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Jfoster99

I'm crushing my .223 reloads

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So, I have been gathering equipment and supplies for the past month setting up my reloading shop. I have been doing fine prepping brass, cleaning primer pockets, tumbling, setting the powder measure, ect.

 

I attempted to do my first 50 reloads yesterday and had an issue seating the bullets.

 

Before resizing the brass the bullets will drop thru the case, after resizing it takes a press to seat them,

 

After lubing the case and bullet when I try to seat the bullet two out of three times the neck is getting crushed down and or bulging.

 

I tried adjusting the sizing die to not make the opening so small. But it seems like it either resizes or is does not. Very little adjustment. There is a die height where is does not resize, then an 1/8 rotation and the neck is sized same as if the die was screwed all the way doe.

So, I am assuming that is not the issue?

 

I tried rolling the bullet in Rcbs case to to the point is was gooey to see if lubrication was the issue.

 

The bullets are 55g boat tail blems. / 2nd's. Could they be seconds because they are too big? I assumed it was because they had small scratches and stuff.

 

Second question, I got a few primers stuck seated only half way. What is the best way to get they out? Can they be set off using the deprimeing die?

 

In the pic the three are crushed, the one on the right is a good reload a friend did with my dies on his press. The boat tail bullets are what I am using.

 

post-5151-143248214189_thumb.jpg

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What dies are you using? What press? Why / what are you lubricating the bullets with? Why are you lubricating the cases for bullet seating? What's your procedure for setting the seating die?

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Trash the bad primed brass. Without experience depriming live primers is dangerous.  Ways to do it, but it is not worth it.  The brass you are priming, are the primer pockets crimped?  Need to ream them out first. Primers that are difficult to seat are usually due to crimped primer pockets. You can always load the brass empty in the gun and fire the primer. NO bullet or powder.

 

Is it possible your die is set to low and crimping the bullet in place before it is fully seated?  Run the die out of the press.  Raise the ram all the way with the brass in place. Now screw in the die until it just touches the brass, back out the die 1/8 turn.  Now back out the seater stem.  Put a bullet in the case mouth, run it in the die and with trial and error continue trying to seat the bullet to the depth you want by turning in the seater stem.  NO LUBE on bullets. Does it still crush the case?  If so, check the expander in the resizing die.  One of your steps is out sync with the others.  Sounds like your expander ball is not where it belongs in the sizing die, check that.  Brass gets resized all the way into the die till it touches the shell holder.The expander should be set to true the case mouth down to the shoulder.

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You need to lighten your crimp.  Turn your seating die out a good full turn so there is no crimp.  Reset your seating stem to get you OAL rite and you should no longer be crushing cases. 

Using lube on the bullet heads is not usually a good idea.  You would probably be better off with no crimp and no lube than you are with lube and a crimp. 

Also, it is far better to crimp after the bullet has been set.  Crimp and seat at the same time is a compromise operation.  By that I mean that it will neither seat or crimp well at the same time but do both half assed.  The same die used in two steps will yeild a far superior finished round. 

FWIW, I rarely crimp 223, even if there is a canelure.  Give it a try with no or very light crimp and see how that works for you

Ken

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What dies are you using? What press? Why / what are you lubricating the bullets with? Why are you lubricating the cases for bullet seating? What's your procedure for setting the seating die?

I am using an RCBS Rockchucker IV with RCBS AR Dies. I used the RCBS Lube tray lubricant. Why, because I thought perhaps that was the reason they were crushing the cases.

 

My procedure for setting the dies was trial and error.

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Crimp!

 

I use a FCD for this reason. You can crush brass while crimping with normal seating dies, especially if they vary in OAL.

I embarrassingly admit that I have crushed brass with a FCD.  I probably had about 45K on that die and the inner collar that floats seized.

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Don't lube during the seating / crimp process.  

 

Put a piece of brass ready for seating and run the ram up and screw the die down until it makes contact with the brass, return the ram.  Put a bullet in the brass (after of course adding powder), run it up and adjust the bullet seater plug until you get the bullet depth that you desire.  Now back the seater plug out again a few turns, lower the ram, turn the die down (not the seater plug) about an eighth turn, run the ram up (you are crimped), you may go another eighth turn if it doesn't appear to be good but I'd go no more than a quarter.   Adjust the seater to contact the bullet, and  lower.  You now have an adjusted seater / crimp die that shouldn't crush any brass.  

 

When you use a seater / crimp die having the brass trimmed is important.  If you use one of those bullet through the hole FCD you can watch and not run the ram all the way up if the brass is long.  

 

Don't over crimp, there is a lot of back and forth on the merit of crimping related to velocity, accuracy, etc.  I crimp lightly on my rifle rounds.  

 

I have a horrible hangover this morning but I think I was lucid enough typing the post.  You can also google setting a seater crimp die and there will be youtube videos galore.

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I embarrassingly admit that I have crushed brass with a FCD. I probably had about 45K on that die and the inner collar that floats seized.

That is not embarrassing, that is an accomplishment.

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Don't lube during the seating / crimp process.  

