Help with seating boolits/bullets evenly

[Tripplebeards]

I have noticed making some dummy rounds in my 450 Bushmaster that some of my HPs seated crooked. I figured maybe I didn’t flair out my case mouths enough? I had the same issue loading up some 180 grain Hornady XTPs in 44 mag and specials along with some other cast boolits a few years back. Any suggestions why they seat crooked and how to correct the issue?

[Winger Ed.]

A tiny bit more flare should help it stand up a little straighter as it goes up into the seater.

I'm not a big Lee guy, but their powder through the expander dies always did a real good job for me with that problem.

[tankgunner59]

I would flare that brass out a bit more too. I have had that happen when I was new to reloading in some of my 9mm Luger rounds and a little more flare fixed the problem. Once I got it fixed I used die bushings to lock down my dies and never looked back.

[Rcmaveric]

Follow above advises. I also rotate my brass 180* and repeat each step when striving for best accuracy.

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[Tripplebeards]

Follow above advises. I also rotate my brass 180* and repeat each step when striving for best accuracy.

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I do the same with every loading.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I've had runout issues with Rifle ammo when using a Lee seater die.
There is slop in their design (which is fine for J-words) and I found that slop is especially problematic with oversize cast boolits with wide Meplat and a unpolished nose insert...The lead nose seems to grip the insert in whatever angle it is started, and seats it that way...so if it is crooked, then it's stays crooked.
Because of that, I've replaced all my Lee rifle seat dies with Forster BR seat dies.

I'm surprised your 44 mag with J-words are doing that...I've never seen that happen.

[44Blam]

What I tend to do with boolits in a single stage is I try to seat the boolit as straight as possible and then I push it in and back off and then seat the boolit...

[Bazoo]

I've seated a fe bullets crooked when not having the case all they way into the shell holder. Maybe you have a piece of debris in your rim slot.

[Tripplebeards]

It was with 180 grain XTPs loaded in 44 mag cases I trimmed to special lengths. Made some trail boss loads with them for my S&W 329NG.

[wv109323]

If the bullet has a shoulder, you can"hollow out" the seating stem to contact the bullet around the circumference of the bullet.
Put the seating stem in a drill and remove the material.

[OldBearHair]

What wv109323 says.. I noticed some boolits I seated were crooked and found the seating die stem was not concentric and did not fit the boolit shoulder. Turned a new stem on the lathe custom shaped for the boolit and all turned out well. Yeah and be aware when seating 300 gr 44 mag boolits with big wide meplats. May call for another custom shaped seating stem. All the other stuff mentioned above is good advice as well.

[Tripplebeards]

I’ve been using a flat seater. I also changed it out with a conical one that came with my die set. Both seated crooked. I remembered I had to Over flair my cases to the point I could hear them scrape in my crimp die when lowering to crimp.

[popper]

Seating for SS press, just tap the handle to start the seating, then rotate a bit and a little deeper, continue till done. If it starts out real crooked, pull and re-try. Flare helps a little, as does BB. Possibly your neck is too small dia. so it can't straighten or misshapes the HP. First ran into the problem loading hard cast RN in 9mm, a real bugger. Assume these are PB cast. I use the Lee flare tool even though I have the Lyman M plugs.