The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I'm a big fan of LeWilson seating and neck bushing sizing dies. I'm also not really into standing or even sitting at a bench with a cast press to seat well in this case cast boolits. Sitting at my computer desk surfing the net using a arbor press is so much pleasanter. with a glass of grog or two.
Especially if the cast boolits are fatties over your normal size for the calibre. So to get to the point I made a seating die based on the Lewilson dies and it worked out very well. Ill post pictures later. What is your preferred method of seating cast especially in odd calibres I'm thinking muzzle loaders etc.

"Bog standard Lyman and Lee dies" is not the answer you're hoping for I suspect

The problem you can have with the bog standard seating dies is that they are dimensioned for condom bullets and the usually larger diameter cast bullet sometimes wont go in up to the seater stem.

I like the Vickerman inline dies as these are cut to your dimensions, for shorter bullet though that seat straight with out too much trouble then I just go up a calibre, never crimp so just need a larger calibre that is shorter than the one I am loading for at the time.

A "M" die type expander is very helpful in seating a bullet straight and with these the Lee dies work fine for most purposes.

I use an old set of Lee 38 special dies for seating .360 no 5 bullets. These are the same diameter as the hole in the seating die and will stick in it since there is no crimp. I welded a small plate to the die body and fitted a lever operated extraction on to the seating punch. Now, the dies are used in the ordinary manner, but after seating the lever is pulled down at the same time as the press lever is lifted. Has worked perfectly for quite a few years.
Fred

Is the Lee neck expanding die any good, I just bought one for a tenner to try out for the cast on my Carcano as I had a few issues getting them in straight without shaving.

The Lee expander is just a taper, whilst it will expand the case mouth for you and stop shaving it will do nothing to help keep the bullet seated squarely, for that you need a Lyman "M" style parallel sides stepped expander.

Fortunately people Like NOE now do "M" style expanders that will fit the Lee expander body so making it cheaper than the original Lyman screw in spuds.

I use the NOE neck expander buttons in a Lee neck expander die they work very well and they are a very good price.

The problem with Lee/Lyman dies as Adam pointed out are made for jacketed bullets. The ones I have for the 7.62x39 are Lee they come with two expanders in either .308 or .311. I did a impact cast on the rifle and the measurements indicated that a .314 cast boolit was probably the way to go with this rifle. I have a LeWilson bushing neck die in 7.62x39 and a seater having looked at the seater I deduced that it would not be a mammoth task to make one to accommodate the .314 sized boolit so I made one and it works very well. It occurred to me that the same principle could be applied to other calibres using cast boolits. This got me wondering how other folk dealt with the problem. The one I made is micrometre adjustable for depth seating plugs of different diameter could be made for use on other calibres with different size body dies. My next cast project is the mas36 so Ill make one for that.

Oops forgot the pictures. The 7.62x39 die The die next to a standard LeWilson .308 seater. The 7.62x39 seater die in use.

And more Both dies to gether. The micro adjustable 7.62x39 seater. the micro seater next to a standard LeWilson .308 jacketed seater plug.

hmm whats next.