Redding Competition seater die setting/bushing

[TonyH]

Final setting up of this die, using once-fired WW brass previously neck turned. I neck sized a case using a Lee collet die, seated a V-Max 55gr, measured neck outside diameter in the approved fashion, came out at a bit over .251... Using the Redding bushing (titanium nitride) sized 250, I neck-sized a second case, then seated a bullet using my Redding micrometer comp seater die; it felt a little firm, and indeed the bullet has an indented ring two-thirds down the ogive! Never had this happen before. By my calculations I'm using a quite conservative bushing size, for my case/bullet combo, shouldn't make it too tight at all.

Any comments or suggestion would be welcome.

Regards, TonyH

[MarinePMI]

Perhaps the mandrel is undersized?

[Zaitsev]

That sounds about right. Sawp out the seater stem for another. Its not unknown to have the wrong stem in the die.

[TonyH]

Thanks for the suggestion gentlemen, but I'm pretty sure the seating stem/cup is OK. I just tried seating the same bullet into some cases that were similarly processed (mildly neck turned, neck sized using that 250 bushing) but unfired, and the bullets do not exhibit the indented ring on the ogive... So it's something to do with the size of the fired cases, the spring-back, the relative tightness after sizing with a 250 bushing. My fired cases measure .256 external diameter, which I think is not abnormal. Further suggestions anyone?

TonyH