Crooked gc bullets when not using gc ?

[LAKEMASTER]

this weekend i finally got around to loading some lee 312-160 gr bullets for my 3006. ( USING MY LOADMASTER )

EVERY SINGLE BULLET IS SLANTED WHEN I SEAT THEM.......

i tried adjusting the carrier,shell plate, everything functions fine and smooth but the bullets are not right... sized to 311

no lead is being shaved off, i tried shimming the seating cone with tape, im really confused....

im sitting here at work, and i realized my load was for plinking target rounds, so i wasnt using gas checks with this bullet could this cause the issue ?

i made 85 ranchdog rounds a few weeks ago, they loaded fine/ straight-true, gas check or not. but these long bullets arent being seated very far, so i m wondering what the issue is ......


http://leeprecision.com/mold-6-cav-ctl312-160-2r.html

[Cowboy_Dan]

So, a naked shank and you aren't seatjng it very deep. My first thought is that seating them deaper may have the effect of straightening them out from more neck contact. Leaving off the gas check may have allowed them to start crooked and shallow seating didn't do enough to correct it.

I had this issue with short j-words in my Tokarev. Like .32 Auto short. These bullets would barely enter the case before the ogive was at the neck, and 90% of them were tipped about 30°. All went into battery and went bang just fine, but was accuracy was predictably terrible. I think the cause was the bottleneck seating die allowed them to tip on the way to the seating stem. Longer boolits seat just fine.

[Bama]

Look at the fit between the seater stem and the end of the bullet and the end of the bullet for any mold lines which can cant the bullet. I do not used a Loadmaster but have had to to deepen and lap in the seater to correctly fit the bullet profile to prevent canting of the bullet.

[gwpercle]

If there is any flat spot on that boolit , try a flat seating stem. A lot of times if a seating stem doesn't fit the profile Exactly , it makes straight seating problematic.
As soon as I started using a flat stem , even on a round nose bullet , my crooked bullets got better. I also had to flair the case mouth and start them in the case straight, but if I did my part the stem didn't push them out of alaignment and seemed to allow for some self centering when seating. I made a flat stem by fill one with JB Weld epoxy and sanding it flat, it can be removed if needed.
Gary

[popper]

RN doesn't fit the seeating stem. Had that problem with RN 9mm. Changed to FN and problm goes away. Get a proper stem.

[blikseme300]

A proper seating stem and maybe use a seating die with a sleeve. I have and use many Lee dies but for all my rifle loads I use the Hornady seating dies that have the sleeve. I have had to make or tweak a number of these as our CB's are typically too large for the ID though. YMMV.

[LAKEMASTER]

191259 here's my frustration

[trixter]

Check the boolit nose/seating stem fit, adjust as needed (make it fit), also if your barrel is 308, maybe just 1 or 2 thousandth over, maybe the 311 is just too fat to seat properly. make sure you open the mouth far enough to get it started very easily. Make sure the seating die is adjusted to take the bell out of the mouth (so that it crimps it back to proper size). I hope some of these suggestions help.

[berksglh]

Ive had same issues with 223 in a loadmaster. From what I remember, it turned out to be either the seater in the die, or the die its self. It did the same with J words but to a lessor degree I never niticed untill using for cast.

I replaced the lee 223 seater die with an RCBS and problem went away.

Ive tossed the LEE seater rod and Drilled out and repurposed that Lee die.

[popper]

For now, try rotating the case when seating, press a little, rotate, push some more, rotate, etc.

[LAKEMASTER]

Well, i found a rather quick fix for this issue. Its still not Totally how i want it but i at least found a source for improvement.

I paper patched ( shimmed ) the seating punch with paper.

My cone had .037 play between cone and cap. Its now snug.

I will play with it more when life allows me to

[LAKEMASTER]

Issue fixed completly

Installed rcbs seating die....

Looks like my lee die will be for my ranchdog bullets.

[44man]

I use 2 die brands, Redding and Hornady. A GC will not help a poor seat die but you should still use them on a boolit cut for them. You lose boolit length and the skid stop if you leave them off.
Using Hornady dies for the 30-30 and 06, I get zero to a max of .002" run out.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

A 'step' type neck expander like the Lyman 'M' Die or the NOE expander in a LEE die helps straighten things out when seating as opposed to the 'bell' expander that only keeps lead from shaving.and does nothing to help straight seating. On the Lee Loadmaster I put the neck expander at the priming step.

[fatelvis]

Even when using Redding's or Forster's BR seaters, I rotate them partially through the seating process, to avoid just this problem completely.

[LAKEMASTER]

it looks like this thread is dead, so i just wanted to give you all a completed update on everything i tried and the fixes...

there were 2 main things i changed.

1st was the RCBS SEATING DIE. which made things better/fixed completely for the non GC bullets i was trying to load.

2 nd thing. was shimming the lee die with paper so that its tight.

3 rd thing was simply adding gaschecks.

i loaded 60 "competition " loads yesterday with gas checks. all were straight and true. i used both lee and rcbs to find no difference


4 th thing <<<<<< and probably the best thing i discovered >>>>>>>>>

was the little dish i was getting all the crooked bullets from, were out-of-round castings...

so, it pays to look all options before blaming the equipment.

hope this helps someone.!!!!!!