BruceB
04-29-2006, 10:47 PM
A young friend called up today, all worried because he was shaving his new cast bullets when seating them. The cartridge in question is the .30-30. I advised him as to what I would do, and sent him forth to do battle yet again with the forces of darkness.
After giving the matter some thought, I got to wondering how many others are suffering the same difficulties. Therefore, I'm striking off on this tangent.
A lot of my gear is rather old, and precedes some of todays concepts by DECADES. I have RCBS dies dated 1967, which I personally bought in that same time period. This means NO "M" dies, or sliding sleeves in dies to guide bullets, or any of that. I've never seen instructions for the way I've been seating cast bullets for all these many years, either.
Take the 7.62 NATO stuff I was loading today. I sized them in an RCBS small-base sizer (I have an X-die now, but haven't used it yet). Rotating the turret one click brought up the M1 Carbine expander die, which is set to deliver a definite flare or bell on the casemouth. Then to the powder measure, and then on to the real reason for this thread, the seater die...an absolutely normal, garden-variety RCBS seater.
When I load JACKETED bullets with such seaters, I set the die body as low as it will go without crimping cases, and then adjust seating depth with the seating stem. In this manner I get the maximum guidance for the bullet by the die walls as it travels up into the die before seating takes place. If this die setting is used for CAST boolits, that flare or bell is removed from the case mouth as soon as it enters the neck portion of the die, and....in many cases, the bullet is damaged by the case mouth after it's been straightened-out by the die's neck diameter.
I break some hard-and-fast "rules" when I load my cast ammo, at least by some folks' judgement. When adjusting for seating cast boolits like those I loaded today, I set the die body EXTREMELY high in the press, and the seating stem very low in the die. What I'm aiming for is to have the die's neck diameter contact the casemouth just before the end of upward travel by the case. In this manner, that flare on the mouth is preserved until the bullet is virtually seated at its final depth. Hence, there's little chance of damage by the case mouth scraping the bullet. My friend likely found that his long-necked .30-30s had the neck about 1/4" into the die neck when upward progress stopped, but he 's very happy with the results.
If one takes some care in placing the bullet in the casemouth, meaning as well-aligned as a reasonable eyeball can determine, there's little to go wrong. The bullet's positioning is guided by the base being IN the casemouth flare, and again by the seating stem inside the die centering the nose. I've never discovered any untoward misalignment using this method.
My young friend called back after adjusting his dies as above, and was both gleeful and grateful. His rounds were seating just fine, and he will be re-adjusting the seater to apply a moderate crimp for his tube-mag rifle after all the loading's done.
Most of my handgun loads use flat-nosed cast boolits, and I've even been known to use a larger-caliber die to seat the bullets in my Dillon 550. For example, a nicely-flared .357 case with a decently-aligned SWC bullet gets perfect seating in a .41 Magnum die with SWC stem, and there is NO chance of removing the flare on a .357 case in a .41 die! The round then proceeds to the final station on the 550, where the desired crimp is applied and no bullet damage is inflicted. Until I adopted this procedure for .357s, my dies were giving me fits in terms of bullet-scraping and slivers of alloy where they shouldn't be. There truly are other ways to skin some cats.
For a REAL heresy, how about this? On occasion, I've done seating to about 90% of full depth OUTSIDE the die, by using a flat surface between stations on the underside of the turret. With certain cartridges and dies, it was impossible to seat satisfactorily in the conventional manner, and again, so long as the bullet is in good alignment (straight up and down from ALL angles) it works well-enough. This takes careful control on the press handle, to avoid too-deep seating, but it can be done. Seating is then finished to final length with the die, and once again, there's little chance for the casemouth to damage the bullet.
As a final justification for the 7.62 loads above, these are the same recipe and methods used to load the 311467s which put ten rounds into 0.60" yesterday from 50 yards with the M1A's issued iron sights. I'd say that's not too shabby....
After giving the matter some thought, I got to wondering how many others are suffering the same difficulties. Therefore, I'm striking off on this tangent.
A lot of my gear is rather old, and precedes some of todays concepts by DECADES. I have RCBS dies dated 1967, which I personally bought in that same time period. This means NO "M" dies, or sliding sleeves in dies to guide bullets, or any of that. I've never seen instructions for the way I've been seating cast bullets for all these many years, either.
Take the 7.62 NATO stuff I was loading today. I sized them in an RCBS small-base sizer (I have an X-die now, but haven't used it yet). Rotating the turret one click brought up the M1 Carbine expander die, which is set to deliver a definite flare or bell on the casemouth. Then to the powder measure, and then on to the real reason for this thread, the seater die...an absolutely normal, garden-variety RCBS seater.
When I load JACKETED bullets with such seaters, I set the die body as low as it will go without crimping cases, and then adjust seating depth with the seating stem. In this manner I get the maximum guidance for the bullet by the die walls as it travels up into the die before seating takes place. If this die setting is used for CAST boolits, that flare or bell is removed from the case mouth as soon as it enters the neck portion of the die, and....in many cases, the bullet is damaged by the case mouth after it's been straightened-out by the die's neck diameter.
I break some hard-and-fast "rules" when I load my cast ammo, at least by some folks' judgement. When adjusting for seating cast boolits like those I loaded today, I set the die body EXTREMELY high in the press, and the seating stem very low in the die. What I'm aiming for is to have the die's neck diameter contact the casemouth just before the end of upward travel by the case. In this manner, that flare on the mouth is preserved until the bullet is virtually seated at its final depth. Hence, there's little chance of damage by the case mouth scraping the bullet. My friend likely found that his long-necked .30-30s had the neck about 1/4" into the die neck when upward progress stopped, but he 's very happy with the results.
If one takes some care in placing the bullet in the casemouth, meaning as well-aligned as a reasonable eyeball can determine, there's little to go wrong. The bullet's positioning is guided by the base being IN the casemouth flare, and again by the seating stem inside the die centering the nose. I've never discovered any untoward misalignment using this method.
My young friend called back after adjusting his dies as above, and was both gleeful and grateful. His rounds were seating just fine, and he will be re-adjusting the seater to apply a moderate crimp for his tube-mag rifle after all the loading's done.
Most of my handgun loads use flat-nosed cast boolits, and I've even been known to use a larger-caliber die to seat the bullets in my Dillon 550. For example, a nicely-flared .357 case with a decently-aligned SWC bullet gets perfect seating in a .41 Magnum die with SWC stem, and there is NO chance of removing the flare on a .357 case in a .41 die! The round then proceeds to the final station on the 550, where the desired crimp is applied and no bullet damage is inflicted. Until I adopted this procedure for .357s, my dies were giving me fits in terms of bullet-scraping and slivers of alloy where they shouldn't be. There truly are other ways to skin some cats.
For a REAL heresy, how about this? On occasion, I've done seating to about 90% of full depth OUTSIDE the die, by using a flat surface between stations on the underside of the turret. With certain cartridges and dies, it was impossible to seat satisfactorily in the conventional manner, and again, so long as the bullet is in good alignment (straight up and down from ALL angles) it works well-enough. This takes careful control on the press handle, to avoid too-deep seating, but it can be done. Seating is then finished to final length with the die, and once again, there's little chance for the casemouth to damage the bullet.
As a final justification for the 7.62 loads above, these are the same recipe and methods used to load the 311467s which put ten rounds into 0.60" yesterday from 50 yards with the M1A's issued iron sights. I'd say that's not too shabby....