A quick note on dies.....
There are two BASIC types of dies commonly used starting out in reloading. They are the standard FL (Full Length) and FL SB (Full Length Small Base) dies. I'll outline them below.....
Standard FL (Full Length) dies size the neck and bump the shoulder of the case back. They size the entire case, but from the shoulder down, they apply minimal taper. These dies are most commonly used in your bolt action rifles.
Standard FL SB (Full Length Small Base) dies do the same function as the Standard FL dies. However, these dies progressively add more taper to the entire case itself. These dies are commonly used for semi-auto, lever action, etc. You can use these dies to load for any rifle however.
Now that that's outta the way, let's get to work. I'm loading .223 for my AR, so I've got my dies (RCBS FL SB dies) and the corresponding shell holder for my press. My press I'm using (one of five different presses I use) is a Lyman Turret press. It allows me to set up six different dies on one press......
Press and Die Set-Up-
We'll start as if we are setting up our press for the first time. We have to set our sizing die up first as sizing is the first step we do on our press. We take our sizing die out of the package, it is the die that has the pin sticking out of the bottom. The pin will deprime the brass during sizing, kicking it out through the shell holder discarding it.
We take the sizing die out of the package and wipe it down. Most dies are shipped with a light coat of oil on them from the manufacturer both inside and out. I take the stem out of the die, it unscrews out of the top of the die body. I use denatured alcohol or acetone and wipe down the outside of the die and use a Q-Tip soaked with the same and wipe out the inside of the die body. Take the stem and wipe it down it's entire length as well getting the shaft, expander ball (what sizes the inside of the neck) and decapping pin. Now, screw the stem back in the die body.
Once we've wipe our die down, we screw it in a turn or two. Now, take your shell holder and install it on the ram of your press. The ram is the heavy shaft that comes up as you pull the handle on the press. On most presses, the shell holder snaps into the ram and is held in place by a retainer.
After we have our shell holder in place and the die started, I use the following method in setting up my sizing dies......
1. Pull the handle completely down on the press until the ram is completely up
2. While holding the handle down and the ram on it's upward stroke, screw the sizing die in until it touches the shell holder
3. Try to bring the handle back up on the press, DO NOT FORCE IT!! If it seems like it is taking too much force, or it won't budge, back the sizing die out in small increments. Usually 1/4 turn counter-clockwise on the die is sufficient, some press/die combos make take as much as 1/2 turn out to cycle. The handle should "cam" over and go back up without undo effort. This will insure that we are getting sizing along the entire casing
4. Lock her down, using the supplied locking ring on the die (looks like a big nut on the die body). It's easier to bring the ram back up as it holds against the bottom of the die and creates tension. Turn the lock ring clockwise until it bottoms out against the press. Snug her down, no gorilla torque needed, just snug. This will keep our die from backing out as we size our brass. After it's snugged down, most locking rings have a small set screw. Snug it down, it'll lock our adjustment in on our die. Very handy if we are using a single stage press and have to change dies out between operations.
5. Adjusting the decapping pin, again, it's the pin that sticks out of the die itself. It decaps the brass for us. Screw the stem in until the decapping pin protudes about 3/8" or so out of the bottom of the die. That'll give ample clearance to completely eject the spent primer during sizing. Once adjusted, tighten the locking collar/nut on the stem, again, just snug it down.
Lubing the Case-
After we have our sizing dies set up, we are ready to size our brass. We are gonna need our brass, lube and lube pad. Case lube is paramount, without it, the fricition created during sizing will seize the brass inside the die itself. It's a mortal pain when this happens, trust me, been there, done that!
Here's our lube and pad......
Put lube on the pad, I usually put a couple of very thin lines of lube down. A little goes a long way and too much lube WILL cause problems. We only need a light film of lube on the case. We lay our case on the pad a give it a light roll......
We need to lube the inside of the case neck as well. The expander ball passes through the neck of the brass as well cycle the press. You can either use a Q-Tip and a little lube on the insdie of the neck or use a dry lube. I use mica here, it's a very fine white powder. I put lead shot in a bullet box with the mica and dab the neck of the case it in. The lead shot helps keep the mica from clumping and insures it coats evenly.
Here we are lubing the case neck with mica......
Sizing-
After we have everything set up and lubed, let's size some brass. Take your lubed case and slide it in the shell holder. Now, pull the handle down through the full stroke. You'll feel some resistance as the brass is rammed up into the sizing die. The handle should travel all the way through it's stroke without snagging or seizing and cam over at the bottom of the stroke. If you hit undo resistance or a sudden stop before the handle cams over, STOP! Pull the handle up and check your die set-up as we talked about earlier.
Barring we haven't hit a snag somewhere, the handle should've cammed over, a spent primer came out and the ram is up against the die now. Now, simply pull the handle back up and watch the ram go down and observe your freshly sized and deprimed brass come into view!
Repeat the above steps until you've got all your brass sized. We're getting closer to having loaded ammo!!!
Primer Pocket Cleaning-
After we have sized all of our brass, we need to give the primer pockets a once over. It's a good thing to do and I hit them every time I run them through. We use a primer pocket cleaning tool and use it to clean the burnt primer residue from the primer pockets. It aids in more reliable ignition of our primers. There are many different tools out there, here's an example of a couple......
Simply insert the tool and give her a few turns. It'll clean the crud out of the pocket and give you a nice and shiny primer pocket......
After we have sized the brass and cleaned the primer pockets, I like to run my brass through the tumbler again. I gets the case lube off the cases and polishes them up a bit more. Since we are loading our own, it doesn't hurt to make 'em look purty!
Next, we'll start priming and powdering......we're getting there!