Dumb question time about bullet seating

[armoredman]

Thanks for the idea!

[myg30]

A little off topic but only by a degree or two, LOL!

I recently began using a Pair of CH Auto Champion progressive press, one for 9mm and 40 S&W the other for big bore stuff like 45 ACP and 44 mag.

Started with the 9mm first and it loaded well but I ran into a big issue with OAL I couldn't keep it within .010 inches to save my life!

Spent a lot of time constantly readjusting the seating depth, die height and even explored a possible fault in my FCD die, all to no luck!

Then I took the seating die apart and realized that the seating plug was hitting the sides of the boolit, rather than the nose, and was moving as I seated the boolit.

A quick trip to the kitchen and a small piece of Tin Foil, Reynolds to the rescue!, rolled in it a small ball dropped into the seater die and press a loaded and crimped round up into it to compress it into the seater plug and take the boolits shape, by the way it's Lee's 120 TC non tumble lube.

It took two or three compress's to settle the foil in but since then OAL has remained static!

A simple cure left over from a tip I got 20 years ago when dealing with Lyman 429303 44 boolit, faster than epoxy's and easy to remove if needed.

Try some foil in your seater plug and see if helps, if it does you can pursue an inline seater die to permanently solve the runout problem.

HM

Never would of thought about alunium foil. Thank you HM fer that tip. Hope I remember when I need it next. Old age creeping up.
Mike

[JBinMN]

I like that idea, but am curious as to how that foil stays in the die?

[swheeler]

You don't say what diameter you are sizing too, but have had to hone out inside of seating die on many dies. Take your seating stem out of the die, drop in one of your Bater bullets and see if it will go through the die, if not hone out just enough to let it push through with no scraping.

Those dies were made for .224" jacketed bullets

[armoredman]

.225 is what I size to. Good idea - I'll check.

[dogmower]

try using a lyman "m" die to flare the case mouth. they have an extended section of the die that engages the case below the case mouth to give the boolit a little more room. basically they were designed to flare cases for cast boolits to avoid shaving or otherwise distorting the boolit on seating. I have about 20 of them for various calibers and they DO make a huge difference.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

does CH still make dies or are they out of business, if so where can I find them?

[KenT7021]

Do a search for CH 4D.

[swheeler]

https://www.ch4d.com/products/dies........... try here

[kbstenberg]

I am surprised no one has said to do the seat and crimp in 2 different operations.

[vzerone]

I'm not a huge fan of Lee dies especially their seating die. That dies doesn't have very much of a area to support the bullet. One of the best seating dies on the market is Forster Benchrest seating die. It's kind of an inline seater. The bullet is FULLY supported. I ran a test on cartridge/bullet concentricity on two loaded 7x57 Mauser cartridges, one loaded and seated with RCBS dies and one seated with the Forster Benchrest die. The Benchrest die seated the bullet much much more concentric.

Not hot on M dies either. Take an M die and a flare die such as a RCBS Expander die, and seat a soft lead flatbase bullet in each of them, then pull the bullet and see which one damaged the bullet more in seating. Eye opener. Also on the M die you have a lot more area of expand case mouth to size back in or crimp and they don't allow as good a crimp as a flared mouth. Yes many people use and love them though. Just my two cents.

[armoredman]

Well, since my budget for new toys is pretty minimal, I just loaded some into cases I used my new Lee Universal Expanding Die on, set to just BARELY expand the neck to allow the boolit to stand up straight. Seating was 100% better, with most showing very minimal run out and even seating. Haven't done the tin foil thing yet - ran out. Then I tried to use the Lee Factory Crimp Die to return the neck size back to where it should be - that didn't quite work as well as I thought it would, with the necks staying out about .005 farther than I was hoping...so I loaded some dummies doing the exact same setup, (including trimmer/chamfering/etc), and loaded them into the BREN. Under manual cycling, everything loaded just fine, and the boolits did not move, no issues.
Live fire will have to wait until I have some more time off, but I look forward to it! One step at a time...

[Wayne Smith]

Now that you have the Lee flare die you can invest in a few of the NOE inserts to get a true M style seat base in your brass. It will help.

[Edward429451]

Yeah those M dies are sweet for the cast boolits. And Lyman was very cool to me. I moved from Colorado () to Ohio again and stored my reloading stuff at a buddy's place, and he went to move the box to make more room...and dumped the whole box and both my 44 M die (insert) and the 45 insert was lost. Lyman replaced them both gratis and sent me new ones. I had them in 2 days even! Wow.

M dies make a big difference. How did I ever reload without them? Lol.

[armoredman]

What inserts? I am unfamiliar with NOE inserts that would fit a Lee die?

[Edward429451]

What inserts? I am unfamiliar with NOE inserts that would fit a Lee die?

The expander that screws into the die. Are you guys only talking Lee in this thread? Sorry. I seen M dies being discussed...

[Edward429451]

I am surprised no one has said to do the seat and crimp in 2 different operations.

That's a given, isn't it? I've been doing it in two steps for...decades now.

[armoredman]

No, we're not limiting discussion - most of my die sets are Lee, with a couple of RCBS thrown in for flavor. I have never used an M die and don't know the differences. I'm a very low budget reloader/caster, and use what I can find.
Edward429451, I use the Lee bullet seater, which is set for a minimal crimp, and then the Lee Factory Crimp Die as needed. Would you recommend a different way of doing it, and how would that be? I have only been loading and casting for a little over one decade so far, so my experience is not your equal.

[Edward429451]

No, we're not limiting discussion - most of my die sets are Lee, with a couple of RCBS thrown in for flavor. I have never used an M die and don't know the differences. I'm a very low budget reloader/caster, and use what I can find.
Edward429451, I use the Lee bullet seater, which is set for a minimal crimp, and then the Lee Factory Crimp Die as needed. Would you recommend a different way of doing it, and how would that be? I have only been loading and casting for a little over one decade so far, so my experience is not your equal.

Well I load quite a bit of big bore pistol. 45 acp, 45 colt, and 44 mag and use cast boolits and use the M dies on those because a lot rides on how good you seat the boolit I've noticed, lol. I like to get it seated in there real nice and then I use standard roll crimps on the revo rounds
and factory crimp dies or Lees crimp dies for anything jacketed or most rifle rounds, with the exception of 45/70 with those big fat cast boolits. Once you use an M die expander you wont want to go back.

[armoredman]

I did get several testers loaded, but getting out to the range will take a few...work came up again.
Does the M die expander work with all calibers or is it separate for each?