Frankford Arsenal Universal Seating Die

[JeffreyDeGraff]

My Frankford seating die showed up today. I’m excited to try and use it. The only foreseeable problem would be having to adjust the lock ring for different cartridges, making the micrometer setting not repeatable. But may be it will be fine. I will report more as I use it.



JTD

[Mowgli Terry]

That's an interesting seating die. The die portion looks like a Vickerman seater. Having a senior moment forgetting names. but this die ,overall, is similar to a Lyman bench rest die from some years back. I don't think there is anything really new here. I'm reluctant to do business with any of Midway's companies based on past experience.

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I’m not familiar with the vickerman dies. Where I see the most similarity is with the Hornady seating die. Hornady uses generic die bodies with caliber specific inserts, that along with the bullet window that rcbs uses on their match seating die. I got a really good deal on it, so if it turns out to be trash, no big loss, but it will definitely be fun to try out.

Ive not had any bad experiences with midway, and I’ve been very happy with all my new frankford arsenal stuff, I’m hoping this will be good also.


JTD

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I seated 18, 223 75gr hpbt this morning. Was nice as far as I could tell. I locked the lock ring down, and set the die body high and mic kinda low for 223, in hopes that I will have the range of adjustment I need for longer cases without having to loosen the lock ring.


JTD

[Flyeralan]

If you do have to end up changing the lock ring, put a Hornady lock ring on, I believe them to be simpler to use and more consistent. I see your point on losing the advantage of the mic option, but still would be nice for working up loads, especially when looking for optimum OAL. I am interested in your thoughts on this as you learn.

I seated 18, 223 75gr hpbt this morning. Was nice as far as I could tell. I locked the lock ring down, and set the die body high and mic kinda low for 223, in hopes that I will have the range of adjustment I need for longer cases without having to loosen the lock ring.


JTD

[JeffreyDeGraff]

If you do have to end up changing the lock ring, put a Hornady lock ring on, I believe them to be simpler to use and more consistent. I see your point on losing the advantage of the mic option, but still would be nice for working up loads, especially when looking for optimum OAL. I am interested in your thoughts on this as you learn.

You must be reading my mind. I fully intend to use a Hornady lock ring if I need to change the lock ring depth every time.

I was also thinking the same about load development. It will be very handy for that, if nothing else.

As I use it I will keep updating this post. I’m hoping to use it on 257roberts and 257 Ackley, soon.


JTD

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I measured all 18 223 rounds that I loaded. They range from 2.240 - 2.254”. I got a little concerned with the .014” variance so I measured them all with the comparator. 2.829 - 2.830”, so the seater was definitely consistent.


JTD

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I used the Frankford seating die on two more calibers. I loaded some 257 Ackley with 117gr SST, last night. They turned out great. This morning I loaded some 7.5x55 with 178gr ELDX. I used the medium length seating stem for both the the 257 and 7.5, because I was going off of case length and desired over all length. Frankford recommends the short stem for .308, but says using the other is ok. The only issue I ran into using the medium stem on the 7.5, was having to make sure the bullet tip centered in the seating stem. Not a big issue just something to remember.

The micrometer adjustments seem to be spot on and has been very easy to adjust to my desired seating depth.


JTD

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I loaded some 257 Roberts with the Frankford seating die.

Years ago I had a great load for this rifle. 117gr Hornady btsp over 42.8gr of H4350. But for the life of me (and my ex throwing away all of my load data notebooks) don’t remember the seating depth. I believe it was close to the lands but am not certain.

Ive loaded this load with the bullets .020” of the lands, and although it was plenty accurate enough to hunt with, it wasn’t as accurate as my original load.

So today I loaded some at .020” off the lands and then .015”, .010”, and .005” off the lands. The die worked perfectly. I moved the micrometer .005” for each load and checked each with the comparator and they were perfect. Beats the hell out of trying to adjust my 1976 vintage rcbs die each time.

[JeffreyDeGraff]

The only thing I’m really curious about is concentricity and runout. I don’t have a concentricity tool at this time, but I can’t see it introducing any more than any other mid priced die. Anyways, just a random thought running through my head.


JTD