by Bills Shed » 25 Jul 2018, 8:38 am
Hi Ats3,
Your sizing die should have some sort of marking on it such as FL or some such. As it is a two die set I will assume it is a FL die as well. I know this is a really obvious statement but just check that they are 303-25 and not 303-22 dies. I have seen people get it wrong when in haste to get started. As it is a second hand set of dies and pretty old, I would take them apart and have a good look inside. They should be smooth and clean. You can run a q-tip or similar to rub up the inside of the dies to feel for rough spots that could be rust etc and yes they should be cleaned if they have not been used in a while. I do not know what Lee press you have but will assume it is a single stage. Raise the ram to the top of its stroke and adjust the FL die down to the shell holder. This is a start point and should give you max leverage. Just to start I would remove the depriming assembly just to rule it out of the equation. Lube your case making sure that the bottom 1/2 of the case is lubed and not just the top section. If you over do the lube you will get dents in the shoulder but a little more is better than less and you will work that out with experience. All things being equal that should size the case without pushing out the old primer. If that works then put the depriming assembly in the die and make sure only the pin is below the bottom of the die and only just enough to push out the primer and not the expander button.
This is pretty generic info so you may need to read between the lines to suit your gear so take it steady. The 303-25 is a long and solid case and if your chamber was cut with relaxed specs the brass may be a bit oversized and it does take a bit of effort to get it into a FL die but good lube is the answer.
Hope it helps. Bill
Last edited by
Bills Shed on 26 Jul 2018, 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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