Body Die?

[hotburn76]

What exactly is the purpose of this die?  To size the body and shoulder but not the neck?  Is this what you use when you need to "bump" the shoulder for semi auto and break opens, but do not want to fully resize the neck and then do a partial neck size with a neck sizer die?  Reason I ask is I have a break open H&R 204 and most guys say you must full length resize to get it to chamber properly.  But then I have heard of a few guys say they just "bump" the shoulder and then do a partial neck size.  Do I have this right or is there another use?


Here is the description as on Midway USA site...

Body dies are designed to full length size the case body and bump the shoulder position for proper chambering without disturbing the case neck. They are made without internal parts and intended for use only to resize cases which have become increasingly difficult to chamber after repeated firing and neck sizing.

[gypsyman]

You've got it 99% right. Except there are variables. You might very well get by with neck sizing only, depending on how hot you load the cartridge, and how tight/loose the chamber is. If you have a tight chamber, and load close to the top in pressure, you might very well have to full lenght size everytime. Have to try some different loads and see. Nice thing about the body die, if you come up with a load that you only neck size, usually after so many reloads, you'll have to use the body die to size the case back down to original specs, to get it to chamber.  gypsyman

[Catfish]

Seems a body die is a waist of time. If you use it then go to a neck size die you have just done in 2 steps what you could have done in 1 with a FL die. I would recommend you get a Fl set of dies and a Neck size only die if your going to neck size only. That way if your cases get alittle tight you can FL size them and bump the shoulder back.

[Chris Potts]

Can't say for sure but if you were only neck sizing and the loaded rounds wouldn't chamber you could run them through the body die.  But maybe I am missing something.

Chris

[Catfish]

I have neck sized cases until the necks split without having to bump back the shoulder. I have neck sized other round that did have to be set back once in a while. The thing is they grow slowly and when you start to fell them cambering hard you just use your FL die to load them. I guess you could run loaded rounds through them, but the main reason I would see is if you had necked sized some ammo and later wanted shoot it in a different gun. Thing is I would still rather not run loaded rounds through my press.

[DDelle338]

Some feel FL dies can take the neck out of alignment. Using a collet style (LEE) neck sizing die keeps that from happening. If you are using the collet die to neck size, then at some point need to reduce the body some, you can do that with this body die without disturbing the neck.