A lot of force required with bullet puller - what if this round was fired instead?

[Siggy226]

Hello,

I'm a little concerned here. Not knowing the physics involved. It appears that my Lee FCD is resizing the bullet a little as well. I was pulling out some dummy rounds and most of them come out with one casual hit. But a few require a little more force and one took 5 big hits to come out.

How would this affect actual firing? I know crimping bullet too much will increase pressure, but what about the bullets that take extra force to pull out that is not related to the crimp?

The crimp is about 2/5 turn. Just enough to take out the bell.

Oops. I forgot to mention, it's for 9mm.

Thanks!

[243winxb]

Military 5.56mm rounds take 45 lbs to pull the bullet. As long as your round is not crimped by the chamber on loading, you are OK. Bolt action rifles , when a case is to long, needs trimming, the loaded round gets crimped in. Pressures go sky high. Also if the neck diameter of the loaded round is to large, it will also crimp in the chamber. When the bullet cant move, high pressure is the results. KABOOM

[oneokie]

Could be thicker necks, could be the necks are more work hardened on the difficult ones.

[runfiverun]

the ones that come out with an easy hit do not have enough neck tension and could be the fcdie as you suggest.
i had to pull some swc's from some 44 special brass and beat the inertia puller so hard and so long i just gave up and threw the [brand new brass] loads away. [i put two primers in wrong]
the load 4 grs titegroup and they come out the bbl fine and apparently have enough umph at 100 yds to tip over the rams.

[Siggy226]

Cool... I'll load my cast bullets with FCD for now. All things considered, I guess neck tension on the toughest bullet to pull out ain't that bad. I've been reading for hours and hours and everyone is aware of not crimping too much, seating to deep and of course, not making loads too hot. Resizing casing with FCD doesn't sound like an issue, but I'll watch out for it anyway.

I'm preparing to lead up my barrel with test loads for tomorrow. LOL

Thanks!

[Catshooter]

Siggy,

The Lee FCD can size down a boolit, I've measured some of mine and it has. Doesn't allways, just depends. I suppose it could also size down a jacketed bullet, never measured.

Tight neck tension (for you) is a tiny force for the firing process to overcome. In fact, most of the time the primer alone will unseat the bullet and will often unseat a boolit and drive it partially down the bore.


Cat

[DLCTEX]

Surplus military ammo has been cemented with asphalt. They are so stuck that it helps to seat the bullet a little deeper to break the bond before pulling. Of course they are probably loaded taking this into consideration.

[44man]

9mm with different boolit pull sounds like mixed brass. Tension all over the place and hits all over the target too.
Dump the FCD and use the seat die to crimp.

[MtGun44]

I go with 44man 100%, he beat me to it. 9mm seems to have the most varied brass if
I use range pickup brass, which I do a lot. Some foreign mil brass has necks that are very
thick, some (esp US commercial) has much thinner necks. I use and like the Lee RIFLE
factory crimp die but from what I have read, I am going to continue to stay away from
the PISTOL factory crimp die which is a TOTALLY different concept from the rifle FCD.

The concept of full length resizing the loaded round as a final 'quality control' step sounds
good in principle, but really if you run the process and it produces a round that won't chamber
I submit that your PROCESS is not under control and you need to stop and see what the
issue is, not try to backend bandaid it with a pistol FCD. It seems that the likely culprit
is thick case neck walls which, when a (necessarily) oversized cast boolit is seated, may
wind up with a neck OD too large to chamber. The brass may have been suitable for a
.354 to .355 jacketed boolit, but is not OK for a .357 to .358 cast boolit. Might even get the
brass to size down the boolit a bit if the alloy is soft. Then running the oversized cartidge
thru the pistol FCD you compress the cartridge, the neck springs back but the lead does not
(or does to a much lesser degree) and you have lost or reduced your neck tension.

I had a newbie reloader blow a case head recently in .45 ACP. He was using Clays and
a Lee pistol FCD, and had a couple of rounds where the boolit pushed back "a bit" - discovered
when clearing an unfired round that had been through the feeding cycle.

First point, Clays will NOT make full power in a .45 ACP without going over the SAAMI pressure
limits. I know lots of folks that are using Clays because it burns very clean, however you are
cutting into your margins, never good. They usually get away with it - but with less safety
margin. Now, with the pistol FCD, he was losing neck tension, and even with a decent, but
maybe a tad marginal, taper crimp - a boolit pushed WAY into the case. This reduces the
combustion chamber volume, greatly increasing the pressure. But, he is already using an
overpressure load and he ran out of safety margin. Blown case head, fortunately no damage
to gun and shooter beyond the grips, this time. I have seen this cause the 2nd round in
the mag to go, too, bending the slide on a 1911 below the ejection port. I have seen a
Glock that split and totaled the frame.

Ya'll stay away from the Lee PISTOL FCD. If you are having the problem that the FCD is
intended to address - oversized finished rounds - please look elsewhere in your reloading
process to solve the problem. And don't go overpressure - sure, you can get away with it
for a while, but you have reduced your safety margins. Not good and it will likely catch up
with you one day.

Bill

[runfiverun]

the fcd's are basically oversized rejects from the carbide sizers they make.
i ain't even sure they grind them to an exact size.
it sure is a case of making money from junk though [another great idea brought to you from]
the case size thickness is real enough in the 9mm and case length is a big issue in accuracy in the 9mm too.

[Siggy226]

Thanks for the input!

I tried a few rounds with and without Lee FCD. Unscientifically speaking, they seem to go boom the same way, but I hear ya. It is resizing my cast bullets a tiny bit. With or without FCD, it chambers my Sig. But my gauge is useless for measuring my cast bullets (with or without FCD).

Now I just need to figure out the right recipe and to reduce lead fouling. I fired about 30 of my cast leads today at various loads. Not sure which load is culprit, but my barrel did get some fouling. I soaked barrel in Hoppes 9 for a bit and 10s with copper brush got most of lead off.

[stephen perry]

I like Dale's method on military cemented bullets. Seat them in just enough to break the bond then pull them. I remember many nights as a kid with my inertia puller whacking the garage floor trying to remove 30 cal black tips. Didn't seem to concern me if I blew up had to get that bullet out. Didn't realize there was an easy way, the way Dale expained. Thanks Dale.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR :brokenima