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Post by ricksalisbury01 on Feb 5, 2009 14:33:20 GMT -5
I have wanted to reload for years, and my wife gave me a Rock Chucker Supreme Master Reload kit (single stage) as a Christmas gift this year. I have since purchased a RCBS shell prep station, a Hornady case trimmer, powder stand, many pounds of different powder, four different die sets, a Berry tumbler, a Berry case separator, and many empty once fired and unfired bags of brass. It took me almost one week of evenings to learn how to reload, clean, prep the brass, and load my first hundred rounds (I am now reading about progressive loaders for pistol…go figure).
Anyhow, about 6% of my .40 cal rounds (Federal once fires brass, wolf primer (CCI not available), 4.4-4.7grains of Titegroup, Hornady HP/XPT 180gr JHP) ended up with an odd malformation in the case. Almost like a crinkle in the cartridge case. Can anyone explain why this is happening (my first assumption is I may have not expanded the cartridge enough after sizing the cartridge). It seems like 6% is kind of a high amount of poorly formed rounds!
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Post by whyohe on Feb 5, 2009 17:03:24 GMT -5
with out seeing the case it is hard to tell. if it is near th top it could be that the bullet is not sitting streight when you go to seat it and it grabs the side of the case and puts a slight rinkle in it.
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Post by wilmsmeyer on Feb 5, 2009 17:37:36 GMT -5
It could be many things including weak brass or weakened brass.
Are you crimping? Is there a chance that your seating die is set up a little off? You may have the die set up where the crimp is trying to happen before the seating depth gauge has fully seated the bullet.
When I reload my .357 brass with a new slug, I have to toy with the depth of the seater as it relates to the crimp position inside the die. Although I am pretty successful in reloading for my stuff, I am not an expert. Maybe someone can say what I mean more clearly or give you further areas to look.
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Post by ozark on Feb 5, 2009 19:33:51 GMT -5
I appreciate this thread beyond words. For a couple of years I have been fighting the urge to get into this reloading game. This has been a very nice treatment for that urge. I feel like it has saved me boocue dollars. I feel like I have just hit the jackpot financially. Ozark
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Post by billc on Feb 5, 2009 19:56:51 GMT -5
If it's like a wavey cresent on one side of the brass about halfway down the case. I've done that with .45 ACP and .40 S&W and adjusting the expander in a little deeper helped me. Ben, don't let the "joys" of pistol reloading keep you from rilfe reloading. Rifle reloading is harder to screw up.
Bill
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Post by joe21a on Feb 6, 2009 9:01:19 GMT -5
Try setting the expande plug a 1/2 to full turn lower. If you go to far you will see it very plainly as the top of the case will flair out.
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Post by ricksalisbury01 on Feb 6, 2009 9:34:06 GMT -5
Great!!! It is so nice to have a resource such as this. The "crinkle" is usually about halfway down and is asymmetrical. I had a feeling it had to do with the amount of case throat expansion being too slight. It seems to happen on the brass that is very tight were the bottom of the bullet starts in the cartridge case. I think I now fully understand my error. Again, thanks for the advice. I will expand the case larger for the next hundred round run.
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lc
Forkhorn
Posts: 72
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Post by lc on Feb 6, 2009 22:36:28 GMT -5
I don't reload handgun but lots of rifle are you chamfering case mouths especially after trimming the length?
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Post by billc on Feb 7, 2009 21:10:51 GMT -5
Generally you don't chamfer pistol brass. There is a 3rd die in the set to expand (bell the mouth) the brass to accept a bullet and the seating die takes the bell out. As most pistols headspace on the mouth of the case, you want to keep the brass the max thickness and not to crimp too much as it would throw you headspacing off.
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Post by ricksalisbury01 on Feb 9, 2009 12:04:39 GMT -5
Figured it out...combination of two things. First, I needed to expanded the case neck a little more. and second, differences in the overall width of the bullet. The XPTs were not so bad, but the Speer Gold Dot was horrible...weight between bullets in same lot, outside to outside dimension variation, and they seemed to seat inconsitently. I tried some Berry Bullets (for practice shooting), and they reloaded so much easier, without and oddities. Thanks again for all the help!
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