Hornady dies with Forster Co-Ax

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Netpackrat
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Hornady dies with Forster Co-Ax

Post by Netpackrat »

Thought I would post this here since I know there are other members with Co-Ax presses; and I have always recommended Hornady dies since the lock rings are compatible, and they are usually nice in general. I have done a little reloading lately and had trouble with the Hornady seating dies for both calibers. First was 300 blackout; the seating die couldn't be adjusted high enough before running out of threads. I had a second set of RCBS dies which I bought from a friend who was getting out of 300blk, along with all of his ammo and a sweet Noveske 8" barrel. I put a Hornady lock ring on the RCBS seater and it worked fine in the Forster press.

Next up was .45 Colt. I normally reload this caliber on my Dillon SDB, but I had bought a set of regular dies (Hornady again) for loading single stage for load development (working on a load that will stay subsonic out of my 12" SBR). The Hornady Titanium Nitride size die is sweet, same benefits (no lube needed) as a carbide die. Had the same problem as before not only with the seating die, but also the expander die. I have a Lee universal expander so that was easily solved, but the only alternate seater I could find was out of AlaskaTRX's .500 Smith RCBS set. That's not really ideal but since I was loading flat nose bullets for a non precision application, it worked out OK. Using a Lee Factory Crimp die with both calibers, so no issues there other than to note that I wouldn't have been able to crimp with the Hornady seaters had I wanted to, either.

I will probably not be buying any more Hornady die sets even though in general I still like most of their stuff.

Finally, another thing that came up in a search as I was researching to see if others had this problem... Some dude on another forum was claiming that the actual Forster lock rings are a better choice than the Hornadys, because the latter are steel. The Forsters are aluminum, and the claim was that over time they could wear out the slot for the lock ring in the press body. I am not sure how much of a problem using the steel Hornady rings really is, but it's another aspect I hadn't really considered.
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Rich Jordan
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Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:04 am

Re: Hornady dies with Forster Co-Ax

Post by Rich Jordan »

I only have two sets of Hornady dies so far; the 'value' American in 9mm. and the 'Custom' set for .300 Blackout.

No problems with the 9mm but they came with different lock rings similar to Lee dies, and I switched them to Forsters.

The .300 Blackout I also switched to Forster rings. The double-D shape of the Hornady ring meant it could coincidentally be oriented with the flats left and right, providing less (for unknown values of less) support to the die. There is a spring-loaded detent ball in the top of the lock-ring slot that could almost miss the lock ring in that case, or maybe be pushing the ring to the right. I really don't know if that matters or if the press and die will still center and work normally but I felt better with the full circular ring.

I do have the ring all the way at the bottom of the seating die also, but my records show both Hornady 125gr SSTs and some 220gr Berry's were successfully seated to their proper lengths. The custom dies use the internal slider tube; is that the type you have?

Rich
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Netpackrat
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Re: Hornady dies with Forster Co-Ax

Post by Netpackrat »

I will try to look at them again when I get a chance. Got home from work yesterday and didn’t have any energy left for loading.
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"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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Netpackrat
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: Hornady dies with Forster Co-Ax

Post by Netpackrat »

This is the 300blk seating die. Of note is that there are no markings whatsoever on it.

Image
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