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

I purchased a Hornady full length sizing die in .222 remington I have never owned any Hornady dies befire. I wont be buying any more either. I set the die up as per the instructions and set to. It was really hard work to cam the press handle over and bottom the die on the shell holder it was even harder work to get the sizing button out of the case. (The case was well lubricated.) On inspection the case looked like it had been swaged and a ring of brass approx. 1mm was apparent just above the extractor groove. I tried another case and that was the same. I bought them new in a Sale my guess is they have been returned as faulty. Any way they are going in the bin no more Hornady dies for me.

Return it from whence it came and get your money back.

I have a Hornady set....in .222....seem fine. The instructions do tell you to dismantle the dies, before use, and clean out the machining cr*p......have you done this??

Mike95

The die is clean. I have other makes of .222 dies and they are fine.

Before you condemn the die you really need to run a new unfired 222 case through it - if it marks the case then there is a problem. If it doesn't...........

The case I used was once fired new PPU brass. I bought the die because it was cheap in a sale. I think I will just carry on using my other brand of dies that I have never had a problem with. I will just mark this up to experience I don't really want to spend time messing about with the die. I will just bin it.

A1, let me know what you want for it and I will take it off your hands.

The Gun Pimp wrote:Before you condemn the die you really need to run a new unfired 222 case through it - if it marks the case then there is a problem. If it doesn't...........

I had another go to satisfy my curiosity.
As Vince suggested I took two unfired cases and measured the shoulder set back before re sizing then again after resizing.
Both cases were swaged the same as the previous ones and ended up with a doughnut type ring of brass above the extractor groove. Both cases would not come out of the shell holder I had to lever them out with a screw driver. both cases fitted into the measuring tool no problem before sizing the case heads had to be forced into the tool to seat them after resizing.

Hornady die
Case 1: Un sized 1.315. Sized 1.316 shoulder set back.
Case 2: Un sized 1.315. Sized 1.316 shoulder set back.

For comparison I used a Lyman full length sizing die and a Redding body die.

Lyman die
Case 1: Un sized 1.314. Sized 1.304 shoulder set back.
Case 2: Un sized 1.314. Sized 1.304 shoulder set back.

Redding die
Case 1: Un sized 1.314. Sized 1.306 shoulder set back.
Case 2: Un sized 1.314. Sized 1.306 shoulder set back.

I then did the same with once fired brass.

Hornady
Case 1: Un sized 1.317. Very very difficult to cam over really hard to get the press lever to the up right position tore the case out of the shell holder the case is stuck in the die. I have no further use for it and wont be wasting any more time on it.

Lyman
Case 1: Un sized 1.317. Sized 1.305 shoulder set back.
Case 2: Un sized 1.317. Sized 1.305 shoulder set back.


Redding die
Case 1: Un sized 1.317. Sized 1.309 shoulder set back.
Case 2: Un sized 1.317. Sized 1.309 shoulder set back.

All measurements were obtained using a Shooting sheds shoulder bump gauge.

Maybe I'm not reading those figures correctly but to me the Hornady die is doing it correctly, on fired brass it's setting your shoulder back from 1.317" to 1.316" that's 1 thou" which is ideal head spacing surely?. The Lyman and Redding are bumping it back 12thou" and 8thou" which seems very excessive.

Just out of interest what sizing lube are you using?

Imperial sizing wax or Hornany unique, The die is on its way to Ovenpaa stuck case and all may be he can do some thing with it. I have no further interest in it.