Reloading the 5.7x28 Not for the faint of heart

[rete8usn]

I recently bought the FN Fiven-seveN and with the lack of ammunition being outrageously priced I opted to reload. I am not new to reloading, been doing it since 1974 when my first die was the Lee kit in .223 that everything was done by hand - beat the cases in the resizing die and beat it back out. I'm sure many of you remember those kits. It didn't take me long to buy a RCBS "O" press and a regular set of dies. I have reloaded a number of wildcat cartridges and even made my own brass for calibers like the 1910 Frommer.

None of that experience really prepared me for reloading the 5.7. I think I have read almost every post on the Forum dealing with reloading this cartridge for I consider myself pretty well informed. All that research helped but still didn't quite prepare me for actually doing it.

I couldn't find a regular set of dies except for the Lee Precision and after reading all the negative comments about this set of dies, I opted to keep looking. The only set of dies I found was a set of RCBS small base dies on EBay. The price was $175.00 - twice the normal price. After doing some more searching on the internet, I found an article that said RCBS was no longer going to make dies for this caliber. I grit my teeth and bought it.

I found out the virgin factory brass was not available. I found a seller using Google - diamondKbrass.com. They had once fired range brass at a reasonable price so I ordered 500.

I set the full length sizing die up and soon found that no matter how far down I screwed the decapping pin, the expander plug and resizing the neck area were still conflicting. I solved this by using my son'r full length 5.56 resizing die and adjusting the stem to just de-prime the cases. Problem 1 solved

I found that even with adjusting the 5.7 FL die to where it just touched the shell holder and backing it off 1/4 turn did not size the base of the case enough to allow the case to go into battery. I purchased a Go-No Go gauge from Sheridan mfg that has a cut-out that allows you to see when the case is sized enough to go into battery. I still had a problem with getting the base of the case to size correctly, so I made a jig and used an air grinder to shorten the length of the die. The bottom of the die was de-burred and the bottom and inside of the die was the polished almost mirror bright. Issue solved.

The rest of the reloading went pretty much according to Hoyle. I loaded up 40 rounds and headed to the range. Absolutely no issues.....

[dnchrist]

Have you had any problems with the case varnish scraping off and gunking up the RCBS sizing die?

[dnchrist]

I have managed to solve the problems I was having with case scraping and stuck cases in the die. After searching and reading, I spent about 30 minutes polishing the inside of the RCBS seater die using the same tools I use for polishing feed ramps. For sizing, I use RCBS Lube 2 on a pad very liberally.
The polishing solved the problems, the lube just keeps it going. I de-prime and clean cases BEFORE SIZING so that my dies don't get dirty or scratched.
I will be using Simple Green instead of Lyman cleaner for these cases.

[panzermk2]

For one RCBS while they make great dies for most calibers, thier 5.7 dies suck.
That said these days you have to make work what you have.
This is not a new issue with their sizer die. As you figures out a healthy does of mothers wheel polish fixes most of the problems.

Keep with the simple green warm water rinse to clean. Also Sizing and depriming before hand is best before laoding on a progressive press.