I’m at 6 firings and resizings on ADG and 7 firings and resizings on some Lapua. No annealing, no donuts. Lucky? I use a nitride bushing sizing down the neck only enough so that the expander (floating carbide) is barely felt on the way back out. I’m getting less than .002” runout and easy groups. I like cool new stuff too and understand the theoretical improvement, I just have no real reason to change.The expander obviously expands on the out stroke on the sac, it does so right as the brass leaves the bushing. I think the beauty in it lies in how adjustable you can be with bushing mandrel combinations to not cause the problems, atleast Iv had in traditional FL dies. My bushing sizes down .004 under loaded diameter (before spring back) and I use a .002 under mandrel to give me neck tension around .003 when all said and done. Making it so the expander is doing very little work. In other fl dies I had some problems with it pulling the shoulder out, I havnt had that with the sac die. All I know is it makes better brass than any other die Iv used. When I got the dies I didn’t have the expanders, I couldn’t tell a difference when swapping from only decapping to the expander. Also bonus is the slickness of the die, and that it sizes nearly like a small base die.
I actually plan to buy another creedmoor die eventually so I don’t have to monkey with swapping stuff around, but a bonus is I can load 22,6 and 6.5 on the one die.
As far as better than a honed fl die with an expander you can adjust, I’m not sure there would be much of a difference. I went this way to be a little adjustable, and streamline things as much as possible. One pull of the press is all my brass sees now, and I don’t plan on going back.
@SDHNTR
Iv not seen doughnuts be a problem till around 5 loadings. At that point they were obvious with a naked eye. Happened with both junk brass and premium. I’m also annealing after each firing. A tapered bushing, can help fix the problem partly. I personally will avoid a traditional bushing die if at all possible at this point, and am confident enough in my load process thay if needed I’ll just order a honed FL sizing die an add a mandrel step to my process.
Iv also got some lee collet dies. But that’s going backwards in my goal to make the best brass with the least messing around in the loading room.