45 acp reload problem

[covert]

This is the first time a casting and reloading pistol rounds. I cast a bunch of round nose boolits. Load 15 of them up, only one goes off. I've reloaded countless rifle and shotgun cartridges up, with no problems. So I pull 4 switch to a new box of primers press them in with my lee priming tool (I used rockchucker to press them in the first time).
This time 3 of the 4 go off. I also wet tumbled the brass before I loaded it. dried it briefly in the oven. I don't know maybe it wasn't dry enough? I also did a med. crimp with lee die, not the factory crimp die just regular. There were good primer strikes, and factory ammo went off with no problems, so its not the gun. Any ideas? Thanks

[FLINTNFIRE]

What brand of primers? there have been some problem primers sold in the past. Second question , seated fully ? try primers or reloads in another gun, and were the primer pockets dry as a bone so to speak or if you have pulled one does it show wetness?

[covert]

I did notice some of the powder grains sticking in the case (damp or static) I don't know. first batch of primers were rem.. second was cci.

[MtGun44]

Water in the primer pockets would sure do it.

How about high primers? Will they shoot the second time you hit them?

High primers is a pretty common reloading problem, so look for this first.

Bill

[wallenba]

You said medium crimp ? That was a taper crimp, right? How did you check the headspace? It might be possible that the strikes were light enough to fail, but deep enough to leave a dimple. Just covering all the bases here.

[Bucking the Tiger]

I have had similar problems with a slight trace of moisture in the brass. Any clumping of powder when you pull them apart is a sure sign.

[covert]

Ya its a taper crimp. case length .895. Headspace, I don't have a gauge for 45 acp. I'm thinking its a slight moisture problem now. I'll load some more today, I'm sure there completely dry by now. Thanks for the ideas on what to check.

[Tom Herman]

Welcome to the wonderful world of reloading!
All good advice so far...
The way I prepare brass is to first wash it with detergent and then wash repeatedly until the detergent is removed.
All the brass then goes on a dedicated cookie tray (one that is never used for food again!), and into the oven at just above boiling (about 225/250 degrees) for 45 minutes to an hour to dry.
Provided you've sloshed the brass around to pretty much empty them of water before you put them in the oven, this does the trick.
I would NEVER wash and rely on the brass drying naturally! Ditto with scrap bullets destined to go into the casting pot: I've seen the Tinsel Fairy visit from naturally dried lead that looked just fine.
After I dry the brass, it goes into my Dillon tumbler, and only when it's dry and now clean does it go into the reloading press.
You simply can't rush anything. Take the time to slowly and deliberately do everything.
A rushed job, or dirty casings, and you get garbage out.
Best of Luck!

-Tom

[Angus]

Moisture is the reason I won't wet tumble. Into the Harbor Freight vibratory tumble they go along with 2/3 rice to 1/3 Lyman walnut media. They come out shiny with no worries about a trace of moisture ruining a batch of ammo.

[wallenba]

Welcome to the wonderful world of reloading!
All good advice so far...
The way I prepare brass is to first wash it with detergent and then wash repeatedly until the detergent is removed.
All the brass then goes on a dedicated cookie tray (one that is never used for food again!), and into the oven at just above boiling (about 225/250 degrees) for 45 minutes to an hour to dry.
Provided you've sloshed the brass around to pretty much empty them of water before you put them in the oven, this does the trick.
I would NEVER wash and rely on the brass drying naturally! Ditto with scrap bullets destined to go into the casting pot: I've seen the Tinsel Fairy visit from naturally dried lead that looked just fine.
After I dry the brass, it goes into my Dillon tumbler, and only when it's dry and now clean does it go into the reloading press.
You simply can't rush anything. Take the time to slowly and deliberately do everything.
A rushed job, or dirty casings, and you get garbage out.
Best of Luck!

-Tom

I do a similar thing. I ultrasonic clean, rinse, and use an old toaster oven. works great, but discolors the brass. Tumbling shines them up again.
Like Tom says, don't rely on air drying.

[Lizard333]

I use SS media exclusively to clean my brass. I used to put my brass in a 200 degree oven and just shut it off. Worked well enough. Now I put all my brass in a food dehydrator on the highest setting. 15 minutes and the brass is good and dry, no discoloring.

