Shell Holder Dimension Ranges

i made a little board with finish nails on it, then labeled each 'pin'.
sometimes i even put them back,,, or in the box with the dies if it's something i want to repeat without doing a full re-set [like for my Bergara]
it was super easy to have one shell holder in each box when they were 5$, once they started making them out of solid silver with a platinum plating it got a little tougher to swallow.
 
I tried the shell holder for every set of dies .
Unfortunately having 45 ACP, 308,06' and adding 45 Raptor,7&8×57 ,25-06', 280 Rem and A square ........yeah . Of course the 6.8 ,32 Rem, 7×6.8 and 40 ...... About the only place I get a pass for one cartridge per shell holder 45 AR , 45 S&W , 45-70 , and that lone belted 264 WM .

With so many cartridges that share shell holders in the demand loop it's not viable to have one in every set , 1-3 for a given family is much better for me . A dob of color coded nail polish on each die box and appropriate shell holder does the trick where an obvious combination isn't present .

Funny discovery.
The difference in case length between 284 Win and 7×57 is the neck length the shoulder is in the same place. It was cheaper to buy the 284 set than a 7×57 neck die .
 
the 7mm WSM die makes a great 7 mauser neck die too, especially for the ackley and ICL versions.
 
Crap, where's a shell holder to fit whatever it is I wanna load? Oh good there's a box full of loose shell holders. Fumble fumble, isn't the one with the knurling the one for .38-40 and .44-40?
And the stained one, isn't that an RCBS #3 or is it a Lee #2?
Yeah science, baloney, I'm gonna go pour some more walleye jigs.
 
I WISH EVERY maker would use the same # system! I have/(HAD - now I have nearly EVERY Hornady just for the trimmer!) mostly Lee and RCBS - and they are diff. pita... oh yeah, and Hornady is diff again...
 
The only time this really bit me was trying to use Lee Shell holders with a custom hand priming tool that uses RCBSpriming pins inside. That was rude!! For general use, I like to have my Lee shell holder set in its little plastic box with the application code attached. If I’m getting really specific though, I try to have the proprietary shell holder in them die set from that manufacturer.

Froggie
 
I learned awhile back to match rifle reloading dies to shell holders from the same manufacturer as the dies. I was sizing .308 Winchester range pickup brass and couldn't get the headspace quite right. I was using Hornady dies and a LEE shell holder set, and they weren't quite compatible, at least for the combination I was using, I needed the shoulder back just a mite more to cure my hard chambering issue. This was in the days before body dies, neck dies, and so forth. I resisted going to progressive presses for this reason for quite awhile, but I also quite using pickup brass for semi-serious use too.
 
As I mentioned a couple of posts back, priming with different shell holders than the press calls for can sometimes be problematic. Don’t even think about what happens on a Lyman press with the old J type shell holders! :headbang: Fortunately, I generally hand prime, so that is seldom an issue for me. That may be why I forgot to emphasize it my previous post, but it can be an issue. Anything to make the reloader’s life more complicated, huh?
Froggie
 
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