Re: Best Reloading Dies
"What manufacturers dies turn out the best ammo? Is there a company better than others?"
After testing and measuring a LOT of over the counter dies for a period of years I feel confident in saying all makers produce good dies, on average.
In fact, I've found fully as much variation between (conventional) dies of the same maker as between makers. You should understand they all seek to produce dies with interiors that safely fall within min/max SAAMI tolerance specs and they usually do that quite well. So, getting a good match between your chamber and your dies is a crap shoot, not a matter of buying dies in the right color box.
Premium (the screw-in type) dies only meet SAAMI specs but other features of their designs do tend to make slightly "better" ammo than convenional dies. The excellant Forster and Redding seaters both have a full chamber, sliding sleeve, straight-line seater design that works about as well as hand dies such as Wilson's.
Those seaters with short sliding sleeves (RCBS and Hornady) are easy to use but they are too loosely fit (uusually, individual tolerances do matter) to aid bullet alignment very much, and they have no control at all over the lower body of the cases.
The various "micrometer" bullet seating heads are attractive but do nothing for better ammo, as such. They do make it easier to change seating depths precisely.
Forster has a really nice, user adjustable for elevation, expander button in their sizers that, correctly set, will aid in obtaining straighter necks.
Lee's Collet Neck Sizera aren't considered "premium" neck dies but perhaps they should be. IMHO, they can produce some of the straightest case necks possible, inculding any of the bushing types.
No dies can compensate for poor brass. Good sizing dies and methods, and light neck turning, can do wonders for average cartridge concentricity.
