For those of you that bought Lee dies, I'd like to know exactly how you modified the long bullet seating plug so that the 300gr HP is not damaged in the loading process.

Also, I'd REALLY be interested in your favorite loads for the 300gr HP, the 300gr X-Spitzer, the 500gr RN and the 600gr RN.  If you're not comfortable posting them in public, please IM them to me.  Also please mention the recoil level for said load.

I demurred the inner edge of the LEE seating stem with some emery cloth on the end of my finger. It didn't require much to stop it from scoring the plating on the Remington 300gn HP.

I'm new to reloading, so all I've done so far is the 300gn on top of 35gn of Win296 (I think that's the powder... check the Excell spreadsheet to be sure)

Nice recoil!!! Real nice!!!

Not as punishing as the full loads.

- LS

brou,

I have both the CH4D and Lee dies, but for seating I use a Hornady .308 seating die.   On my Dillon 650, I like the way the floating collet catches the bullet on it's way up, preventing the bullet from tilting sideways during the stroke.  

It puts a bit of a mark, but it's at the junction of copper & lead near the tip, and it doesn't deform the bullets at all.  Of course, I am using the powder die to flare the case slightly so the bullets go in pretty easy.  The Lee crimp die is a godsend.

I've only loaded the 300 X so far.  I am at maximum load, but to get the best accuracy I had to go with no crimp.  Don't ask me why, but this is the only caliber I load for that did not respond positively with the Lee Factory Crimp die, but by using 1/8 or 1/4 turn of crimp (which works well on X bullets in other calibers) I could not break MOA.  Ditched the crimp and cut groups by half an inch, now they run an AVERAGE of .950" for 5 at 100 yards, with several groups going as small as .750 and .800 inch, with the largest going 1.2 inch.  That is using a load of H110 of 34.5 gr., CCI LPM primers for a velocity of 1755 fps out of a 16" barrel.  I did nothing to the Lee dies except replace their expander die with a Lyman M die, .50-70 body, .45-70 expander and stem.  

Big-Bore,

I'm not sure what effect the crimp has had on my accuracy, since I've been using an Aimpoint and my eyes are so-so.  I just use the crimp to just barely remove the flare from the powder die.  For use with the progressive, it's nice.  I recently put an IOR M2 on the beast, so I'll get to see how accurate mine shoots.

Oh yeah, the load I've been shooting is 41.0gr of IMR 4198 with the Rem 300 HP.  It's fills case up to the base of the 300HP.  I also used 36gr of Win296, but switched to the 4198 to get the cases to capacity.

Sorry Brou.......I buy my shizzle from Cor-Bon.  I have the dies, unmolested, in my workbench cabinet.

[:D]