450Bushmaster.net

Okay, I plead ignorance of Hornady Custom Grade New Dimension 4-Die Sets. In the box my set came with, there is a, for lack of a better term, plug. It is not mentioned in the worthless manual that came with the set. Its suspiciously .448" in diameter, no taper and one end had a larger diameter (.492) head that could serve as an insertion stop. The ends are quite sharply edged, so I can't imagine it being an expander as it would be shaving brass the whole way. It makes me think it would substitute for the seating die conical bullet plug for seating flat nosed bullets. For as much as it cost, you think Hornady could have included an applicable manual for it. Anyone know if it was supposed to be in there and if so, what it does? It was lying loose, outside the other dies. The expander die already has an expander/flaring plug in it. I can provide a picture if it doesn't ring a bell. I reload for about 15 calibers, both rifle and pistol and have never seen anything like it.
Thanks,
Hoot

Errant unfinshed part?

not to sound flippent but call them. they are very nice folk.

I didn't get anything like that.

Manuals take time to write, edit and publish... If they held up production on the whatchamacallits waiting on a manual, we would be screaming "when are they going to get these to market?" This way we have them, even if we don't know exactly what they are.

One came in my set too. I assumed it was a flat faced insert for the floating bullet seater.

BayouBob wrote:One came in my set too. I assumed it was a flat faced insert for the floating bullet seater.

Mine did as well. I figured it was the flat faced seating plug/stem. I disassembled the seating die and noticed the installed seating plug to be of the same diensions but with a different face.

Odd that others die sets didn't include one... must have been the "early" die sets.

Yeah, the seating stem was my likely assumption, but I wanted to hear it from others. I've never got a pistol die set with a separate wad-cutter stem included at no extra price.

Regarding the manual. The dies have been out long enough that they could have put together a manual by now. My Hornady reloading manuals are pre-450B.

On a separate note. If a fellow beveled the leading edge on that flat-nosed stem and polished it, it would make an interesting non-flaring expander. .448" is not a bad choice given the spring-back nature of brass and it would not compromise the role of flat-nose seater.

Still waiting with bated breath, for the email notification that my upper has shipped. All this foreplay is getting a little tedious.

Thanks everyone for your input,
Hoot

It is in fact a seating plug for flat nose and hollow point bullets. The other plug has an ogive profile specifically for the FTX bullets, and is not the best choice for some other bullet designs.
BD