 

Put a piece of brass ready for seating and run the ram up and screw the die down until it makes contact with the brass, return the ram.  Put a bullet in the brass (after of course adding powder), run it up and adjust the bullet seater plug until you get the bullet depth that you desire.  Now back the seater plug out again a few turns, lower the ram, turn the die down (not the seater plug) about an eighth turn, run the ram up (you are crimped), you may go another eighth turn if it doesn't appear to be good but I'd go no more than a quarter.   Adjust the seater to contact the bullet, and  lower.  You now have an adjusted seater / crimp die that shouldn't crush any brass.  

 

When you use a seater / crimp die having the brass trimmed is important.  If you use one of those bullet through the hole FCD you can watch and not run the ram all the way up if the brass is long.  

 

Don't over crimp, there is a lot of back and forth on the merit of crimping related to velocity, accuracy, etc.  I crimp lightly on my rifle rounds.  

 

I have a horrible hangover this morning but I think I was lucid enough typing the post.  You can also google setting a seater crimp die and there will be youtube videos galore.

 

Good post Rob - 

It is amazing how little crimp you need with the proper bullet tension even in a semi-auto.

I don't crimp at all in my target rounds because there is no canalure. 

 

OP- If I remember correctly you don't live too far away.  If you want me to look at your die set-up send me a PM.

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Thanks for everyone's help.... I pumped out 50 rounds tonight... Everything looks good in the headspace gauge and OAl. As soon as I adjusted the crimp to zero everything worked fine.

 

Now I just need to get to the range to function test them before I crank out a 1000 or two...

 

I takes me about an hour to turn 50 rounds from once fired to new rounds. I assume that is about as good as it gets with a singe stage rock chucker IV.

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When you prime your brass, be sure to stand each one up on a flat surface to be sure it doesn't wobble.

Nothing like a high primer in an AR to ruin your day.

 

The RCBS lube pad gets very tedious.

I discovered Imperial Sizing Wax and will never go back.

 

btw all my rounds are done on the same RockChucker as you.

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Just checking here -- Do you have the expander ball and de-priming rod installed in the sizing die?

 

I run all my pistol dies without the de-priming assembly because I de-prime before cleaning and re-prime with a hand priming tool -- I do not prime on any press -- I just don't like it

 

With rifle brass I still de-prime before cleaning then lube, size and expand the case mouth -- then clean again to remove all lube -- then hand prime, powder charge, seat and crimp separately if needed

 

I could see where a new guy could easily think he doesn't need the de-priming assembly if he was to de-prime using a universal de-capping die

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Just checking here -- Do you have the expander ball and de-priming rod installed in the sizing die?

 

I run all my pistol dies without the de-priming assembly because I de-prime before cleaning and re-prime with a hand priming tool -- I do not prime on any press -- I just don't like it

 

With rifle brass I still de-prime before cleaning then lube, size and expand the case mouth -- then clean again to remove all lube -- then hand prime, powder charge, seat and crimp separately if needed

 

I could see where a new guy could easily think he doesn't need the de-priming assembly if he was to de-prime using a universal de-capping die

I set off a primer stack in my 1050 and still prime on my press :rofl:

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I set off a primer stack in my 1050 and still prime on my press :rofl:

That happened to me for the first time ever last week. It's bound to happen. I was surprised it wasn't noisier, about the same as a cap gun from when I was a kid.

 

I use my Dillon or my rock chucker depending on mood or am requirement.

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That happened to me for the first time ever last week. It's bound to happen. I was surprised it wasn't noisier, about the same as a cap gun from when I was a kid.

 

I use my Dillon or my rock chucker depending on mood or am requirement.

Yep, load enough and it will happen. Mine happened at 1:30AM. Woke my daughter but not my wife. It happened in slow motion which was really odd. I saw the flash come up through the case and then right after, I saw a shockwave coming from the magazine tube as it erupted. I called Dillon the following Monday and they had replacement parts out to me without charge. They knew exactly what parts to send and in speaking with the tech on the phone, he confirmed it's an eventuality of loading on a progressive press.

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I set off a primer stack in my 1050 and still prime on my press :rofl:

 

I've been reloading for 25 years now -- For the 1st 20 years I loaded on a single stage rock chucker and never primed on the press -- would rather feel and be sure each primer seated properly

 

I was just making ammo for myself -- didn't shoot matches -- liked precision rifle stuff

 

Then my son came into the shooting world --  So I now have 2 mec shotgun presses -- a dillon 650 -- a hornady LNL progressive -- and a rock chucker on my bench

 

I've tried to load primers on both the dillon and the hornady and I can't get into the rhythm of seating the primer -- I found myself stopping, checking every primer for proper seating

 

All that precision rifle made me need clean primer pockets so I wet tumble -- I can't put a primer in a dirty primer pocket... I know, It doesn't matter with pistol -- but I can't do it

 

So I wet tumble -- Prime unsized brass with a lee hand primer and pull all my decapping pins from my pistol sizing dies -- then run them thru the press pre primed

 

I have NEVER, in 25 years of reloading, had a round fail doing it this way

 

Now that I just jinxed myself...

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Believe me, I was the same way. Hell, I didn't even trust my press to drop powder every time. The first 1K rounds that came off my machine were 100% checked for primers and powder. After they all passed, I figured I could trust the machine. Then it blew up (literally) and I checked the next 1K that came off after installing new parts. Still 100% pass rate. I'm just more wary of how the handle pull feels.

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