Chamfering cases in 45 & 9MM ?

[milprileb]

Along the way, I have deleted chamfering and deburring 45 and 9mm cases. I don't trim them either.

Now that I am using cast bullets primarily in these pistol rounds, I am wondering if the experience of you master bullet makers is that I ought to chamfer all my 45 and 9mm cases ?

[Three44s]

The time saved by not champhering your brass will all be offset by time lost at de-leading your gun.


Three 44s

[milprileb]

Hmmm, well that captures it precisely.

I got the RCBS prep station here so its not like I got an excuse for not
doing this.

This and a M die for both 45 and 9mm is my next
improvements to reloading procedures.

[mroliver77]

Why would you need to if your not trimming them?
J

[Keyston44]

I only do if it's new brass or range brass I pick up.

Key

[Shiloh]

Never trimmed or chamfered pistol brass. I shoot lead almost exclusively. No leading issues. Size is key to no leading.

The case mouth get belled prior to seating the boolits.

Rifle brass gets chamfered one time after it is prepped, trimmed or retrimmed. Again, the case mouth is belled before seating cast boolits.

Shiloh

[milprileb]

I want to eliminate contributing factors to lead shaving when I seat bullets.

My entire stock of 9mm and 45acp brass is mixed maker with some range pick up
stuff.

I thought perhaps not chamfering contributes to lead shaving. Yes, I flare(bell) cases before I seat bullets.

[Cherokee]

I chamfer the case mouth of new brass or 1F brass that I have not chamfered before. It's one less thing that might contribute to shaving lead when seating. I think its more helpful if you seat and crimp in one step. I bell the case mouth and crimp separately but still do it.

[milprileb]

Sir, I seat with seating die and crimp with crimping die on all pistol calibers. While current die sets come as 3 dies , I do not subscribe to seating/crimping in one die. I know it can be done
but I don't do it. Now that may be ignorance, old age as all my die sets were bought years ago when they came as 4 die sets, or it could be I liken this to pulling on ones pants and tightening ones belt at the same time. It can work, it could work but I never figured it was a good idea.

Seat and then crimp: low tech, non digital solution. Works for me.

[theperfessor]

I never chamfer pistol cases. Ever. Homemade M-expander plugs prevent lead shaving. Seat and crimp all ammo in two steps. No problems.

[milprileb]

$13.69 for a M die. that's my cost. Unless I am mistaken, a non machinist like me is not going to make something much cheaper?

[gray wolf]

The case is flared for seating, how can it shave lead ?
Answer --it doesn't, Flare the case mouth and seat the bullet. If you get a little lead shaved
flare a tiny bit more. Seat and crimp in one operation can sometimes show a little shaved lead.
There is no need to trim a 45 ACP case, they get shorter not longer.
Unless the case lengths are way, way different your crimp should be fine.
Taper crimp the case mouth to .471/.472 and have fun.

[geargnasher]

I never chamfer autopistol brass. Total waste of time, and I'd like some empirical evidence from the person who seems to think a little lip on the case mouth causes barrel leading.

Flare the mouth. If it's still shaving, flare some more. If it's still shaving and you can clearly see that the shaved lead is coming from the part of the case where the flare stops, you need to expand the case more with a REAL expander spud of some sort, like the Lyman M dies have.

YOU DO NOT EVER NEED MORE THAN .002" INTERFERENCE FIT WITH THE BOOLIT IN THE CASE. Often production dies and oversize lead boolits make that a .005" or even .008" interference fit, and stretching the brass that much is bound to deform your boolit and possibly shave some off of the driving bands during seating, regardless of how much flare you have. The elastic limit of the brass makes any fit tighter than .002" useless.

Gear

[theperfessor]

Milprileb, you're probably right. I USED to chamfer until I started getting more split case necks than I thought I should get, probably a result of overflaring and overchamfering which stresses the case neck and reduces the neck thickness at the case mouth. Switched to using an M-expander which gives me the right neck tension and allows the bullet to sit straight in the case before seating and poof! Very few split necks, no bullet shaving when seating. Life is good.

