.45-70 case mouth flaring

[spelunkerrn]

Reloading .45-70 with 405 grain lead bullet over FFG. After doing all the other necessary stuff I belled the case mouth. The bullets fit in nicely by hand but when I went to test chamber my dummy round the breach block on my C Sharps 1875 required lots of force to open. The brass was WW full lengthed resized, trimmed to specs. I should add that a new unsized, un-belled piece of brass extracted just fine. So did I put too much of a bell on the cases and if so how to adjust the die to do it just right. I should add that this is first time reloading straight walled cases, I've reloaded bottlenecks before. Thanks.

[SharpsShooter]

Your problem can be solved by using the seating die to remove the bell. Back the seating stem off and adjust the body of the die as you would to apply crimp, but stop just short of that point. The loaded round should chamber. If not, repeat the adjustment steps and go a bit further. Once set, be sure to put a correct round in the press,run the shell into the die fully and adjust the steating stem down to touch the boolit.

Should fix ya


SS

[Bear Claw]

or you could get a meechem seater and not bell the mouth at all,,, It works for me ...just my .02

[Gunlaker]

You might be putting in too much of a bell. I generally try to keep it so it's just as small as necessary to start the bullet in the brass up to the first lube groove. You can adjust it by backing out the expander stem.

Chris.

[powderburnerr]

you might also measure the plug , make sure it isnt too big, you want a couple tho. neck tension or less ....Dean

[John Boy]

... when I went to test chamber my dummy round the breach block on my C Sharps 1875 required lots of force to open.

Two ways to resolve the bell issue from scraping the chamber wall making it hard to extract a loaded round:
1. Take out the decaper pin in the resizing die and then put the loaded round into the resizing die just enough so their is initial tension on the case. This will remove the bell
2. With a crimping die, just use a gravity drop of the press handle to 'tap' the case a couple of times. This will eliminate the bell flare and not put any addition crimp on the bullet

Also, reduce the bell so it opens the case mouth just enough to allow the bullet base to be seated half way into the case. A small flare is sufficient

[jh45gun]

Just buy a Lee Factory Crimp Die since it has a Collet to crimp the brass it takes out any belling of the brass nicely and you can set them up to just take out the bell if need be with no or little crimp.

[montana_charlie]

So did I put too much of a bell on the cases and if so how to adjust the die to do it just right.

Others have been providing you with reasonable solutions to the problem you think you are experiencing, but you have not responded with results of trying that advice.

You asked how to make adjustments to prevent putting too much 'bell' in your cases, but you did not say what kind of tool you use to do that.

There are 'flaring' dies and there are 'expander' dies. The flaring dies are somewhat 'universal' in nature, and not very precise. The plug in an expanding die is pretty 'foolproof' if used correctly, but you may need a plug with different diameters.

The precision of your input (to us) will have an effect on the quality of the advice provided.

CM

[9.3X62AL]

1. Take out the decaper pin in the resizing die and then put the loaded round into the resizing die just enough so their is initial tension on the case. This will remove the bell.

AKA "Old School Taper Crimping". I use this method with some frequency.

[Tom-ADC]

I use a Lyman seperate taper crimp die, I think it may be possible to get to much crimp with the collet type crimper on the 45-70.

[spelunkerrn]

Thank you everyone for the advice. I've been using an RCBS 3 die set for my .45-70 loading. So I'm not sure if its an expanding die or flaring die. I have tried removing the decapper pin off the sizing die and this works the best, has the benefit of being an economical/simple fix.