I let myself get drawn into a rather ugly pissing contest on one a while back (actually kind of enjoyed it, though, the little devil on my shoulder made me do it). An inexperienced guy asked if he could load .45 ACP on the .45 Long Colt dies he had. Immediately the shrieking started about how stupid he was and how he was "gonna blow himself up!" (my favorite phrase amongst the experts, any little deviation will "blow you up" when really, only a mistake on powder charging will and that has nothing to do with dies, worst case is you get ammo that won't chamber, and I said as much which cause a lot of scoffing from the "experts".
So I wnet out to the shop, dug out my Lee .45 Colt dies and a handful of .45 ACP brass. Obviously, used a different shell holder, but everything else was .45 Colt. Had to screw that seating die down as far as it would go to get the crimp shoulder to take the flare out of the case mouth but all of them dropped into the Wilson case gauge like they should, took them outside and rattled off all of them through an AMT HArdballer without incident.
Went back and reported my findings to an avalanche of "you're gonna blow yourself up!" of "You're lying, that couldn't possibly work!"
Well, it DID work, however, it really shouldn't have, there is enough difference in case dimensions that it leads me to believe Lee uses the same carbide ring in both and those dies were over sizing my .45 Colt brass so I went back to my old steel RCBS dies. But... anytime somebody throws absolutes out, I question it. I won't always try it, but figured I was smart enough to give that a go and find out without hurting anything.
. I've also given up trying to teach pigs to sing, it's a waste of my time and it only annoys the pig.
