Please recommend sizing dies for 30-30

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Fess

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I have an old second-hand set of 30-30 dies that seem to overwork the brass. I have had to anneal Winchester brass after just one use. Does anyone have a recommendation for something that will be easier on the brass? I will mostly be shooting mild and reduced loads from Winchester M94's if that matters. I have even wondered if I should get collet dies and just neck resize. Any suggestions?
 
Neck sizing leads to too many problems down the road in my opinion. As far as good die what brand are you using now?


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Depends on what you mean by “overwork”.

Treat the brass the same as a regular bottleneck round. I use a simple Lee sizing die, but I adjust the die so it only pushes the shoulder back just enough to chamber. It will help if you have a case headspace gauge. If I adjust the die to touch the shell holder, then it pushes the shoulder back more than .015”. This will cause the case to essentially fireform the shoulder back out every time it is fired. This really overworks the brass.

You could go one step further and get a Redding type S full length bushing sizing die. Pick a bushing that sizes the neck down enough to provide just enough neck tension.
 
Zbizzle911 said:
Neck sizing leads to too many problems down the road in my opinion. As far as good die what brand are you using now?


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There is no brand name on the dies. I got them from an old timer with a press, scale, powder and used brass.
 
Toprudder said:
Depends on what you mean by “overwork”.
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The necks seemed to become very hard after one sizing. I got a bag of new Winchester brass, some of the necks had dings in them, so I started resizing the necks. I got partway through and got interrupted and managed to mix a couple of the recently resized cases in with the others. There was a dramatic increase in the effort it took to resize the cases a second time, even after adding more lube. If I annealed the case, it went back to being very easy. I have very little experience in reloading, so maybe this is typical. It didn't seem right, though.
 
Fess said:
The necks seemed to become very hard after one sizing. I got a bag of new Winchester brass, some of the necks had dings in them, so I started resizing the necks. I got partway through and got interrupted and managed to mix a couple of the recently resized cases in with the others. There was a dramatic increase in the effort it took to resize the cases a second time, even after adding more lube. If I annealed the case, it went back to being very easy. I have very little experience in reloading, so maybe this is typical. It didn't seem right, though.
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So, you have not had any splits yet, you just noticed that the resizing became more difficult?
 
Resizing became virtually impossible without crushing the case.

edited: It was along time ago, but I also remember that it was extremely difficult to get the expander out.
 
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Remove the expander ball and get an expander mandrel from 21 century or sinclair. Set you neck tension with it. It's much better on the brass than the expander ball.
Fess said:
Resizing became virtually impossible without crushing the case.

edited: It was along time ago, but I also remember that it was extremely difficult to get the expander out.
Click to expand...
 
Zbizzle911 said:
Remove the expander ball and get an expander mandrel from 21 century or sinclair. Set you neck tension with it. It's much better on the brass than the expander ball.
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I have not bothered doing that for 30-30, but I do really believe in a bushing style sizing die and a expander mandrel die for sizing other calibers. It would certainly cure the crushed neck problems with the 30-30.

It sounds like the sizing die is sizing down the neck too far, and then the expander is working really hard pulling out.

For 30-30, I also really believe in the Wilson chamber style seating die.
 
Toprudder said:
I have not bothered doing that for 30-30, but I do really believe in a bushing style sizing die and a expander mandrel die for sizing other calibers. It would certainly cure the crushed neck problems with the 30-30.

It sounds like the sizing die is sizing down the neck too far, and then the expander is working really hard pulling out.

For 30-30, I also really believe in the Wilson chamber style seating die.
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Yep the bushing die would be a good addition for sure.
 
30-30 is a tricky round to size.
Basically disregard headspace (shoulder) bump. It headspaces off the rim and the chambers are all over the map.
If it easily chambers, then your all set.


Flare as little as humanly possible to seat the bullet. (No crimping yet at all!)

To remove the bell / crimp, pull the seating stem out of your bullet seating/crimp die and use it to kiss the flare away.

The necks are super thin and buckle just by looking at them wrong. The above is what has worked for me using RCBS dies.
 
Fess said:
Resizing became virtually impossible without crushing the case.

edited: It was along time ago, but I also remember that it was extremely difficult to get the expander out.
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What part of the case were you crushing?

With proper lube inside the case neck, the expander ball should come out like butter with the thin walls of a 30/30 neck.

edit: "If I annealed the case, it went back to being very easy." Those thin walls can get ruined very quickly by annealing if you are not real careful.

edit, edit: I may be completely wrong, but this sounds like a case of improper lubrication. It sounds as if the inside of the neck is not being properly lubed to allow the easy passage of the expander button.
 
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It seemed like the neck was being sized down too far, but I did not think to measure it at the time by sizing down with the expander removed. It was weird. This was over ten years ago, but as I recall, after I ran into the problem, I got curious and ran an experiment where I sized an new case, then tried to resize it, but the second time, pressing the lever down took several times the force and it was much more difficult to extract the ball (enough to lift the bench). It is possible that I didn't re-lube well enough, but seems unlikely that I would have done that more than once after I discovered the problem. Anything is possible, I guess. I gave up after trying three pieces or so. I annealed with a torch, then everything was fine. This was with new Winchester brass, so it it possible that I have a bad batch. I did not repeat the experiment with some other brands of once-fired brass that I had been given. I have moved to a new house and have not set up a reloading area yet, so I am not able to repeat the experiment at the moment.

Here is a photo of the expander. If anyone recognizes the brand, please let me know. There is no brand name on the dies.
Thanks
3030_expander.jpg
 
That expander looks dry to me. That could explain about everything. Do you lube the inside of the neck? edit: Is it hard to push the lever down on the second resizing if the expander ball is removed?
 
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You should re-lube if running through the die again. A lot of the lube may be wiped off from the first sizing. And lubing the inside of the neck is important.
 
The expander has not been used for over 10 years. I have not done anything since then. I honestly thought that I had lubed the cases well enough, since all the new brass sized so easily. Maybe somehow I messed up several times in a row. Part of my worry at the time was because I had mainly been following benchrest websites like AccurateShooter, where the reloaders take extreme care to get the best life out of their brass. They are big proponent of minimal neck sizing. I will be setting up a reloading area soon, so I might try again. I have gone ahead and purchased a set of new Hornady dies from a member here, just in case.
 
You might want to just drop a 30 cal bullet down into that neck portion of the die with the expander removed. It should easily drop into it, if it is made right. If it's undersized, you'd never know it if you don't try it something to find out, since the expander would erase any undersizing that took place. If you suspect it is undersize, you could pound a lead slug in it, then knock it out and measure it. You did say it was unmarked.
 
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Fess said:
. I honestly thought that I had lubed the cases well enough,.
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Did you lube inside the neck? I do not know how you use lube, but just spraying lube on the outside of the cases frequently does not get the neck lubed properly.
 
I think that I used a Q-tip with some of the Lyman spray lube on it to swab the inside of the neck. It was a long time ago. Once I get set up again, I will redo the experiment. If it goes smoothly this time, I will feel like a moron for starting this thread. As you can see from the picture, there is a lot of parallel surface on the expander that will be in contact with the neck, so it makes sense that it would be sensitive to lack of lube. 30-30 also has a long neck.
 
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