lee collet die

[grahamfarmer]

hi guys,

just being given a lee set of dies in 308 which included a collet die so set up as instructions and was impressed by the results and accuracy of the neck forming then after the fifthtenth case bang the cap threads go .

 

strip it down and can only say what a rubish piece of work the cap thread is so out to the work shop to identify said offending thread finall find one to fit and low and behold its 3/4 unf so at machinery dealers today aquire a said threaded set bolt and come home and nip to neighbour to borrow his lathe face off end and use a milling cutter to form centre hollow and mimic dimensions come back and fit and back to work . the bolt 3/4 unf by 1.5 inch plus nut cost 1.90 and a pint for the lathe use bet it dont go again .

 

mext mod will be to get rid of the crap lock nut arrangement on all the dies in the set got the nuts in stock just got to drill and tap a locking allen screw in side then they might be half decent why dont they just do the job properly in the first place like other makes

 

yours graham.

[eldon]

I have stripped caps and they are about £4.

One my uncle stripped after 6 rounds was changed at the shop. Tim hannam stocks the bits but I made myself a nice shiny brass one cos I can and that seems to be holding up ok.

 

I wonder if the poor weak design is intentional to save damaging the die which you have now removed

 

If you fit a grub screw you will mark the threads on each locking point. Again tim hannams sells lyman or hornady locking rings, not sure on price think £3 ish each. This would be a better solution as I have already done this myself. According to the woman in the shop when I made a similar comment some people actually like the lee locking rings ..... not me

[Streeker59]

I have 2 sets of collet dies and i cant use them. When it comes to offering the the new bullet to the case mouth, it just drops through..

It has been suggested that i turn down the mandrel or sand it down a thou or two.

I have no lathe. If i sand it, how do i know it will remain concentric and to be honest, why should i need to modify in such a way.. Surely the bloody things should be set up to give the correct neck tension using commercial brass from the outset ? And yes i did try turning the brass 180 degs to increase tension, it doesn't work..

I can be a bit of a Victor meldrew when things dont work like they should. The dies now reside in a draw gathering dust and my utter contempt...

[PeteL]

Streeker,

I assume that you have collet dies with the collets of the correct size in place. I further assume you have measured the diameter of the neck of a loaded round and chosen a collet to give you the tension required(deduct 2-3 thou from the measured OD - see manufacturers instructions). If so, you should not need the expander ball (mandrel) because the collet only sizes the neck enough to grip the bullet. OTOH, I may have the wrong end of the stick!. Perhaps you could explain your problem a little further.

Peter

[Streeker59]

There is only one collet Peter. It's the size of the mandrel / decapper that determines the internal diameter of the neck after sizing. No matter how i set the die up, there isn't enough neck tension to hold the bullet soundly.

 

Grant..

[PeteL]

Grant

Sorry, I confused collet dies with bushing dies. Please ignore my comments.

Peter

[Vermincinerator]

Lee collet dies, an excellent concept very poorly manufactured.

 

Ian.

[Andrew]

I own at least 8 sets of Lee Collet Dies. I have never stripped out a cap thread and have only had to polish a mandrel once. I did it in an electric drill. (Worked great) What are you doing to strip the cap threads? ~Andrew

[grahamfarmer]

hi guys ,

well being beating today and got round to said problem durring conversation and general concus seemed to be lee dies are ok in a lee press but you use em in anything strong like my rockchucker and the press aint going to break first so will see how we go . as for the lock nuts they wont mark the threads as will drill and tap in deepest available area of metal by making a flat on a corner and then by using suitable grub screw i can cut a piece of copper welding electrode and drop in the threaded hole first thus dis forming the copper into the threads and locking things up slacken the grub screw and all should move easiely again time after time.

 

 

have fun graham.

