Meet a guy at the gun range last week that had a set of dies he wanted to sell. He wanted $20 for the 3 die set, he had no idea what they were. I looked at the box, faded yellow with red lettering cardboard box and had a good idea they were Lachmillers, .357 magnum. Haven't seen anything from them in probably 30 years or so. They looked unused. They did come home with me and loaded up a bunch of .357's. Quality dies. My guess most folks never heard of them.

I still load on my father's Lachmiller loading press and some of the die I use are also Lachmiller dies. I think he bought this back in the 50's. It also came with 12 gauge dies that we used to load the old paper shell with. This was also with paper wads (preplastic wads). I think I've dated myself.

"Lachmiller dies."

So who is this Lachmiller, and when did he die???

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

My thoughts exactly.

And that's why I peeked in this thread.

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Expect the unexpected

Me too - exactly.
I was wondering is he a member of the forum, or a gun writer, or a U-Tube poster, or what...?

There is definitely some youngsters talking about reloading.

I never owned a set of Lachmiller dies, but they had a good reputation as did other Lachmiller products.

This may not have happened, but anyone know if RCBS took over the Lachmiller line in the early or mid-'70s? RCBS bullet moulds (even those produced today) look like the old Lachmiller moulds.

Wasn't it cool that people were reloading enough to keep so many manufacturers busy.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Looking at the Lachmiller powder measure mounted on my loading bench as I write this. Purchased it in 1974. Tens of thousands of rounds loaded with it and still in perfect working condition.

Lachmiller Engineering Company, 11273 Goss St., Sunvalley, Calif. 91352, according to the product label.

I have a set of .303 British dies. Very good quality. The address on mine say Glendale California. They were sold to me as NOS about 20-25 years ago. I do think that RCBS bought out Lachmiller and continued their bullet molds but discontinued their dies. I think maybe late ‘60s or early ‘70s.

I started handloading after I got out of the Army in ‘76 and I think they were out of business then.

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That's a good thing.

Believe he sold out to Lyman - the 55 powder drop is very much like one of his later measures. He died in about 2012-13 at age 94 . Made good stuff. Probably made some of George Herter's "Perfect" tools too.

No Lachmiller stuff, but do have a set of Herter's dies and a Herter's Catalog.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

I remember Lachmiller tools and dies, but never owned any. Some years back, there were more die makers than today - C-H, Perfection, Pacific, Hollywood, Lachmiller, Wells, Saeco, Weatherby (for Weatherby calibers), and Herter's. I guess Lyman still makes them but I haven't seen any for awhile. I still have three sets of Herter's dies but the majority of mine are RCBS. Can't say I have a favorite brand, but I usually buy Lee dies today.

I learned to reload on a Lachmiller press with Lachmiller dies. I still have a couple of sets of the dies; they worked well enough. Their die construction was a bit interesting. The bodies were aluminum with steel inserts. I can only guess that this construction saved them a few cents on material costs. They made a really nice priming tool as well.
C.G.B.

LOL, some of us aren't exactly youngsters, we just haven't been reloading for decades.

FWIW, I'm 56 in a couple of weeks, but I only started reloading a few years ago.

Pacific became Hornady in the 1970's. A couple you didn't list were Starr (non 7/7-14), Hollywood (any size you wanted up to 1 1/4-10) Lee is still around, Wilson (arbor press dies and still around) Plus several tool companies made dies that were only caliber marked, but they only fit their presses or have non-7/14 threads, so people just throw them away. (always a bad idea to waste what you don't understand!)

If you have odd dies, C-H 4-D is now in Mount Vernon, Ohio. They have in stock adapters for any die to fit a press with a larger diameter hole. The RCBS Rock Chucker series has a 1 1/4-10 hole and come reduced to 7/8-14, but there are even bigger dies out there. C-H even makes dies for 20mm cannon and presses to fit (if you can afford the gun, you won't worry what the reloading gear costs!)[and I wish I could afford either!]

Ivan