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Thread: 38 Special shaving lead while bullet seating.

  1. #21
    Boolit Bub
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    And one follow-up question. Does pulling the bullet out of a roll-crimped case with a bullet puller yield different results than actually firing the bullet in terms of reducing the bullet diameter? Unfortunatelly I heave no way to recover a fired bullet without it deforming upon impact, so this is rather a theoretical question.

  2. #22
    Boolit Grand Master tazman's Avatar
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    The case is supposed to open up slightly when fired, theoretically allowing the boolit past the crimp without sizing it down.
    Also, with a sufficiently soft alloy, which yours may well be, the boolit will obdurate and seal the bore from the pressure of firing.
    You almost certainly need the crimp to maintain the OAL in the cylinder during firing. Without a crimp, the boolits in the non fired rounds can slip forward and lock up the cylinder.

  3. #23
    Boolit Grand Master

    gwpercle's Avatar
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    What happens if :
    1.) You don't use the factory crimp die.
    2.) seat the boolit in one step
    3.) Apply a med/light roll crimp, with the regular crimp die, in a separate step.
    This method should keep any swaging down.

    Exactly what boolit are you casting and when using your Lee FCD method what problems are you having...leading, accuracy?

    I cast load and shoot soft 38 special, 357 magnum and 9mm luger boolits myself ...I have a few tricks for making them work. The biggest one is the gas check.
    Gary
    Last edited by gwpercle; 01-18-2018 at 04:53 PM.
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  4. #24
    Boolit Bub
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    If I do not apply any crimp, I get unburned powder all over the place and big spread in muzzle velocities. If I try to crimp with the seating die, I get lead and/or PC shaved off the sides of the boolit. The third option - i.e. to roll crimp lightly with another crimp die I did not try as I only have the modified FCD on hand. Of course the lighter crimp I apply, the less swaging of the bullet I get when pulling it out. But it is there.

    Nevertheless, having the carbide ring on FCD enlarged, all it does is apply a roll crimp, so I am unsure whether I should buy another crimp die (like Redding profile Crimp die) as I read somewhere on this forum that the roll crimp itself is about the same with redding and Lee...but that is just heresay.

    The bullet I use is Thompson 358156 HP made by MIHA. I crimp to the bottom groove, i.e. there is some bearing area sticking out of the case which does not get swaged. I have yet to test these on a range, will do some shooting probably tomorow. I just loaded a few dummies and pull them apart to make sure everything is in order and discovered this.

    Before I used various designs of 9mm cast boolits like the SWC H&G 275 or MIHA's 359-153 round nose in 38 special with just light taper crimp, which did not give me any leading issues and accuracy was satisfactory (though not great due to some spread in velocities), but I was getting unburned powder probably due to lack of bullet retention in the case, which did not allow the fast powder to generate enough pressure to burn clean.

    That is why I started to experiment with a proper 38 sp. boolit and roll crimp into the groove, only to discover the swaging issue.

  5. #25
    Boolit Buddy Landy88's Avatar
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    I wonder if you even have a problem, and suspect that pulling the bullets is deforming previously good bullets in good ammo.

    Shoot it - measure the groups - clean the gun - let the gun, not the bullet puller tell the tale.
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  6. #26
    Boolit Bub
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    I shot some of the bullets today with low to medium powder charges (700-830 FPS), all to the same effect. Accuracy was acceptable - palm sized groups at 25 meters, shot off hand out of my 3" Smith mod. 64. I can do a little better on a good day (2-3" is about as goot as I can get). But got a smidge of lead traces in the first half of the barrel. When I use the same powder charge under the same bullet, which has not been roll-crimped (just very slight taper crimp), I get no leading at all, but also lower FPS and more unburned powder.

    So first I am gonna try to up the charge a bit to get 900-950 FPS and see, whether that makes the bullets obturate and form a better seal. If that fails, I'll stiffen the alloy a bit to say 13 BHN and see where that gets me.
    Last edited by Law.man; 01-22-2018 at 12:11 PM.

  7. #27
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    Something nobody else not mentioned, but which helps when loading soft lead bullets in revolver cases is to inside deburr the case mouths of fired brass before sizing and expanding them. This breaks the sharp edge from the factory pinch-trim and gives you a smoother start of the bullet into the flared case so that less flaring is necessary. This is particularly important when using mixed headstamp range pickup brass of varying lengths, when loading on a progressive machine, such as the Dillon.

    Using a bevel-based bullet also helps in machine loading.

    This step only needs to be done once, but if you do this along with using either the CORRECT Lyman M die or RCBS Cowboy expander, your lead shaving problems will be over. The expander plug should be 0.002" less than bullet diameter, no more, otherwise you will deform the bullet.

    If you want to load .360" bullets in the .38 Special without sizing them, you will need a .38 S&W (NOT Special) expander plug (.3575-.3580") With some .,38 Special brass loading a .360" bullet diameter results in the loaded cartridge diameter exceeding maximum, being too snug to enter the revolver chambers easily, particularly if your gun happens to be snug, or dirty from lots of shooting and improper (inadequate) cleaning of lead and carbon from the charge holes.

    I recommend that every time the loading machine is set up that a dozen rounds be checked in a max. cartridge drop gage, to ensure that excessive crimp or bullet diameter does not cause a bulge either at the case mouth or adjacent the bullet base down the body of the case. IF that is the case, either the Redding Profiler or the Lee Factory Crimp Die installed at the last die station will remove the bullet bulge and size the bullet by compression inside the case.
    Last edited by Outpost75; 01-22-2018 at 12:56 PM.
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  8. #28
    Boolit Mold
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    Something that I don't think was mentioned is that your brass may have work hardened to the point that the crimped end will not open up efficiently when fired. If you have some new unfired brass or just anneal the neck of a few rounds to soften up the crimp a little it may help. There are several decent youtube videos on annealing if you've never done it before.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check