[BD]

I've never owned a 9mm so I can't speak to that, but I've owned a few .45s and still own 3. I've never trimmed or chamfered a .45 acp case in my life. Clean'em, load'em, shoot'em; clean'em load'em, shoot'em; clean'em, load'em, shoot'em........

Eventually they'll get lost in the grass.

BD

[supersonic]

Along the way, I have deleted chamfering and deburring 45 and 9mm cases. I don't trim them either.

Now that I am using cast bullets primarily in these pistol rounds, I am wondering if the experience of you master bullet makers is that I ought to chamfer all my 45 and 9mm cases ?

Accuracy & BBL cleanliness suffers. Chamfer.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Milprileb: I have never chamfered an Auto pistol case.

Also I would heed the first line of geargnashers last post.

I would also like to see some empirical (Actual Scientifically Obtained) evidence that not flaring a case leads to barrel leading. The two points are no more related than Obama and a logical decision.

Beval Based bullets contribute to more leading of pistol barrels than any other single issue and even they can be loaded so they don't lead . Has nothing to do with chamfering the case mouth. Leading's primary cause is poor bullet fit and gas blowing by the bullet during firing, not lead shaved off by seating the bullet.

If you are shaving lead during the seating operation, then you need to flare more. period..

Auto pistols headspace on the mouth of the case. Chamfering would remove part of that contact surface. This is not a good thing. Also, tumbling your cases for a long enough interval, will knock off any sharp edges on the case mouths which means you don't need to chamfer. I tumble every load of brass for 24 hours! It takes absolutely no effort whatsoever to do it for 2 hours or 24 hours. The electricity cost won't break you.

Chamfering auto pistol cases is a needless operation! Forget about it.

Now rifle cases are a different story, and loading jacketed bullets in rifle cases kind of requires a little chamfer. But if you flare them for loading cast boolits you really don't need to chamfer them either.

On the seating topic:

Virtually every progressive press known to man seats and crimps in separate steps, and all 4 die sets do this also. What this does for you is allows you to control the adjustment of both operations independently which leads to greater consistancy in your product.

Older 3 die pistol die sets were mostly designed to load on single stage presses. They made you resize the case and then expand the case flare and knock out the primer as the second step. Then seat the bullet and crimp in either the same step or you could remove the seating stem after seating bullets and then crimp as a separate operation.

I have been seating and crimping in separate steps since 1978, on everything I load, and I converted my older Pistol dies to knock out the primer on the sizing operation. I usually seek out an extra seating die at a gun show or whereever, and then I don't have to dissassemble my seating die everytime.

I also load all my non auto pistol rounds on a C&H 4 Station Press so I can just cycle the rounds thru from station to station, and only handle the round once.

You can do this type of process with any multi station press like any turret press, A PW style press, or the C&H style press.

I have seen Little Lyman 4 station turret presses for as little as $25 on Ebay. One of these will allow you to load with a 4 die setup. You'll never go back.

And Like BD,, I have lost more than I've worn out. Load shoot load shoot load shoot. this is what we do. There is no chamfer in "load, shoot".

Randy

[turbo1889]

I trim and deburr my straight wall brass for the first loading and then if it is a higher pressure cartridge such as the 32-mag, 9mm, 357-mag, 357-max, 10mm, 44-mag, etc every fifth loading cycle which is about when they need trimmed again in my experience if I am loading full power loads. For the low pressure stuff like 32-ACP, 32-S&W, 380-ACP, 38-spl, 44-spl, 45-ACP, etc they only get done the first time.

Notice that I said “deburr” not chamfer although I do use the chamfer tool to accomplish this. The point is that I just use it to take any burrs off the inside and outside edge of the case mouth from the trimming and not to actually remove material and re-shape the edge of the case mouth.

[geargnasher]

A good expander die with a tapered flaring shank will iron out any remaining factory case mouth burr on autopistol brass, same way a primer pocket swager will iron out the ridge left by the primer crimp.

I use a VLD chamfer too for all my rifle brass, and the pistol brass like .357 and .44, 45 Colt, etc. after every trimming. Like Turbo1889, I just knock the burr out, I don't actually carve an angle on the inside of the case mouth, especially on thinwall stuff like .30-30.

Gear