench and lock that into place if that was all I wanted to do in other words if I did not want to crimp this would be fine this die is now set in each additional cartridge after this will have the correct bullet seating depth now one thing I want to make sure that I make a note of is this case length gauge I want to make sure that that bullet if you didn't want to crimp it you want to make sure that that boils that it'll fit into that weapon most in most cases it would be a revolver so you get that case length gauge and check it and if it fits you're good that die is set if it doesn't fit into the case length gauge then my recommendation would be to establish a small crimp on it just a small crimp doesn't have to be a big old heavy-duty crimp okay so that concludes this the third step of seating the bullets now that we've got our bullets seated we want to crimp around the cantaloup area of the bullet okay we want to take the case mouth and we want to bend it in at the top of the bullet into the candle or to do that the first thing I got to do and this might sound counterproductive but it's necessary the first thing I have to do is loosen my bullet seeding stem lock nut holding the bullet seating stem I don't want the bullet seeding stem to turn loosen the locknut take it back a couple turns now taking the bullets eating stem outward or counterclockwise a few turns what that'll do is that'll make it so that when I raise the RAM if I was to lower the die body it won't seat my bullet deeper because now we're gonna employ the crimping feature of the die so I'm gonna hold the die body imma loosen the die lock ring okay so now everything's loose again I'm gonna raise the RAM and now again I'm gonna turn the diet down until I feel it come in contact with the case mouth once I feel it touched the case mouth I'll lower the RAM slightly go about an eighth of a turn and raise the RAM from here I'll remove the cartridge and look for crimp that actually did a pretty good job but let's go a little bit more let's go like another sixteenth of a turn raise the RAM inspect the cartridge to me that looks great I'll set it in the press and I'll zoom in on it so you can see it'll take the camera a second okay you see that nice little crimp that's around there you can see how the sides of the bullet this area how they kind of Bend in but it's still not quite enough so I'm going to turn the bullet excuse me yeah the bullet seedings dent up I'm confused here the die body I'm going to turn it clockwise another sixteenth of a turn and check the round you don't want to go too far let's go a little more sixteenth of a turn you can see the die body turning here in the video see it a little more I'm crimping a little more let's go a little bit more you could watch the die body here and watch how small the adjustments are that looks good let's go a little bit more that looks really nice so now I'm gonna raise the ram all the way up because I've established the crimp that I want now I'll raise the ram and that'll lock the die body in place it'll lock the crimp into place and I can tighten the die la creme we have that now we worked really hard earlier to establish the correct bullet seating depth but I just messed that all up because I had to back that bullet seeding stem back and the reason I had to back that out was because I was lowering the daya bhabhi to establish the crimp and if I would have left this set where it was it would have also affected our bluelist seating depth that's why I had to back it out but now we want to go back to that seating depth so I'll raise the ram all the way up and from here I will turn down or clockwise I should say the bullet seating stem until I feel it touched the case excuse me the bullet once I feel it touch the bullet I'll lock the bullets eating stem locknut and now this die is set what this diet will do now in one operation is it'll not only seat the bullet but it will also crimp the bullet so I'm going to take another case another bullet raise the RAM one operation lower the ram and there's my bullet it's got a beautiful crimp on it now last but not least I want to check again with my case length gauge you know what I'm looking for is I'm looking for to make sure that the bottom of the case does not protrude upward something like this because if it does something like that then I could have headspace issues with that bullet but the fact that it dropped in there nice and free that tells me that that's a good bullet now cantaloup errs on the bullet that I spoke of earlier are very nice to have but sometimes you don't have those like this cast bullet has a cantilever that gives you an idea of where to stop you know on your bullet depth so that's that's a bonus but if you had something like this Rainier that I showed you a minute ago you would definitely have to have your calipers and you'd have to measure everything to make sure you get the right bullet seat depth but that really is all there is to it to set in these bullets and adjusting these dies I hope this video was useful for you I hope you found some good information in it and again feel free to leave a comment feel free to subscribe and I've got more things coming at you in the future thanks again for watching have a good day everybody bye bye

Channel: JIUJITSU2000

Views: 58,738

Keywords: YouTube editor, pistol, dies, Dies, RCBS, rcbs, setup, adjust, how to, survival, reloading, handloading, single stage, die setup, adjusting dies

Id: ZdENlmU_rwg

Length: 25min 52sec (1552 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2013