Problem with 311041 boolit!?!?

[Lizard333]

I recently found a problem with my 30-30 rounds touching the rifling on my 94 when. Chambered some of them. I fired them anyhow. No problem. Problem came up when I couldn't chamber a round. It was too fat to chamber. I went over and looked at the rest of my loaded ammo and found two more like this. How did this happen? I run all of my boolits through a Lyman 4500. This is where I am sizing them to 309 and applying my gas checks. What could I be doing wrong? My mold is one of least trouble and it casts great boolits. I am using ww's with a little tin if needed to get good fill out. The lube I'm using is carnuba red. The fatness of the boolit is only in the nose, not in the neck of the brass. It almost lie it is squished. I just don't know.

[blaser.306]

I found this with my NOE 316299, In my case the alloy was too soft and when sizing to .314 the nose was deforming( getting fat ) and shortening the OAL of the boolit itself. I just hardened up the alloy and the problems went away, may not be the case with yours but if it is only on some boolits and not others it mite may be worth looking at!

[Ben]

Pushing your bullets through an inexpensive Lee cast bullet sizing die ( .309 " diameter ) would most likely take care of your problems. Once you have your bullets sized properly, you'd take your .309 " bullets and push them into your Lyman 4500 for lube only .

[longbow]

I would check mould blocks to see if there is any lead, burrs, dings or whatever that might keep the mould blocks from closing completely.

If the mould blocks are not closing completely you will get larger diameter oval boolits. When sized, the driving bands will be correct diameter but the nose will still be oval and oversize.

That's the first thing I would check and second is what blaser.306 said.

Longbow

[geargnasher]

Longbow and Blaser covered it.

If you size right after casting or within a day or so the ACWW boolits are still really soft and the noses will squish with the smallest amount of effort from a base-first sizer. If you want to size and lube while still "green", do what Ben suggested and warm the lube in the sizer quite a bit, even the drag of cool lube residue will cause enough resistance of a pre-sized boolit that the nose can smoosh some.

Gear

[ubetcha]

What about the possibility on different thicknesses in cases.I have noticed some difference in loading Remington verses Winchester verses Federal etc. some would be thicker in the neck while others wouldn't

[Larry Gibson]

Pushing your bullets through an inexpensive Lee cast bullet sizing die ( .309 " diameter ) would most likely take care of your problems. Once you have your bullets sized properly, you'd take your .309 " bullets and push them into your Lyman 4500 for lube only .

Ben nailed the solution if the bullets are cast as normal. WW composition varies a lot in the amount of antimony and tin. Adding the additional tin, which I recommend, can increase the hardness upwards of AC'd bullets to 12 - 17 BHN. The charts show plain WWs at 9 BHN but I've found different batches to vary quite a bit. The addition of tin makes the alloy harder as it makes the antimony (which actually is the "hardener") blend in better in a ternary alloy. Depending on the BHn of the alloy in your bullets it is very easy to slightly squish or bend the nose when sizing and seating a crimp on GC. Sizing and seating the GC in the push through Lee and then lubing in the Lyman 4500 is the best solution for softer alloyed bullets. That's what i do all the time.

Larry Gibson

[dragonrider]

Your are using Lyman 4500 so how difficult is it to seat the check and size the boolit??? When I had a Lyman sizer, 450, I had the same problem and the cause was when sizing the boolit nose did indeed get fatter from being pushed on by the nose punch. Ben has given the inexpensive answer and it works great, in my case I had a Star sitting under the bench for about 15 years so I finaly pressed it into service.

[Echo]

I agree with Ubetcha - check the cases. If different headstamps, there might be your problem. If same headstamp, check wall thickness.

[Lizard333]

I will try waiting longer before I resize and make sure the 4500 is plenty warm before sizing and seating the gas check. The mold is in great shape. None of the boolits I drop have the problem, just the ones that get sized. Thanks for the help, this one had me scratching my head.