Gentlemen,
I picked one of these up at a show last night. It is a 44 mag, NIB, and was 1/2 price @ $7.50. I've never seen or heard of a Lee Carbide Speed die before. Supposedly it takes the place of a full set of dies, except for priming which I do seperately anyway.

Are these any good, or have I bought yet another dust collector? Thanks for any info.

LT

I have a pair of them, in .38 Special and .357 Mag. Have no clue where I got them, but I think the concept is brilliant. Oh, it produces some very good ammo, too!

Adjust the die body once, and then just screw in either the resizing collar OR the expander, OR the seating stem.

Of course, that only works on a single-stage press, but I love it. The only other drawback is the it takes a different set for each cartridge, even (as noted above) .38/.357 or .44 Special/Mag. But they're so cheap, who cares?

. . . And you unscrew the carbide sizing ring when expanding and seating. A little slower than a turret, but I own them in .45 ACP, .44 Mag, and .357 mag because the light weight makes them a perfect match to the Lee Hand Tool for load development at the range.

I have a couple. They work great for jacketed, but the expanding plug is fixed and you can't bell cases enough to seat lead without shaving. They call it a speed die, but screwing the various bits on and off is no faster than changing dies. At $7.50 it is a cheap way into carbide sizing.

i have used the lee speed die to reload for years.... i reload .38 spl,.357 mag, and 9mm using them... like imashooter said it's a good cheap way to get carbide sizing..... i got the speed die an extra die body and load .357 mag and .38 spl off two single stage presses on my bench.... i like my system! i might have to get one of the lee universal mouth belling inserts too tho.... like they said the only real complaint is they are hard to start lead bullets into sometimes.......... i also sent lee a bullet sample and got a custom bullet seater insert for a very reasonable price........

Its the die I started with for loading my .357 magnum. I like it for single stage press work. Good tool at a good price that does what it is supposed to do. It made 158 grain, 1200fps, jacketed loads that shot into 2 inches at 25 yards off a sandbag so I can't complain.

I have a couple. They work great for jacketed, but the expanding plug is fixed and you can't bell cases enough to seat lead without shaving. They call it a speed die, but screwing the various bits on and off is no faster than changing dies. At $7.50 it is a cheap way into carbide sizing.

I agree with you. They work better for jacketed bullets. I have speed dies for 357 and 44, and both fail to flare the case mouth adequately for cast bullets.