454 casual reloading trouble

[Dirtdgger]

Just bought a ruger Alaskan and some rcbs dies. Cast up some 454-308 boolits, powder coated and some ran some thru the sizer. Sized both to .454 slugged my bore it was .453. Now to the loading I been loading these in new star line nickel brass. I ran the brass thru the sizing die then thru the expander die boolits fit bout half way in on driving band. Now when I seat the boolits they will cut a ring of lead off. I thought maybe it was my 454 seater die taking the bell off. I thought I would try my 45 colt dies because they have a larger ID then the .454 did not work same ring of lead. This happened on both powder coated and lubed boolits. I also tried using lee expander die but no help. I know I'm doing something but can't figure it out any help would be appreciated. David

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Maybe expand the case mouth a bit more???

Or try seating and crimping in 2 steps.

Maybe you can post a picture?

[Dirtdgger]

I did expand till I got the driving band in all the way. I do seat and crimp in 2 steps it cuts the ring off on the band between the lube groove and crimp groove. I will try to get some pictures up tomorrow it's storming here tonite.

[Whiterabbit]

try a gas check boolit.

[High Desert Hunter]

I have this issue from time to time, but usually it is when I roll crimp and brass catches the top of the crimp groove, use a profile crimp die now. Sounds to me like your expander plug just isn't opening up the case quite enough. How do they shoot?

[NC_JEFF]

Did you pull a few of them apart to see exactly where the lead cutting starts? It still sounds as simple as making sure your crimp is backed far enough out of the way in the seating station or the brass isn't being belled enough to accept the boolit. Does it happen with every round or just sometimes?

[Lloyd Smale]

try seating and crimping in different operations. Sometimes when your dies are a bit off the die is trying to seat a bullet at the same time crimping it and it drives the case mouth into the shoulder of the bullet to hard. if you don't have a crimp die just seat with your seating die with the body backed off so it doesn't crimp. then pull the seating plug out of the die and use it just to crimp.

[Cornbread]

This happens to me sometimes with bullet types whose crimp groove is small and steep vs wider and more gently sloped. After sizing the crimp groove gets an edge to it, especially if I am sizing .458 bullets down to .454 or smaller and when crimping this edge gets cut off unless I use a collet crimp die, with the bullets I have that do this it doesn't seem to affect accuracy so I haven't worried about it too much.

[Dirtdgger]

Can't get to the reloading room today having early Mother's Day. I'll take all the helpful info and try tomorrow see what I can get to work. I'll let you all know what works. Thanks for all the help,
David

[44man]

Sounds like the seat die is folding the flare before reaching the crimp shoulder. Buy Hornady dies.

[jwp475]

try seating and crimping in different operations. Sometimes when your dies are a bit off the die is trying to seat a bullet at the same time crimping it and it drives the case mouth into the shoulder of the bullet to hard. if you don't have a crimp die just seat with your seating die with the body backed off so it doesn't crimp. then pull the seating plug out of the die and use it just to crimp.


^^^^^^^^^

[44man]

Set the die for crimp. Then put a washer under the die nut and set the seat plug. After all are seated, remove the washer and back off the plug and crimp. Saves you from setting the die nut each operation.

[Whiterabbit]

About that washer, it's commercially available (I just don't know where). Came in a 357 die set for me, so you plunk the washer in or out and you don't have to set the die for 38 special or 357, it just works.

Spacers like that would be perfect for this too. Put a second lock nut on the seater stem and you don't have to adjust that either, just back off the screw, the single locknut just becomes a depth stop.

[44man]

Everything I load is seated and crimped in one operation, never found a difference. I make dies work. Those that don't are made for other stuff.

[Groo]

Groo here
I had that once with the pointed 200gr 44mag wadcutter.
The front driving band would be sheared off when seated.
The answer was the seating pin.
The pin was pushing on the band instead of the nose of the bullet.
When crimped , the seated continued to push on the bullet after the crimp,and sheared of the band.
The answer was a different pin, I think from a set of 350rem mag dies.

[rhouser]

Do make sure you have a good chamfer on the inside lip of your brass. I chamfer new brass externally just for burrs, but, I put a good chamfer on the inside of the mouth (not knife edged, but, a significant angle). I find that this cuts way back on shaving lead on my cast bullets.

Lyman M die (my next purchase for my 454) might be of use.

Just for my 2 cents. thanks rch

[ole 5 hole group]

Lyman M die (my next purchase for my 454) might be of use.

Just for my 2 cents. thanks rch

The Lyman M die didn't do much for me. The Redding Profile crimp die is aces if you seat & crimp in separate steps.

[250kt]

Would also try deburring/ chamfer the case mouth. Ran into this a few times lately with new pistol brass. Never had to before, seems like there is quite a rough lip left inside the case mouths on this new stuff. Quality down, price up...like everything gun related.

[Dirtdgger]

Well gentleman, I tried several of your ideas but had no luck getting it to stop shaving the boolits.
Had several pictures ready for your review, then a brain cell popped up and I decided to go back to square one. First off I resized brass,checked length, deburred. Didn't put primers in as I figured I was going to be pulling boolits. Next I belled case mouths and checked my sized boolits. Now the problem I didn't have a lee 454 push thru sizer so I tried the split dowel rod and fine sand paper to open up a 452 sizer I had. I checked the ones I had sized and low and behold my problem they were out of round. So my thanks to all the fine folks that helped.

David

[Whiterabbit]

Wow! a lee push through sizer out of round? That's pretty wild.

are these boolits water dropped, by chance? high alloy content?

[Lloyd Smale]

had an embarrassing similar thing happen to me. I got a brand new 500 from John linebaugh. It was my first .512 gun and I didn't have a star sizing die yet and wanted to shoot It right away so I opened up an existing .503 die I had using the same method. I sized some bullets with it and went to try out my gun. It shot like ****. It never occurred to me that the bullets would be out of round. I called John and he gave me some load ideas and I even sized up to different bullets and I couldn't get a group under 3 inch at 25 yards. About the same time he had my buddys 50 Alaskan in the shot. He told me to send me the gun and hed see what the problem was. I sent him the gun and a few thousand bullets for future use. Well the day they arrived he was fooling with the Alaskan and loaded some up and found it shot crappy. He recovered some of the bullets and noticed that there was only rilfing marks on one side of the bullet. He found they were way out of round. By the time I got the gun back I had a proper sizer and the gun turned out to be a tack driver. I was pretty proud of my bullet casting and it sure did embarrass me!! Id never trust another die that was opened up like that. They need to be done properly on a lathe if you are opening them up any more then a .001 of an inch.

[44man]

Beagle a mold and what do you have? I have more luck lapping and making dies round and throats round with split rods then reamers can do.

[BCRider]

......Now the problem I didn't have a lee 454 push thru sizer so I tried the split dowel rod and fine sand paper to open up a 452 sizer I had. I checked the ones I had sized and low and behold my problem they were out of round. So my thanks to all the fine folks that helped.

David


Wow! a lee push through sizer out of round? That's pretty wild.

are these boolits water dropped, by chance? high alloy content?

Check again WR. He polished the die to open it out by a couple of thou and ended up polishing it out of round. It started out OK but was made bad with a technique that should not be applied when the goal is to remove metal.

[Whiterabbit]

I like a story with a happy ending.