I have a Herters resizing die which I use regularly. I resize the casings and then I decided to case gauge them. They all fit the case gauge fine. When I seat the bullet (Berry RN 230 grn) I case gauge them again. I will gain approx. .001-.002 in diameter. The "bulge" occurs near the head of the cartridge. They stay under the recommended size in Lyman's #3 loading manual and I also "plunk" test the rounds. These are range rounds so they could have multiple firings. However I have noticed this in once fired rounds. My COAL is 1.250 using W231. What causes the cases go grow?? Is my woes coming when I am seating the bullet by pushing down on the projectile or possibly a worn carbide seating die?? Tommy
How much bell are you putting in the mouth of the case? Have you measured the I.D. of the case mouth and then the O.D. of the bullet. Sounds like too much pressure on the case when seating the bullets causing the case to belly out a little. Honestly ....I dunno. Jim
Jim, I don't know how much belling I am putting on. I will measure the rounds after belling and then get back to you. Thanks for the info. At least it gets me a starting point and then move on from there. Tommy
Bullets are .452 plated and I have checked on seating depth but can't remember right now what it is. I have talked to Berry bullets and they recommend a COAL of 1.250 which I load at. The bell size of the casings, when belled to accept the bullet is .485 and then it is tapered crimp with a .001-.002 crimp. The bore size of my Ruger SR1911 is .476 and most of my rounds are around .469-.472 after the bullet is seated. Specs on Lymans calls for .473 around the mouth of the casing and .469 (I think) at the base of the bullet. I did a plunk test on the last 200 rounds and they seem to drop down the tube ok. I'd like to be more specific. Tommy
Tommy, You said there is a bulge near the head of the case after seating the bullet? When I first read your post I thought you were talking about the case expanding where the bullet is seated. That would indicate a good tight fit, or maybe a too tight fit. Getting a bulge near the head/web area, hmmmm. Years ago I had some Remington .44 Mag's crush at the head area under the force of crimping the bullet. That batch of brass only had a few (don't remember how many) reloads on them. I determined the brass was getting so thin that it was about to separate!!! I stopped using Rem brass altogether after that thinking it was all probably too thin. I've read casings can separate near the web area when they are wore-out. And that you can use a small 90 degree pick to feel for thin spots just above the web inside the case. Did it take more force than normal to seat the bullets? With the small amount of crimp you use, doesn't seem like the crimp could be causing it. What does the bulge look like? Does it look like a crease or like the brass is trying to fold/crumple in the area just above the web? Gotta go clean some guns, load ammo. Check back with you latter.
I finally called RCBS and talked to a technician named Larry. We had to reset my bullet seater. For some reason I did not have it set right and it was actually "pulling" the casing down as I seated the bullet. I have still not got it in my head right but after we adjusted the seater, I loaded 10 dummy rounds. My COAL is now running anywhere from 1.250-1.255 depending on the casing I am using. They average about 1.253 which is fine with me. I ended up asking him how much of a crimp do I have on my bullets and he said that the crimp is a "misnomer". The crimp does not hold the bullet in the casing, the casing holds the bullets. I am still trying to find out and remember how we did it as we made a lot of changes. I am going to set my seater so it will seat @1.250 for the most part. After resizing the casing, I loaded up some dummy rounds, the dummy rounds fall into my case gauge just as they did when I case gauged them after resizing. Before my casings were "growing" about .001-.002 in diameter. Now they pretty much are all the same which they would have to be to go into the Wilson case gauge. I have tried to find out how to set up the bullet seater so I can REMEMBER how to do it the right way. It took about an hour on the phone to get things right. I have looked on You Tube and my Lymans #3 and they don't explain how to set up the bullet seating die. Things are very vague and I want to know precisely how to do it. I am just the type that want the results but have to understand how to correctly get them. Larry said that setting up the bullet seater and with the tolerances that, that is the hardest part to do right. I just want to know how. Should have written things down when he told me but my dumb azz mind wasn't working like it should have. Tommy
I don't see how it could be pulling down on the case without it actually over crimping. There shouldn't be anything else in the die that could put pressure on the case other than the crimper. That's weird.But I don't have a Herters die either,all mine are RCBS or Lee.
Most of my dies are Lyman. Even my auto-loader dies have a roll crimp built into the bullet seat die. As you know a taper crimp is recommended for auto-loaders. Does your bullet seat die have a built in roll crimp? If so, check to see that you have the die adjusted so that the crimp can not come in contact with the case while seating bullets. Next you could change to the taper crimp die if you want a crimp. Like squirrelhunter said, I can't think of anything else that could be pulling down on the case.
I called RCBS again today and talked to Larry. He said that my problem was I was starting my crimp too soon after putting the bullet into the casing. When you do that, the casing isn't moving anywhere so the push of the bullet was forcing the casing to bulge near the head area. Getting the correct spacing is critical once the crimp starts. The bullet moves downward and the casing has no place to go. After belling the mouth of the casing it measures .482-.485 which is fine. Measuring down from the mouth of the casing 1/4" the casing size is .467 which gives you the correct amount of clearance for the bullet to seat and then crimp properly. After trying some more "dummy" rounds, I can still pass them through my case gauge. Larry said that this is the hardest tolerance to set up on a straight walled casing. I feel much better now that I know the reason why I was having problems although they still passed the "plunk" test. I am using a taper crimp on my .45's. Roll crimp is not recommended as I was told. Magnum hit it on the head when he said I was crimping too tight so thanks to him for his comments. Another thing to note is that not all casings are the same thickness. As I am using range rounds and some are old that also may be a contributing factor. Tommy
