Done some reloading today

[sharps1863]

Well it has been hot and raining off and on here to day so I thought I would re-load some of my 56-50 brass. Had 21 fired cases and some new brass. This is the 1st time at trying to reload the shot brass for my just acquired  Armi-sport Spencer.
I had found a set of Lyman dies at a Gun show and had bought 200 rounds of brass off of another forum. I had a Lyman 515-139 die that I use for my Smith Carbine. It throws a .514 bullet so I figured it would work. Well I got everything set up and started to reload my brass and found that the Lyman dies would not crimp the bullet enough in the fired brass to keep the bullet from turning in the case. So to Spencer shooters forum I went and found my answer. I have an early production set of dies. So with a little more digging I found the cure for the problem a hack-saw and a file. So after about 1 hrs work I have a  seating die that will crimp now. But the expansion plug is another matter it is for a 50/70 just like it states on the forum. It is tapered from 509 to 517 diam and if run all the way in the case it makes the mouth to big to crimp good. So I'm going to have to work on that or give Lyman a call and see if I can get the correct expansion plug. I though I would post some pictures of my efforts. If anyone is interested. The 1st set are the dies The die on the left is the expansion die I used it for reference to show how much I took off of the seating dies. After a little sawing, I finished filed the end of the die down and left about 1/16 of metal before the threads start.


The next pictures are of the cases, the left case is before fix and the right case is after fix. Made a big difference in the tapered crimp.

Sorry about the pictures. My daughter has my good camera.
With the fixed die it is loading the shells to an overall length of 1.56, these chamber good through my Spencer.
This has not been my weekend for reloading I had bought a new set of 45ACP lee dies and went to reload my empty brass and went to put them in my lee turret press and saw that the seating die in it was stamped 10mm/40 cal.
What has happened to the quality control of these companys??
Just to answer a question from a long ago post. A lee hand press will work re-loading 56-50 brass.
Hope everyone has a good week
Update on the .45 auto dies. I had e-mailed the company "FS Reloading about the wrong die in the set and had ask how I needed to return it. I received an e-mail next day stating that a new die was on the way with a UPS return label to ship the wrong die back Turn around time on the whole deal 3 days. I guess that's why I do all of my reloading equipment buys from them. Lee is the only reloading equipment I use except for my RCBS 502 powder measure and my Lyman 56/50 Spencer and 50/70 Trapdoor dies. Hopefully I will get to put some rounds through the Spencer this coming July7th weekend.

[Herbert]

Lyman have fixed there 56-50 dies,the new ones work very well for the AS Spencer but the expanding plug is not big enough for the larger diameter bullets needed for some original Spencers,but the expander plug can be changed very eaisly so it can be made as a expande-compresion die that works very well

[sharps1863]

So the new dies have been updated. That's good to know. I was think about ordering me another set to have to reload in the field with. The RCBS dies does anyone use them. The legacy series run about the same as the Lyman.