brass collapsing..

[quiknot]

after casting a few boolits... while reloading collapse the brass when it is being seated and crimped.....it only happens occassionally like maybe 1 - 20...so am alittle confused...

also how does one find the bullet hardness..is the a way to check it without some fancy equipment?

any suggestions?

thanks

[doc25]

What dies are you using? If you're using the lee neck sizing die then the collet might not be releasing. Take a peek at the instructions, I think they call it buckled shoulders.

[mag_01]

Case collapsing means they are two long or at least longer than others in set up

[quiknot]

been thru the instructons a few times...thinking theya re not sized correctly...tho i do not size them once cast....

[TCLouis]

my guess is that each of the cases you are collapsing is longer that the rest.

Does NOT take much when thousandths count.

[wheezengeezer]

are the bullits catching the case mouth? a bit of flare may help.if you are roll crimping,trimming to ensure uniform cases helps.taper crimping semiauto's might get by with a bit more variation but i check to keep headspace correct.i like to seat and crimp in seperate operations.never used a lee factory crimp die.dont know anything about them

[mooman76]

What type of brass are we talking about, is it straight walled ? And yes there is a lead harness tester to deturmine the hardness of lead.

[vangunsmith]

Are you flareing your brass? One can over flare,and to some point underflare. A flat base bullet needs help when seating,as it need to start our in line with the case,this is a gentle feeling process as well.I would also double check on how you have you dies set up. vangunsmith

[44man]

Only two things I can think of. You are forgetting to run the cases into the expander die and if you are, you have not adjusted it for a little flare to start the boolit.
Maybe one more thing, you must start seating and also finish to the crimp by going slowly with the press handle. If you are ramming it at top speed, you will ruin everything. There is no operation that requires that handle to be moved fast.
Go by feel, not speed.

[454PB]

Since you are not sizing your boolits, it sounds like they are too large for the case mouth and/or neck. Normal reloading die neck expanders are designed for jacketed bullets of a SAAMI design diameter. If you cast boolits are say, .003" larger than the normal jacketed bullet for that caliber, you're going to collapse the case. You need to either reduce that boolit's diameter, or use an expander device to open up the case mouth and/or neck after resizing and before boolit seating.

[bigborefan]

Quicknot, To answer your second question about a cheap way of calculating bullet hardness,Yes and I'll tell you how I do it. I read this in a cast bullet reference book. I chuck a pneumatic rivet tool (you can find them on Ebay for less than $5) in my drill press. Place a bathroom scale on your drill press table with something like an 1/8" plate on it. You then place the lead ingot or bullet if the nose is big enough and with a flat nose. Then you take a 7/16" steel ball bearing and place it on the flat of the lead and lower the rivet tool down making contact with the ball bearing. Keep lowering it until you reach 200 lbs on the scale. Hold it for a few seconds and then release it. Then measure the indentation left by the ball bearing. Works great. My linotype measurement comes out to 22 BHN which is exactly where it should be and pure lead comes out 5 BHN whic is where it should be. If you are interested in using trhis method, let me know and I'll look up the chart that you use to calculate the indentation size to BHN numbers. I also have a picture somewhere showing what the setup looks like in case you can't picture that rivet tool setup.

[Newtire]

after casting a few boolits... while reloading collapse the brass when it is being seated and crimped.....it only happens occassionally like maybe 1 - 20...so am alittle confused...

also how does one find the bullet hardness..is the a way to check it without some fancy equipment?

any suggestions?

thanks

I used this before with good results. Spray a little NAPA dry graphite lube on a swab, carefully swipe it around inside of neck & let it dry just before running the neck expander thru. If the boolit friction is collapsing it, that takes care of that. I like using the Lee Factory crimp tool for my bottle necks and roll crimp the straight walled.

[UweJ]

Hello
I´m the new one from Germany.
I just started to smelt my own, but been reloading for a while. Had that problem once and it was just a little dirt in the case holder.
It settled in the rim and every now and then came under a case making it stand at an angle.When raising it into the die it came up lobsided and crushed the case.
After cleaning it never occured again.Hope it helps a bit.
Uwe

[shooter2]

All good advice. Also, try seating and crimping as two separate steps. Either buy a separate crimp die, like the Lee factory Crimp Die, or use your combo die and readjust after seating. That is, first set the die to seat, then turn it down a bit, back out the seating plug (stem) and crimp.