RCBS AR series dies

Musket Man

Veteran member
Jul 20, 2011
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colfax, wa
Im wondering if anyone has used these and what your thoughts are. Are they worth buying if I already have standard dies? My 223 is still in pieces in a box so I have not tried it with the dies I have yet. I have 1000 pieces of once fired brass I plan to load once I get the gun together and test some loads.
 

shootbrownelk

Veteran member
Apr 11, 2011
1,535
196
Wyoming
I have the RCBS AR or Small base dies for my AR-10 in 308. I shot some factory ammo out of it without problems, and no probems with ejecting the Small base sized cases either. I don't have standard .308 dies so I can't say if there's a difference. I'm thinking you should try your standard dies first, and see if there's a problem. The Small Base dies are more expensive.
 

shootbrownelk

Veteran member
Apr 11, 2011
1,535
196
Wyoming
What do you think of the taper crimp die? They claim it is alot more forgiving if your brass it not very uniform.
Do you mean the Lee "Factory crimp" die? I have them for handgun cartridges .454 Casull & .45 Colt, but not for bottleneck rifle cartridges. They work fine for me. The AR RCBS dies are for squeezing the bases down to minimum dimensions for feeding & ejecting in the AR platform.
 

Musket Man

Veteran member
Jul 20, 2011
6,457
0
colfax, wa
If you get the AR series 2 die set it says it comes with a taper crimp seater die instead of a roll crimp. I think that is the difference between the small base set and the AR series set. I have s Lee factory die for something but I havent used it yet.
 

ulmer

New Member
Jan 16, 2014
26
0
NORTH DAKOTA
I have standard FL 223 dies they worked fine for my AR but not my brothers both are DPMS diff models tho both guns were shooting out of the same batch of reloads his wouldn't feed in all the way about every other round haven't tried reloading for the AR since don't shoot it as much as i use to. He got the AR dies and said they work fine in his gun now so might be a coin flip