Buyer beware Neil Jones just raped me

[GLWenzl]

Yes that is rust on the top thread of new dies. No big deal, it cleaned up.



The above pic shows the small amount of material I wanted removed from the die to work on my press (without buying extended shell holders). While he cleaned up the name it would be easy to take a cut on the shoulder.
If these photos don’t go through, I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Maybe someone could coach me...

[GLWenzl]

The frosted brass on my 17 WenzEl, the 17 Jet is a lot better but not what I would expect for the price of these dies.

Some of these photos was sent to Neil as well.

This thread was started because I politely told Neil Jones that I would do this and share my experience with others.

I do not know what Neils side of the story is as another member pointed out here, but I do know it won’t be Neils fault as he already told me, there are nothing wrong with his dies. And all I know is that after spending all this money, Neil will NOT help me resolve any of these issues. I never once asked Neil to refund any money, I never asked him to do anything for free... I just wanted his help to fix the issues I have with his dies.

You can do what you want but if you deal with this man I wish you good luck so you do not have to go through what I just did and feel the pain.

[JINGWEED]

Agree. That's just something that is going to take time. It never goes away but it does become easier to live with. Sorry there is no immediate cure for it but is is a life lesson learned. Some are good and some are bad and the older you get the more war wounds you get. It does somewhat prepare you for a possible next. It's about the only good that does come out of it. We just can't dwell on it but move on and learn as much as you can out of it and put it in the past. It's a hard difficult way of toughening you up. Just don't let it define you. Just remember all the good things in the past outweighs it by far and that's a very good thing. Remember, prayer is a good thing , the best!

[GLWenzl]

Thank you snd I agree on all accounts.

[GLWenzl]

After pursuing a life changing dream I had back in the late 1990s (thinking I invented the 17 Hornet), I can still honestly say that I have the best darn memories of (and with) members of Saubier.com.

You guys took a country boy who had never even heard of wildcatting and was basically a two gun guy reloading only from one reloading manual to helping me with a college degree in small calibers.

That said your free tuition has been probably the most costly I’ve ever had LOL and I thank you for it.

This deal hurt and hurt bad, I didn’t even see it coming and at first I just felt like dumping it all over some hurt feelings... but that ain’t happening. Especially now that I’m back to posting photos again lol

[Al Nyhus]

Clean the die with acetone followed by lighter fluid or mineral spirits. With the die in the press, warm it up good with a hair dryer. Then size a few cases with a very light coat of STP or 0-20 wt. engine oil.....will help break in the die. -Al

[GLWenzl]

Originally Posted by Al Nyhus

Clean the die with acetone followed by lighter fluid or mineral spirits. With the die in the press, warm it up good with a hair dryer. Then size a few cases with a very light coat of STP or 0-20 wt. engine oil.....will help break in the die. -Al

I will give that a try and thank you very much for the advice. I would not have thought so try something like this.

I think/hope it will help after what I learned today. I ran 200 rounds through the 17 Jet die (the better die as far as frosted cases are concerned). This brass had been fire formed in my old 17 Jet barrel (now a 17WS) and maybe a different frame? This brass was .005”-.006” too long for my brand new Bullberry barrel. I had one hell of a time with my new 17 Jet die, it would buckle the case directly below the shoulder. I also broke off two case necks.

Thinking I need to run them all through the forming bushing I got from Neil, I decided to try my old 17 Jet die that Pail Rodgers made (I had to unbox the die that I just gave it away to a 84 year old guy in iowa). Luckily I had that die because I was able to run the remaining brass through Pails homemade die just as fast as I could pull the handle with what seemed like near half of the effort.

A big sigh of relief both on my bad shoulder and getting these done prior to mailing off the old 17 Jet die.... and resizing was like a breath of fresh air. Neils die did good up to about .003”, after that it got sticky hard and would wrinkle the brass starting about .004” to .005” or more.

The reason I was giving away the old 17 Jet die and had these dies made was because I had bent the decapping pin which is part of the spindle and didn’t trust it longer. I sent the die out to Neil to have him make an expander spindle for it if he could. Unfortunately, Neil sent it back without the expander spindle locking nut. It’s all custom made, I have 17 caliber decapping rods from all the big name who makes them and could get none to fit. CH4D told me on Friday I could send them the die but it would be another 2 year wait.

This is something else to consider when buying Neils dies. After he is out of business, could be in the same situation. Any other reason I should’ve went with Hornady to build my custom dies.

Hoping it works Al, that will be very helpful!

[GLWenzl]

After enough time to heal up a bit to think more clearly plus after having enough experience using these Neil Jones dies; I’m thinking's call to my cc company should have been the first thing I did.

I was really was hoping to make these work somehow and hoped maybe NeiL would call me back to resolve all his mistakes. Side by side comparison to some dies Paul Rogers made and Paul’s are the clear winner today.

Neil’s dies are very well built, he has an awesome design and it’s super strong. Just nothing works as it should. Not only one die but both.

As I was sizing cases with Paul’s die so easy and getting consistently good numbers, Neils repeated words he kept telling me that was there is nothing wrong with those dies was going through my mind.

Not sure if I’ll call the CC company to pursue any action I can take since Neil made it clear he wasn’t going to help me... but if I do, I will give home a call before I pull the trigger on any CC action. I’ve never had to do something like this so not even sure what the options are if any.

[georgeld]

Hi Gary:

Tried to post last night and kept losing it. Will try again.
First off, what original case is that made from?
Dandy looking final.

Even on the invoice he has your name spelled wrong.
On the dies, is that laser, or stamped? I can't tell. The W is crooked too.

For that amount of money I'd stop, or request the card transaction be
refunded and charged back. IF and when Neil calls to bitch about it. Just tell
him: "I'll be happy to pay it again once the problems I've explained and you've
denied are fixed, until then your payment has been stopped".

IF and when: you send anything back for fixings, make it signature required mail.

I'm a hard ass when it comes to such dealings screwing me around.

I know from dealing with Paul Rogers back those days all his homemade reamers he made as D reamers. When I was trying to make this NEF into a .17VR he sent me an old D reamer that had chipped to show me how to make one. Turned out good enough and worked at first.

Best wishes pard. Update this once you've stopped payment, Just don't wait much longer or it'll be too late.

[GLWenzl]

Thanks George. The 17 Jet is actually based off of the 22 Jet which I believe was based off of the 357 magnum. Ray H once told me to do a chamber cast and measured my neck length. I did and the necks was longer which I like. So from that point on the brass has been made from 357 maximum or 360 DW brass.

The 17 Wenzl special is the same reamer as the 17 Jet onl run in deep.

Being the cheap guy I am, at first I wanted to purchase hey 17 jet die and then use a 357 magnum die to size the body of the 17 Wenzl Special when and if needed. But at the same time I wanted to have dedicated dies to hand down with this contender barrel.

I’ll let you know how it all turns out in the end. Thanks for the advice George

On the invoice, not only is my name spelled wrong (which I do not care about here) but it is spelled differently wrong than on the die.

Also as a side note, I have a rimmed 17 Mach IV. I like it a lot except for the 17 Mach IV has a shorter neck than I care for. I’m probably going to be selling that one next since it’s almost a duplicate of my 17 Wenzl special although I have a hard time getting rid of another rimmed contender barrel!

Edit- I called my cc company to see options are. She asked a lot of questions and is sending me some paper work. I really don’t like this but Neil was very firm that there is nothing wrong with his dies when there really is.