[pyrdek]

Seater crimper body set to high with seater plug set too low, maybe because of short case length? Anybody do any case trimming to set case length uniformly across all cases in the lot? Dies securely locked in position and not working them selves loose and changing settings? Die adjustment changed between seating cast and then the jacketed bullets? Belling (expander) die misadjusted for excessive belling? Oversize cast bullets big enough to fill case diameter?

Some manifactuer's dies expand and decap with a seperate sizer die without the deprime function. If you have that style did he decap and bell but not resize?

 

[Shooting Coach]

In your post, you did not mention resizing and belling the hulls the first time around. If you are familiar with metallic loading, you know what happened. If not, get familiar with metallics. They are different from shotshells.

 

[Harley Lekvold]

There are several ways to deprime without sizing.

 

[Rdtay10]

I deprime with a depriming die then tumble my brass if I want the primer pockets clean. Then resize and bell the brass before priming and loading. I even resize new brass. The OP must have assumed that the brass had been resized because it was deprimed. I would definitely pull and redo them all. There will be feed issues if you don't.

 

[entropy]

Deprimed does not necessarily mean resized, as mentioned above. He probably used a Universal depriming die, many who polish wet do. I prefer buying brass that is not worked at all, on the rare occasion I do. (last one was 1100 .223 cases, LE training pickup) I dry tumble with a Lyman 3000 vibratory case cleaner, I like to polish them to my own specs.
Take the depriming rod completely out of the sizing die, you can then size the loaded rounds; (Edit: I see you already did that.) it should either screw up or down, depending on the dies, and right out.

It sounds like he seated the jacketed bullets WAY too deep. 4.0 gr. of Bullseye doesn't come up very far in the case. I usually load 5.0 gr. of Bullseye (duplicates the old service load.), and there's a lot of room between the powder level and the bases of my 230 FMJ's!

You don't state whether these are .45 ACP or .45 LC, but if ACP, with 200 gr. RN I set my COAL (Cartridge OverAll Length) at 1.19" , and 230 gr. , 1.2".

Anybody do any case trimming to set case length uniformly across all cases in the lot?

Except for making some ".38 Spl. Shorts" out of .38 brass that split, I've never trimmed a pistol case. I just run them until they split.

 

[rapid86]

Deprimed does not necessarily mean resized, as mentioned above. He probably used a Universal depriming die, many who polish wet do. I prefer buying brass that is not worked at all, on the rare occasion I do. (last one was 1100 .223 cases, LE training pickup) I dry tumble with a Lyman 3000 vibratory case cleaner, I like to polish them to my own specs.
Take the depriming rod completely out of the sizing die, you can then size the loaded rounds; (Edit: I see you already did that.) it should either screw up or down, depending on the dies, and right out.

It sounds like he seated the jacketed bullets WAY too deep. 4.0 gr. of Bullseye doesn't come up very far in the case. I usually load 5.0 gr. of Bullseye (duplicates the old service load.), and there's a lot of room between the powder level and the bases of my 230 FMJ's!

You don't state whether these are .45 ACP or .45 LC, but if ACP, with 200 gr. RN I set my COAL (Cartridge OverAll Length) at 1.19" , and 230 gr. , 1.2".



Except for making some ".38 Spl. Shorts" out of .38 brass that split, I've never trimmed a pistol case. I just run them until they split.

I have never trimmed a straight wall pistol case. Never had a need to.

 

[Harley Lekvold]

If my cases are longer then what the manuals recommend, I trim them all, rifle and pistol. Most semi-autos head space on the case, so if a case is too long, it can create excessive pressure. I would rather be safe then sorry. YOMV.
For cleaning brass, I deprime, not sized and then I put them in the RCBS rotary case cleaner with a solution of; a couple squirts of lemon juice, a couple squirts of dish soap, a couple cups of vinegar and some warm water. I run it for about 30-45 minutes, save the liquid, as it can be used several times. Rinse the brass with water and dry it. It cleans the entire case, inside and out plus the primer pocket. They come out looking better then factory brass.

 

[Bobcat Welding]

Pistol caliber reloading dies are 3 die sets: number one full length sizes the case ,number two de-primes and flares the neck ,number three seats the bullet and crimps the case. He skipped number one.

Bobcat

 

[Harley Lekvold]

Pistol caliber reloading dies are 3 die sets: number one full length sizes the case ,number two de-primes and flares the neck ,number three seats the bullet and crimps the case. He skipped number one.