Btw, I'm thinking your problems stemmed from wet brass. I had a lot if the same problems you had using brass that wasn't dry enough.

[prs]

Ya its a taper crimp. case length .895. Headspace, I don't have a gauge for 45 acp. I'm thinking its a slight moisture problem now. I'll load some more today, I'm sure there completely dry by now. Thanks for the ideas on what to check.

Sure you do! Use the gun's barrel for the plunk test.

prs

[Jeffrey]

Another thing to watch out for is primer handling techniques. Traces of oil on fingers that touch anvil side of primers can / may deactivate that primer. Oil is poison for priming compound.
Argh, Jeffrey

[jonp]

Welcome to the wonderful world of reloading!
All good advice so far...
The way I prepare brass is to first wash it with detergent and then wash repeatedly until the detergent is removed.
All the brass then goes on a dedicated cookie tray (one that is never used for food again!), and into the oven at just above boiling (about 225/250 degrees) for 45 minutes to an hour to dry.
Provided you've sloshed the brass around to pretty much empty them of water before you put them in the oven, this does the trick.
I would NEVER wash and rely on the brass drying naturally! Ditto with scrap bullets destined to go into the casting pot: I've seen the Tinsel Fairy visit from naturally dried lead that looked just fine.
After I dry the brass, it goes into my Dillon tumbler, and only when it's dry and now clean does it go into the reloading press.
You simply can't rush anything. Take the time to slowly and deliberately do everything.
A rushed job, or dirty casings, and you get garbage out.
Best of Luck!

-Tom
I have found that with 45ACP brass about 20 min in the oven at 175 does the trick.

[jonp]

Sure you do! Use the gun's barrel for the plunk test.

prs
took the words right out of my mouth. The best gauge there is is the barrel of the gun you are loading for.

[fouronesix]

I also wet tumbled the brass before I loaded it. dried it briefly in the oven. I don't know maybe it wasn't dry enough? I also did a med. crimp with lee die, not the factory crimp die just regular.

Two very likely possibilities jump right out. Either the cases had a little water left in them when loaded or the crimp used provided no headspace control when chambered.

Make sure cases are completely dry and taper crimp only. The "regular" crimp as produced by a seater die is a roll crimp and not intended for cases that headspace on the case mouth. You should use a separate taper crimp die for such cartridges.

[runfiverun]

it's residual water.
runfives wifes favorite trick.
her second favorite one is to let the set screw come loose on the powder dump.
that way you get 1/2 gr load variations.

[btroj]

Oooohhhhh, never give away the wife's secrets.

I suppose I don't need to worry about this, my tumbler doesn't use water.

If using a wet method for cleaning brass I would imagine making sure all the water was gone would be pretty important. Seems like that much water should have been noticable sometime in the brass handling process.

[TheDoctor]

I had a similar problem years ago, when I discovered the joys of ultrasonics. Would clean my 7mm mag brass with them, but didn't tumble the brass after it dried. Would put the brass in the oven for a bit to heat it if I was going to reload it soon. Also started using a hand primer around the same time, and ended up with a combination of problems. Was actually over seating my primers, AND sometimes still had moisture in the case. Went to the range one day to test some loads, and several did not fire at all. Others, I swear you could hear the primer go off, THEN the powder would light. Sort of unnerving. And since there WAS a delay on some of them, it was pucker time when lifting the bolt handle on the ones that did not go bang. Most of the ones that would not fire, when I pulled the bullets, I had to knock clumps of powder out of the case. That taught me that a case may look dry, but is not. Old guy at the range, upon hearing the slight delay on some of my rounds, taught me that you do NOT squeeze a hand primer all the way! Oops.

[Angus]

TheDoctor, I've never overseated a primer and I always squeeze them to the bottom with my Lee primer tool... The older round one, not the new square variety.

[TheDoctor]

RCBS tool, not Lee.

[FLINTNFIRE]

I use the rcbs tool and I seat firmly but not to overdo it , as to wet cleaning , I use my citric acid wash , and then shake cases out dump in tumbler with dry media , let run till I feel like doing next batch , am not in a hurry to prime cases and shoot so there is no residual water , also lots less dust in tumbling media .
But part of that is the fact of having enough cases in most calibers , and a work schedule of being gone , so there is time and there is no rush.
Just make sure whatever method you use , you dry the cases and no contamination as was stated with resizing lube .

