good boolits, confused press

[gumby6288]

so i did my first melt the other night, everything turned out good, went to go lube with some lyman alox (it was all i could get on short notice) and when i went to go press the boolit into a shiny new casing, the ram went up and felt usual then came down with just the casing.... any help? lesson learned btw, molten lead and alcohol are not to be done together :drinks:

[augois]

so i did my first melt the other night, everything turned out good, went to go lube with some lyman alox (it was all i could get on short notice) and when i went to go press the boolit into a shiny new casing, the ram went up and felt usual then came down with just the casing.... any help? lesson learned btw, molten lead and alcohol are not to be done together :drinks:

The bullet may just a bit too large for the opening in the top of your seater die (where the seater plug comes through), thereby grabbing the bullet and keeping it all for itself. You may be able to polish that opening abit to enlarge it enough for free passage of your boolit.

[405]

It do happen... some seater stem - bullet combos are more prone to do it than others. If the bullet ogive is a near perfect fit into the seater or is slightly swaged into the seater then not too uncommon. Alox is kinda tacky also. Additionally if the ID of the case neck is say .458 and the OD of the bullet is .458 then it is even more common :roll:.

Check to see if there is some neck tension between bullet and sized case neck.... usually .001-.002 is all that is needed... any more that that is wasted and can cause neck runout. Next, clean the seater with some solvent. While it is out of the die take some 400 grit or finer sand paper/cloth and polish the inside surface of the seater.... sometimes there is a circular machining sprue edge or sharp tool mark left on them. Next, maybe have to wipe the excess lube off the nose of the bullet.... although the above remedies should take care of 99% of the stuck problems.

And, as augois suggested check the diameter of the bullet versus the diameter of the throat of the die and the case crimp shoulder. Easy to check- just take the stem out of the die and drop a bullet in to see.

[gumby6288]

well thanks to the two of you, ill see if i cane remedy this tonight

[Heavy lead]

Sounds like you might have a really big oversized expanding die, or have it cranked down too far. What shape boolit are you using and what dies are they, and of what vintage. I use javelina alox with pretty good success, but my neck tension on my cases is tight enough you can usually see the lube grooves on a hard boolit.

[dromia]

Hey Gumby!

Welcome to Cast Boolits. :-D:drinks::-D