[grahamfarmer]

hi streeker,

i had same problem with first couple of cases but you cant set the collet die to work over center like redding and rcbs the ram must actually be stoped by a pressure of about 25 lbs on the handle you need to screw it down to touch the shell holder and the retract the ram and put on another three turns see if that works also check cap is fully seated as that stops the collet body moving up any more so the collet fingers are then driven in forcing the brass onto the mandrel . the primmer is de capped well before the case enters the die body and the floating mandrel then centerlises in the case neck not body of the die which is why it gives such good run out performance when working properly my 308 die is running 0.3062 internal neck dimensions case after case now its working. also the case dosent grow in lenght durring sizing exactly same as when it started the redding dies are moving some brass durring resizing . try and get em going as they certainly my work well and with so little being done to the case icant help but think they will shoot as well or better.

 

cant help but think if redding had designed em we would be using nothing else but them.

 

yours graham.

[silentsoulsleave308holes]

I own at least 8 sets of Lee Collet Dies. I have never stripped out a cap thread and have only had to polish a mandrel once. I did it in an electric drill. (Worked great) What are you doing to strip the cap threads? ~Andrew

 

 

 

 

 

 

same story here..................only got five sets though and never stripped their caps and cant see how that much upward force could be applied as collet die will push force width ways not length ways????????????/or am I wrong??

 

I am sure if lee had a design problem they would change the cap from ally to steel

 

 

ps I use mine in two over center presses and cant see why there would be any difference between over center set at around the same pressure as a dead stop

[Andrew]

I can't help thinking that these "stripped" dies aren't being used correctly. I have and 40 year old RCBS A-1 press which is larger than a Rockchucker and I have no problem with the Lee Collet dies whatsoever. It doesn't take a lot of effort to size cases with a Collet die.~Andrew

 

PS: Be wary of old brass with collet dies. They size minimally so if the brass is work-hardened it may not resize enough to hold a case even if it's working properly. If you do have an oversized mandrel, chuck it up in an electric hand drill clamped to a bench and use fine abrasive cloths to reduce the diameter. I took down my son's .223 mandrel in about 10 minutes. His rifle shoots bug holes so it took no harm from not having done it in a lathe.

[Guest varmartin]

I have used the same dies... in .223, .243 and .308 and never stripped out the top thread...

 

I will add that I also used them in an `over centre`RCBS Rock Chucker press with excellent results.

 

when the press handle comes to a stop...it applies the exact same force every time....rather than the user determining when to stop as per Lee instructions.. ???

[mildot]

Ive had the same thing happen to my 7mm neck die! after that i changed all my dies to redding!

 

I also had a lee primer tool handle break and then over the weekend my lee turret press handle went kaboom on me! last time i buy anything with lee on it!

 

Saying that though i have a lee o frame press which has a steel handle and that seems ok.... for the moment

[JC275]

I use a Lee Turret press which was the first (and only) press that I bought about 15 years ago. I've been meaning to replace it for about 14 years!! It may sound crazy but I don't actually like it other than for the simplicity of keeping a turret set up for each calibre however I have not got around to replacing it because it seems to work ok and produce accurate loads. I have only had one set of Lee Collet dies (.220 Swift) and they gave me nothing but problems, I now use only Redding in all calibres. JC

[eldon]

I feel the lee collet dies are a mixed blessing.

My problem seemed to be after a bit of use the diameter of the internal floating piece grew widthways only slightly but enough to bind and so if the collet was closed i.e. handle raised without a case, the next time it was used it would shag the neck up as the collet was shut. Once I sussed this I stripped it and skimmed it smaller and now it is no problem.

 

Question is should I have needed to do this ? or were my necks harder therefore causing this deformation?

[Andrew]

Hard to say. I have never had anything but decent results using the Lee Collet die. But then, I realize that it doesn't take a huge amount of force to resize a neck properly with the Collet arrangement. My Cousin from Scotland was visiting me and while resizing some .222 he leaned as hard as he could onto the handle of my RCBS A-2 press after the collet had closed. Must be something in your water! ~Andrew

[Redfox]

I have collet dies in several cals from 300wm to 222 rem and have had no stripping problems with them.

As Andrew mentions most people put far too much weight on the press handle, it is hard to feel at first but it doesnt need a great deal of pressure to form the necks.

