Well, I started off with Lee dies, but less than 200 in with sizing, I started getting scratches on the brass. So I cleaned, buffed, and no go. Looked with a lupe and saw a couple of small gouges. No idea how - everything was cleaned before sizing. So I sent them off but a few days ago I had lunch with a friend/former co-worker and our chat turned to guns (as usual!) and when I mentioned 357Sig he winced... seems he looked into it, but it's a little bit of a pain to load and he decided it wasn't worth it. So for the price of lunch, I got his Dillon carbide dies! These loads I tested today were made with them. Even being carbide, they still need to be lubed, according to an email I got from Dillon, asking about just that very question.

setback is a big issue with the 357Sig - there is a small neck to retain the bullet with tension. Even just a tiny bit too much crimp, and you lose tension and you can push the bullet back into the case with very little pressure. I probably blew thru 50 bullets making dummy loads getting everything set just right. It's amazing how 1/10 or a turn on a crimp can make it go from only 5 pounds of pressure to push in the bullet, to almost 40 pounds. I found that an extreme minimal expanded neck, with a solid chamfer job, with juuuuuuust enough crimp to remove the expansion was the ticket. But it took 50 or so dummy loads to get it right.