Bobcat

All my pistol/revolver die sets are; one resizes and deprimes, next one flares the neck, and last one seats the bullet.

 

[Harley Lekvold]

To the mod's, I know this is a shotgun site, but I would bet a majority of the shotgun reloaders on here also do metallic.

 

[Chichay]

"Deprimed and polished" brass is exactly that. I understand there are "universal" depriming machines that are not even caliber specific. All they do is punch the spent primers out and in some, the machines swage the crimp out of the primer pockets, a must for military fired brass. When I buy once fired brass, I make sure they are "deprimed, resized, trimmed to spec and polished ready for reloading". My source makes even a point to name the machines that did the processes. I am assuming your "45" meant 45ACP. There are sources of lead bullets for that caliber with sized bullets in .451, .452 or even .453. I am not aware of any jacketed bullets for that caliber in other than .452. As an aside, whenever I change a bullet, bullet weight, powder and powder weight while reloading for any semi-automatic, I only initially assemble 10-20 reloads. After I've fired them and am happy with the functioning and accuracy, only then will I proceed reloading them en mass. Been there, done that.

 

[jk80]

I'd check your taper crimp. Also mic the bullets. Over or undersized bullets aren't unheard of. I had a box of 200 gr. Swc about drive me nuts. About a third were oversized. Guess they just ran em through and only lubed them.

 

[SecondChance]

The cases in question are. 45 ACP. The cases came cleaned and deprimed. I set the expander to just BARELY touch the case mouth so a projectile stands on its own and SLIGHTLY enters the case mouth. I always keep track of the dies working loose as well as the expander rod nut.
I am very familiar with metallic reloading, been loading pistol n rifle for over 40yrs, nearly as long as shotshell reloading. I always perform my deprime, resize, (same die) and expand my brass so as to not have any working .arks after tumbling, l like Shiney clean brass!!!
I have never had dealings with deprimed and not resized/expanded brass before. Add said brass was ready to load and cleaned. I have always used pick ups and done them from begin to end myself.
So l am going to pull all the rounds, resize and bell again, then reload AGAIN!! Thanks for the insights and we shall see.

 

[Leo]

When I was shooting thousands of .45acp and loading on a progressive press I ran into a manufacturing tolerance stacking issue.
I had hundreds of finished rounds that would not work. They came out of a press that had made maybe 4000 rounds that all ran perfect. After drilling a hole to let the powder out of a defective round, I sectioned some finished rounds with a saw. As we all know, pistol brass is thicker in the base, and tapers for the section where powder occupies, At the end of that taper, the walls in the brass go parallel up to the mouth. My usual bevel based bullets never touched down to where the taper meets the parallel. No problems.

Most of the bad reloads were the same brand of cases that I had good success before. The variable was that I had used new bullets that were flat based. The edge of the base actually was deep enough to catch the thicker taper of the case, making them .002 wider than SAAMI max. The bullets were good, the brass was good. They were just no good together. Loading to a slightly longer 1.265" eliminated the side bulge and still ran fine.

Stacking tolerances bit me on that one.

 

[SecondChance]

The SWC all loaded and shot great. I suppose because they are slightly oversized and filled the difference just enough to hold the bullet good until l ran it through the taper/crimp die. In my initial posting l stated that l mic'd a handful of the jacketed rounds because they were what l was having issues with.
So with know all my dies being dialed in correctly, the only option left is that the brass was not sized when deprimed.
I will know from now on out, range pick up or l do all the steps myself and not assume it was done already.

 

[Leo]

"I will know from now on out, range pick up or l do all the steps myself and not assume it was done already."

Good policy

 

[jwsmith1959]

The cases were not oversize, but not sized correctly to begin with. Good reason to keep much of your reloading to yourself.

Having reloaded close to 1 Million 45 ACP, I can feel your pain. I once carried a Class 6 FFL and dabbled in some custom reloads. Mainly rifle, but some 45 ACP also. I had a huge competitor in Houston who could beat me hands down on cost, but I did a nifty 225 g. SWC that was really popular in IPSC at the time and I had a great reliable source for those bullets.

I once hired a kid to help with a couple of what I thought were "no brainer" steps in brass prep. I spent a lot of time going over his work as it wasn't reliable. I made a little money at it, but the paperwork and other headaches were just not worth it after about 10 years.

Good luck and all the best.

 

[BrowningPotato]

Am I the only here because I misread the title as “oversized bras”?

 

[Leo]

Am I the only here because I misread the title as “oversized bras”?

No my friend, just you. Might want to talk nice to the Mrs. tonight.