[blackbike]

Here in TEXAS we use the free energy of the sun.
Moma dont allow no gun stuff in her oven.

[9.3X62AL]

Moisture is a non-issue for me out here in the desert where I live. I don't mean to imply that it never rains here--sure it does. But I've only been here since 2008, so I haven't witnessed it personally. The old guys in the sports bars remember the occurrence, though. It was right after Nixon resigned--they all agree on that.

[covert]

Well it was residual moisture. loaded 16 today and they all went off just fine. I rushed things just got the mould cast my bullets and was in a hurry to try the finished product. Thanks for the replies and info learned a few things in addition to the problem at hand. So I thank you all!!

[Mohillbilly]

IF you are shooting a wheel gun with rimless (45ACP) some of the cases maybe too short.

[9.3X62AL]

Well it was residual moisture. loaded 16 today and they all went off just fine. I rushed things just got the mould cast my bullets and was in a hurry to try the finished product. Thanks for the replies and info learned a few things in addition to the problem at hand. So I thank you all!!

Some good news there! AWRIGHT!

We can be like a gaggle of Swiss watchmakers at times--ask us for time-of-day, and we'll illustrate a watch movement for ya.

[nicholst55]

Here in TEXAS we use the free energy of the sun.
Moma dont allow no gun stuff in her oven.

Same thing here in AZ; lay them out in the sun, and they dry plenty quick. Don't cost nothing, either.

[FLINTNFIRE]

There you go mention rain and it goes back to normal up here in the wet northwest , It was a hot day when I did mine , but the dry media soaked up the residual citric wash and they turned out fine.
Glad to hear of the success.

[9.3X62AL]

Well, I have a small feeding issue in 45 ACP with my cast loads in a new-to-me SIG P-220. This load is a duplicator for my carry loads, the W-W 230 grain SXTs. I use the Lee 230 TC with conventional lube groove, and 5.5 grains of WW-231 to prompt 875-900 FPS like the store-boughts run. These run flawlessly in my Colt Gold Cup (16# recoil spring on board), but fail to fully feed in the SIG. It's some dimensional quirk, and I'll putz around with it to make things work better. Factory loads run without fail, so it's ammo-related--probably something operator/loader-induced. I've been distracted by fishing concerns lately, and wanted to wait until a 6-day expedition was complete before taking on the issue.

Also--the gun safe lockwork went to hell and I can't open the safe now. Time for a locksmith. Just let me get a few nickels to rub together, and something around here will commit suicide and need replacement. Without fail.

[Frank46]

Here in Louisiana I let mother nature dry my brass. Just spread out a black trash bag in the sun and dump the wet brass on it and spread it around. Or dump the brass in a collander and stick it on the top of the heat pump and that usually only takes about an hour to completely dry out. Frank

[W.R.Buchanan]

Here's one more tidbit that no one else mentioned. Your crimp needs to measure .470 at the mouth of the case. Anymore than this and you will run into headspace problems which might result in the cartridge being pushed too far forward in the chamber which would mean no strike or a light strike.

Most auto pistols will pick up the rim of the case as it is stripped off the magazine, however this is not something to bet your life on. With a .470 crimp everything will be fine.

I bet you dry that brass out before you load it next time. One way to get around this is to size and deprime before you tumble the brass. That way not only do you insure that your brass is dry, it also is polished and all sizing lube is gone. Yes, it is not wrong to use case lube with carbide sizing dies. It makes the job much easier.

Randy

[9.3X62AL]

W.R.--

That crimp diameter is one of the two dimensional values I'll be checking. The other is sizing diameter--two tungsten-carbide sizers on hand, one producing .467" results in W-W brass, the other giving .469". This lot of ammo used the .469" sizer. Yeah, it SHOULD run--but it isn't. So, I gotta rule things out logically.

[newcastter]

Another thing to watch out for is primer handling techniques. Traces of oil on fingers that touch anvil side of primers can / may deactivate that primer. Oil is poison for priming compound.
Argh, Jeffrey
Unless you just changed the oil in your vehicle that myth has been busted...