Problem with neck size or bullet size in 44 Mag

[James E Thompson]

I went to reload some 267 gr. 44 Mag bullets that I had made and all went well until seating the bullet. The bullet just slides inside the case. I had full length resized the brass. How can I down size the brass to fit?

Idaho Jim

[GRUMPA]

Sure it's not the bullet that's undersized?

[NC_JEFF]

It sounds like an undersized boolit. Do you have an other cast Boolits you can try? And have you checked the diameter of your cast Boolits?

[James E Thompson]

good idea jedomejd. I'll do both. My swaging dies are .429, could that be the problem?

[Mk42gunner]

Are you sure you resized the brass with a .44 die? Reason I ask is that before I bought a Lee Universal Decapping die; I used to decap with a larger body die, then tumble clean and run them through the sizing die while using the real dies decapping pin to ensure the flash hole was clear.

Or perhaps you expanded with a .45 expander?

And yes, I have tried to seat a bullet in a non-sized case. Amazing how stupid I felt when a 55 grain soft point disappeared into a 5.56mm case.

Regardless, a .429 diameter projectile should not fall into a full length sized .44 Magnum case.

Another thought-- has the carbide ring pulled out of your sizing die? Not many people still use steel dies for straight walled cases.

Robert

[NC_JEFF]

Mk42gunners thinking is the likely culprit. Unless you grabbed some brass that hadn't been resized yet. It happens

[DerekP Houston]

are you positive your resizing die is the correct one? First one I ordered for my 44 magnum was .429 but they shipped the wrong die inside the kit. Everything else was marked .429 and had the paperwork correct.

[James E Thompson]

After measuring I find the bullet to be under sized (.4194). I checked another bullet and sure enough it measured .4295. I'm not sure why the size difference because they are both swaged bullets, the first is a 3/4 copper jacketed hollow point and the second one is a full jacketed copper bullet. I've got two full length dies and the resized cases fit into them equally snug. The used cases that were not resized definately needed resizing.

So I've got a batch of small bullets. How can I use them? Is there a way to down size the straight walled cases?

[DerekP Houston]

So I've got a batch of small bullets. How can I use them? Is there a way to down size the straight walled cases?

You can down size cases for wildcats, but without a corresponding decrease in barrel diameter you are likely to get bad leading and little accuracy. Sorry I'm not up on swaging, if they were cast I would melt and remake.

[James E Thompson]

Ya I certainly don't want to mess my gun up. I just need to face the fact that I screwed up and made a batch of bullets that are to small. That was the first batch I made and probably lucky something worse didn't happen, like getting one of the bullets stuck in a die. The school of hard knocks is tough at times.

[Teddy (punchie)]

HI James

.10 undersized Is just too much to shoot , I don't know. Double the jacket? Use a a paper cover, paper patch?
All in how many you have.

Teddy

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

You haven't mentioned your swaging tooling or technique... with that said,
can't you just swage them again, with more/longer force to make them larger ?

[runfiverun]

you do swage up.

but 419 is an odd duck I'd have to look pretty hard to even find something that would take that.
it almost sounds like you were swaging in the core swage die [but I don't know how you'd ever get the jacket in there] it would be in the .400-410 area
the core seat die should poke things up to 427-8 before the final point sizing and squeeze up to 429-430.
mine makes 430.
I asked for it that size so I could punch up cast projectiles or add hollow-points to them.

[Mk42gunner]

And the award goes to Grumpa for the right answer.

Robert

[James E Thompson]

You haven't mentioned your swaging tooling or technique... with that said,
can't you just swage them again, with more/longer force to make them larger ?

The bullet is a 267 gr 3/4 copper jacketed hollow point (HP). The bullet looks ok as in uniform. On technique, I cut the core to weight and formed it, pressed the jacket onto the core and then formed the tip. I don't believe there is another step. You can size up and that may be the answer I'm looking for. Does the resizing mess with the nose (HP)? What have I got to lose?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Just curious, what brand of dies? and brand of press?

But mostly I'm curious about:
What alloy is the core ?
What's the diameter of the Core ?
What's the OD of the jacket before seating the core,
What's the OD of the Jacket after seating the core?

The inside of your point form die should be .429 so when you push the bullet into it, with the required amount of pressure, the bullet should expand to .429

The measurements I am asking for should be on the order of what runfiverun mentions above.

[Mk42gunner]

It has ten or twelve years since I read them, but Dave Corbin used to have eight or so books on swaging on his website. They should answer most swaging questions.

Robert

[Outpost75]

There is also the remote possibility that if your brass has been loaded ALOT, and has been excessively work-hardened, that the amount of springback from residual stress exceeds the amount of sizing needed to hold the bullet. A .429 bullet in a .44 Magnum is minimum, although Sierra and Speer make theirs that size to reduce pressure. In most .44 revolvers and in Marlin Microgroove rifles I own .430" diameter jacketed bullets as made by Hornady are more accurate. For lead bullets I usually run .431-.432

[James E Thompson]

Problem solved. I reran the bullets in the core seat die and pushed the size to .429. Loaded the bullets with no problems. I ran the load light with H110 powder. I still don't understand why the size difference. I'm sure I seated with the correct die initially, but must not have. Anyway I got them loaded and ready to shot. Yea!!!

[Sasquatch-1]

One more question for you. Are you using commercial copper jackets or making them yourself? I have read that some people will anneal their commercial jackets prior to using them to soften them up a bit.

[James E Thompson]

One more question for you. Are you using commercial copper jackets or making them yourself? I have read that some people will anneal their commercial jackets prior to using them to soften them up a bit.

I use commercial copper and they work fine. I just didn't core seat them enough to reach the .429 minimum diameter.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Problem solved. I reran the bullets in the core seat die and pushed the size to .429. Loaded the bullets with no problems. I ran the load light with H110 powder. I still don't understand why the size difference. I'm sure I seated with the correct die initially, but must not have. Anyway I got them loaded and ready to shot. Yea!!!
I'm glad you got the bullet size figured out.
But you said, "I ran the load light with H110 powder"

I hope you know you are not suppose to reduce H110 by more than a measely 3%.

from Hodgdon's web site:

For those loads listed where a starting load is not shown, start 10% below the suggested maximum load and then approach maximums carefully, watching for any sign of pressure (difficult extraction, cratered and flattened or blown primers, and unusual recoil). H110 and Winchester 296 loads should not be reduced more than 3%.

Reduce H110 and Winchester 296 loads 3% and work up from there. H110 and Winchester 296 if reduced too much will cause inconsistent ignition. In some cases it will lodge a bullet in the barrel, causing a hazardous situation (Barrel Obstruction). This may cause severe personal injury or death to users or bystanders. DO NOT REDUCE H110 LOADS BY MORE THAN 3%.

[James E Thompson]

It is light by more than 3%. They are 4.1 gr light. I mistakenly loaded them with 16.5 gr. and should have used 20.6 gr. Looks like I have a job ahead of me taking the bullets out, remeasuring the powder and reseating the bullet.

Thanks for the heads up. I wasn't aware of the hazard of running to light with H110. I certainly won't shoot any of them.

Jonb in Glencoe you saved my bacon. After inspecting the bullets I found not only did I put to little powder but I used Large pistol primers. I replaced the primers with Magnum pistol primers and reloaded with 20.7 grains of powder. I feel comfortable now with everything up to par with the loading manual.