Excessive crimp creates a bulge

[00buck]

I loaded up some .44 mag and put to much crimp. They must be pushed into the cylinder rather than drop into the cylinder.

After firing with much recoil out of my Ruger Red Hawk the empty brass is hard to extract.

Do you think if I remove the decapping pin and resize the rounds in my press it would fix the problem?

Either that or pull them and start over.

Any thoughts?

[Burnt Fingers]

If you resize them you're going to swage down the boolit and cause other problems. Just pull them...THEN resize and reload them.

[Bazoo]

Yes, you can resize them if you remove the decapping stem. However, if you fully resize, the bullets will be swaged undersized. If you just resize enough to remove the bulge (1/16"-1/8") you will be okay. Don't forget to crimp those again, once you better adjust your crimp die.

If they can be chambered, I would shoot them without resizing unless it was a bunch.

The bulged crimp won't increase pressure enough to cause sticky extraction in itself. Either your load is on the ragged edge already or you have rough chambers.

[Paul D. Heppner]

Your sizing die will crush everything. Your sizer brings the brass down to basically under size then you use an expander which leaves the ID of the brass a thousandth or two under bullet diameter which once you seat a bullet the OD will be a considerably more than the size die will be able to swallow. Not to mention the bullet would end up severely undersized. Start pulling! And double check your load.

[00buck]

Yep I’ll just pull them and do over. Why worry about it.
I’ll check each one in my chambers and just pull the tight ones.

Thanks for the response ... appreciated

00buck

[USSR]

Don't use your resizing die on them, it won't work. In the future, you should do one of two things: either seat your bullets and crimp them in separate operations; or don't crimp as much as you are doing.

Don

[Winger Ed.]

I'd pull 'em.

After you've resized & reloaded them, back off the crimp a little.

Crimping that much, there is nowhere for the top of the case to go after the crimp is rolled in so far.
The only place the case mouth can go is down, and make a bulge.

[charlie b]

That's why I like the Lee factory crimp die. It does not depend on case length and is not shoving on the bullet as the crimp is applied. It is an extra step but it is worth it to me.

[nicholst55]

Try trimming all the brass to a uniform length before loading. That allows you to apply a uniform, consistent roll crimp, especially if you're loading mixed headstamp brass. I seat bullets in one step and crimp in a separate step. Extra effort, but I feel that the results are worth the extra time.

[00buck]

All good information..
I’ll pull them and do better.

[Norske]

Even straight cases have a bit of taper. Try pushing them just barely into the sizing die. Try them, and push them a little deeper until they chamber like they should. I have Lee dies, so i can use their "finishing" die to iron out any bulges.
The above method works better with all steel dies, not so well with carbide dies (which make the cases cylinders).

[Walks]

If you have a .44cal taper crimp, try the tiniest bit of crimp. Or if you have a steel sizer, you can run a slightly greasy finger around the case mouth and push the round the smallest bit into the die with decap rod removed.

And if you don't want to do a "quick & dirty ?". use an impact hammer, pull the bullets, dump the powder, resize the case w/o decap rod, expand them, then FIGURE WHAT THE DEVIL'S WRONG WITH YOUR SEAT-CRIMP die. Or Adjustment thereof.

Or your method of bullet seating and crimping. If you're using a Progressive, then you will have discovered why I use a Separate Taper Crimp die.

[Bazoo]

I've resized just the crimp area of many loaded rounds using a regular carbide die. It does help to lube the portion being sized.

I also trim my revolver brass for consistency. I have loaded mixed brass without trimming and the key is to measure a good handful of cases and find a long one and set your crimp to that. I set my dies to crimp and seat in the same operation. It's possible, it just takes a little patience to get it where it needs to be.

[RJM52]

If you get one of the Lee factory crimp dies, it may iron out the bulge...

Now use them in almost all my calibers and have not seated and crimped in one operating in about 40 years...haven't trimmed any handgun brass in all that time either. .357 seems to be the only caliber that I load that stretches at all...

Bob

[GregLaROCHE]

I would anneal the brass before resizing it. Are you sure of your boolit diameter?

[SSGOldfart]

After checking out the above mentioned information,try cleaning your seating die,my 550 will do the same thing when lube builds up in the die.