Hornady Lock N Load Bushings in a single stage press

I'm convinced the expander ball coming up and out of the case neck does more neck bending than any other event.

Back in the late 1950's people replaced the expander with a smaller one and honed the die neck diameter out to a thousandth or two smaller than the loaded round neck diameter. Bullets then seated very straight.

No commercial bullet runout gauge orients the cartridge to the indicator like they are in the chamber when fired. A chambered round fires when its shoulder is centered in the chamber shoulder. Its body at the pressure ring is typically against the chamber somewhere.
 
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Yep. I was an early adopter of the carbide expander balls and, when used with a dry inside neck lube, the combination seemed to stop upsetting necks much. Today I often size the necks separately in a Lee Collet Die that I've lapped to run smoothly, followed by a Redding body die. Two steps, but it eliminates any neck tilt. Some guys are pulling the expanders out of their sizing dies and using expander mandrels in Sinclair's Expander Die body so expansion is in the downstroke rather than by pulling up. The shoulder is much stronger and holds the neck position more rigidly when expanding force is pushing into the case rather than pulling out of it.
 
Unclenick said:
Yep. I was an early adopter of the carbide expander balls and, when used with a dry inside neck lube, the combination seemed to stop upsetting necks much. Today I often size the necks separately in a Lee Collet Die that I've lapped to run smoothly, followed by a Redding body die. Two steps, but it eliminates any neck tilt. Some guys are pulling the expanders out of their sizing dies and using expander mandrels in Sinclair's Expander Die body so expansion is in the downstroke rather than by pulling up. The shoulder is much stronger and holds the neck position more rigidly when expanding force is pushing into the case rather than pulling out of it.
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So you neck size first, then body size? I’ve been doing the opposite, so I’m wondering if there is any advantage to your method. So far I’m getting.001” or less runout so I’m guessing it makes no difference.
 
Actually, I've done both without seeing an obvious difference. I'd be interested to hear what others are finding. Probably time to run a side-by-side.
 
I don't know squat about those bushing's, sounds like a ploy to make money to me. How do you screw the bushing into the say RCBS press? I use an RCBS Rockchucker press. I adjust the die one time, lock it in place with the lock ring and never adjust it again. All of my rifles have their own set of dies!
 
Most all new products are a ploy to make money. That philosophical concern usually has to be considered independently of a product's utility, except where the cost prevents you from utilizing the product.

For die bushings, you need a press made with a larger diameter thread to accommodate the female bushing. Basically, they are intended as a quick-change device that installs or releases a die in a fraction of a turn rather than having to fully unscrew it. If you have dies with a setscrew type lock ring, saving that time is all it does for you. It saves more time with the Lee dies because their lock rings don't have setscrews for finding your way back to a previous setup position (unless you add one) so they have to be set up all over again every time you change them out. I can certainly see having a bushing system for those dies as a means of preventing setup errors. But as for saving time, the value of that is entirely up to the end user and certainly won't be the same for everybody.
 
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