As I holed up in my mancave on this wet/cold/windy November day I contemplated one of my goofy ideas, that being the loading of cast bullets in the 7.62x39 (which I don't even have one of.............yet), While considering the required equipment I discovered that the Lee collet die comes with a mandrel for .308 bullets. I contacted their customer support folks (Peter) and asked why the die did not support .311 bullets as specified by SAAMI. Since the pacesetter sizing die comes with expanders for both .308 and .311 it seems the collet die should also come with mandrels for both. I was advised that there are no plans to do so and I should order (for an extra $10) an over-sized mandrel. Doesn't seem like like one should need to order a custom die to produce SAAMI spec cases but I guess that's how it is. Boy, if this is how I'm going to spend cold/wet/windy days it's going to be a long winter.
John Carlson. CBA Director of Military Competition.