Honing what portion of the die? Sizing die body dia, or the seating stem bore?
I *think* the Pacific dies are flash chromed for rust resistance? So not very thick, but maybe still requires SiC stones to break thru it?
Depends on what you're going to load as well, solid base, or hollow base. Revolver, Euro match pistol?
Might check out the bullseye forum for info. 'Some' don't size the case at all for HBWC's, or use special expanders so the bullets are a finger push to seat almost to full depth. Those are easy to source right from the home page. I have a few for 45, 9mm, and 38, and they work great.
HBWC's, unless you can source the 'good ones' from Europe, you might wind up swaging your own to get decent accuracy.
Nothing wrong with steel dies. A lot of people are lubing the cases even with carbide dies. Makes for smoother action on a progressive press, which improves charge uniformity.
I wound up doing a bunch of things for my 929, to use .358 cast bullets so it wouldn't become a lead mine every time I shot it with '9mm' cast bullets. PE expander, and a modified 38 Super die so they wouldn't get sized back down when seating and crimping.
