I'm using this Lee Handloader I've had for about 15 or so years instead of one on my bench, as it was handy, and initially, this was done quickly; the die is from a new set of .45Colt I bought from a fellow Levergunner thru the forum and until this, unused.
The bullet is a Rucker 200gr RFN I load for my .45 Colt EMF/Rossi "Short Rifle". The case is once or twice or ?? fired Winchester I had sitting around. Before the photos began I sized and de-primed the case, then expanded & belled the case using this same RCBS carbide die set.
Install the seat/crimp die, but leave the body backed out a tad, at least to the point where your belled empty case won't begin to crimp. Keep the lock ring on the body and the seater stem loose at this point... makes for easier adjustments. Now, set a bullet in the case mouth, and run it up the seater die... until the bullet is seated to the depth where the bullet is seated to the crimp groove. This will take several adjustments, no need to try to do it all in one big move, as if you push the bullet in too far, you have to pull it back out... and start over. (As I did below)! You want the bullet seated to the point at which, had the die body been in the correct position, the case would be crimped into the crimp groove.
At this point, back out the seater stem several turns, and with the ram of the press up, screw down the seater/crimp die so that the body of the die contacts the case mouth. At this point you don't want the seater stem contacting the bullet, you just want the die body touching. By hand, turn the body of the die about a ¼ turn, this should just begin to push the ram down. Slowly, push the ram back up into the die, pushing the case into the crimping protusion inside the die. Lower the ram and inspect your seated, crimped bullet. If it crimped to the depth you want, tighten the lock ring on the die. If not, move the die in the direction you need for more (down), or less (up) crimp depth. When you get the crimp set correctly, and you'll want to verify that locking the lock ring in place doesn't change that crimp depth, THEN, and only then do you return to adjusting the seating depth. And it's easy, with the seated, crimped bullet in place on the ram, run the ram up into the seater/crimp die, and turn the seater stem down to where the seater meets the bullet. I'd tell you, "...and a tiny bit more..." but you might over do it. But, you'll need a further adjustment, as everything seems to move just the faintest of hairs as you turn the lock rings into place. One word, here about the lock rings... if you tighten them tight against the press, and tighten their set screw, you'll not get the die off the press until you loosen the lock ring. So, always just make the slightest of contact with the lock ring, thus you can remove your dies by hand alone... no need to get a pipe wrench and wreak havoc on the darned things. They ain't expensive, but, why?
Same, but different on the seating stem, there you want to have the lock ring pretty much require a wrench to loosen it. But, remember, as you tighten that lock ring, you'll be moving the stem UP away from the bullet the tiniest of amounts, due to the thread against thread... so you'll need to put another case and bullet thru the loading process (sans primer and powder) to ensure that everything's in adjustment and repeatable. Those two "dummy" rounds stay in the die set box for future reference. In my case, I load about 6 different .451 bullets in .45Colt, so I have "dummy" rounds in that .45Colt die box for each bullet type. This makes setting the seating depth easy for each bullet type.
After pulling the bullet I reset the seating plunger a little higher ran it back in the seater, and viola! A complete round, no problems.
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