Like all things a little prep goes a long way, the collet should be removed when new and a little moly grease applied to the taper area as it is under considerable pressure during forming ( oil runs off) .

Eldon, You could not apply enough pressure in a hand press to deform the mandrel, it is far more likely you deformed the collet by operating it with no case in , which is a no no on any collet like this or alternatively th cone which the collet is closed by and holds the mandrel, this could be slightly expanded by excessive force, but a little emery on the outer dia etc will ease it ok as you did.

It normally knacks the neck if the case is being pushed in too far as it pushes it back into the shoulder. Lee's setup instructions are not perhaps the best written but if used as they say they work.

Lubing the collet as above makes the force be transferred to forming the neck, not overcoming friction in the die and so makes it easier to feel when the die is fully closed, any more force will not form the neck more but will strip the threads on the cap as it is directly applied to them and not doing anything else.

Redfox

[eldon]

Redfox i appreciate you could not deform the mandrel it was indeed as you say the conical piece.

Not totally unhappy with them but some how feel they could be better.

 

I think Ian summed it up about right "Lee collet dies, an excellent concept very poorly manufactured"

[mildot]

Its because the adjuster part is aluminium! then with the thread on its considerably weakend. All other dies that i have seem or used are all steel, and for a reason.

[Redfox]

It is aluminium for a good reason, it is adequate for the right use and if you abuse it it fails before you smash everything else, thats the good reason.

Redfox

[silentsoulsleave308holes]

+++++++++on that, thats why I cant understand why people break them

 

fact 1 is all lee SIZING dies EXEPT the NECK die have steel

 

fact 2 is the only pressure that should be applied when NECK sizing is of sideway for ie you are squashing the neck onto a mandrill NOT applying upward force to shape the brass like you would in a full length die

 

fact 3 well just look at the lee crimping die, see how that works and all becomes clear about why people must be using the die for NOT what it is intended for

 

fact 4 the aluminium top is there only to take up slack for the parts in the die which brings us back to fact 3 in that it is not being used the right way

 

 

[Andrew]

Agreed. That aluminum cap isn't supposed to do anything other than hold the dies internal components into place.

 

I use my 22 Hornet collet dies to load 100-300 rounds a month, for ten months of the year, and I've been using the same set of dies for at least 5 years. By all some accounts here it should be caved in and broken by now but it's not. ~Andrew

[mildot]

Re look at the way the lee neck die works!

 

the middle ram with the crimping bit in get pushed up the main body till it reaches the alumium stop (the bit with the thread on) Its at this point that you put pressure on to force the crimp bit imward which resizes the neck! this force is forcing on the alu cap with the thread! this is the part that will break over time as its the weakest part.

[Streeker59]

I have 2 sets of collet dies and i cant use them. When it comes to offering the the new bullet to the case mouth, it just drops through..

It has been suggested that i turn down the mandrel or sand it down a thou or two.

I have no lathe. If i sand it, how do i know it will remain concentric and to be honest, why should i need to modify in such a way.. Surely the bloody things should be set up to give the correct neck tension using commercial brass from the outset ? And yes i did try turning the brass 180 degs to increase tension, it doesn't work..

I can be a bit of a Victor meldrew when things dont work like they should. The dies now reside in a draw gathering dust and my utter contempt...

 

EUREKA !!!! Ive sussed it.... All this time i've been setting up the collet sizing die as i would any other, that is, ram up, screw the die down till it touches the case holder then back it off a tad.. No wonder i couldn't get it to work ! Thanks to your input guys, i set it up so the press doesn't "cam over " and the case holder presses against the die bottom. Offered a few .223 cases into the die and checked bullet for fit.. It doesn't fall through !!!

 

Thought i'd carry on and load a few rounds and check their concentricty against the full length sized rounds... Man what a difference..

Full length sized rounds had an average run out of 0.20 mm, the lowest of the batch was 0.10 mm.

The collet sized rounds never exceeded 0.05 mm runout and some were 0.03 mm.

Damn all this time i was just setting the bugger up wrong.....

 

Grant...