boolits losing stability, 3 of 15 hit sideways at 50yds

[Oklahoma Rebel]

Hey, I was shooting my marlin 1895 45-70 getting ready for hunting, lately I had been having trouble with me boolit hitting the rifling and making it hard to close the lever (noe 460-425-rnfp) sized to 459, anyways I loaded them up in some hornady cases , the leverevolution ones that are shorter, amd used a lee FCD to crimp it. what do you think caused this? I have been using the boolits since spring and this never happened until now ( 2days from deer opening). do you think it is the jump from case to barrel, or do you think that the FCD swaged the boolit down? any other ideas would be helpful. I am going to use my mosin nagant, but unfortunately I will be using sellier and bellot 180gr sp, as I do not have enough time on the gun with cast, and I owe every animal a quick death. so the cast part is going to have to wait for either hogs a little later or next years deer season. so anyone that can help, please let me know what you think. thaks, Travis

[rancher1913]

the fcd will cause the boolit to move which affects the coal but I have never had it resize the diameter. how much umph does it take to crimp the boolits, if it is real hard it could be a problem. maybe check the diameter after crimping and see.

[runfiverun]

fcd and your softer alloy.
pop a boolit out and measure it.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

ok, so you are relatively sure it didn't have anything to do with the shorter cases. although people use the 44spl in 44mag, 22 cb's and shorts in 22long and 38 in 357, so I guess it wouldn't make sense for that to be the problem. now I know it squeezes the boolit down a little in a band around the boolit about 1/8th the length, and the cases are expanded totally when ejected, so I don't think that the brass is staying tight, swaging the rest of the back part of the boolit. I will try using a light roll crimp instead, but it still has to be at least strong enough for the tube. magazine. thanks for the ideas, I will try that out as soon as I can. thanks, Travis

[dubber123]

For years we have had to hack a good bunch off cases for my brothers Guide Gun to use my MM 450 gr. WFN, and I mean a lot, like 3/16" or more. It shoots in an inch at 100 yds. I'd look at what the FCD is doing to you. I just ground the bottom off his seat die to allow it to crimp normally.

[Tackleberry41]

So your using those short Hornady cases they make for use with the FTX bullet, and seating the bullet to crimp in that case? Which means your a bit short of the throat.

I use the Lee FCD in plenty of things, not had it create any issues. Not supposed to crank it down that hard anyways. But the FCD die is set up for the normal 45-70 length so might not even be crimping the case at all, but the bullet.

Best bet is work out your length using normal brass.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

no I shortened it, I will go through my ammo and find some that are roll crimped and see how they do, it suck that I have to shoot so many to find out, im out of primers! oh well it's kinda past the point of no return, I am definetly using the mosin nagant for deer season, which starts tomorrow! I like my mosin, and its deadly accurate, but I haven't cast enough for it yet to be confident with cast, so I will be using sellier and bellot 180gr SP's. I was just excited to hopefully harvest my first "cast deer" this season. but I wont take the 45-70 hunting till I know for 100% sure it is going to work right and kill fast, and that means no sideways boolits! Travis

[runfiverun]

sideways boolits are still 400grs of lead going through tissue.
they just have more frontal area.

[mdi]

The Lee FCD for rifles is a collet crimp; a narrow band of brass at the case mouth is squeezed, no sizing. The Lee FCD for pistols is just a "post crimping sizing die". Many folks confuse the rifle and the pistol FCDs when someone mentions just "FCD"...

[greenjoytj]

The pistol cartridge FCD also roll crimps after the carbide ring sizes the case. The rifle FCD uses a collet only to squeeze the case mouth into the bullets crimp ring there is no carbide sizing ring. Lee's advert quoted below.

http://leeprecision.com/userfiles/images/38_FCD.jpgA carbide sizer inside the Carbide Factory Crimp die post-sizes the cartridge while it is crimped so every round will positively chamber freely with factory like dependability. The adjusting screw quickly and easily sets the desired amount of crimp. It is impossible to buckle the case as with a conventional bullet seating die. Trim length is not critical so this extra operation takes less time than it would if cases were trimmed and chamfered.

[buckshotshoey]

Hey, I was shooting my marlin 1895 45-70 getting ready for hunting, lately I had been having trouble with me boolit hitting the rifling and making it hard to close the lever (noe 460-425-rnfp) sized to 459, anyways I loaded them up in some hornady cases , the leverevolution ones that are shorter, amd used a lee FCD to crimp it. what do you think caused this? I have been using the boolits since spring and this never happened until now ( 2days from deer opening). do you think it is the jump from case to barrel, or do you think that the FCD swaged the boolit down? any other ideas would be helpful. I am going to use my mosin nagant, but unfortunately I will be using sellier and bellot 180gr sp, as I do not have enough time on the gun with cast, and I owe every animal a quick death. so the cast part is going to have to wait for either hogs a little later or next years deer season. so anyone that can help, please let me know what you think. thaks, Travis

Ive been thinking about this for a while.....

First, how does the rifle chamber and shoot jacketed boolits? If it shoots those fine, that was an option for this season.

Second, you say you were using those bullets "for a while" before you had problems chambering them. Did the problem come on gradually, or just happen all of the sudden? What is the OAL of the cartridge you are loading? Im having a hard time thinking it is the fault of the die, If the OAL and diameter of bullet is proper.
As you mentioned, go with a standard roll crimp to see if that might be the problem.
But it wouldnt explain the 3 of 15 keyholing.

Im starting to think that you COULD have a buildup of lead in the throat area of chamber. That would explain this phenomena.

If you have access to, or know someone with a bore scope, take a peek. The other option is a chamber cast. Maybe a sharp edge in the throat area is shaving lead off the bullets as they pass. And a "normal" cleaning of the barrel wont always get it out.

In essence, the bullet isnt getting bigger, the throat is getting smaller. This would swage the bullets smaller as you shoot them and is causing poor accuracy. Maybe? Maybe not. But is possible. Try to recover some fired bullets and inspect how deep the rifling marks are engraved. Could tell you something.

[GhostHawk]

My Mosin had exactly what buckshotshoey is talking about.

First a very sharp 90 degree transition at the point the brass ends.
I did not find it till I bought a bore camera. Any boolit a little large in the nose, or crimped a bit too far forward gave me problems chambering. Plus that sharp edge was shaving lead of boolits as they chambered. In the bore scope it looked like short little lead icicles with a melted ball on the end.

5 minutes whittling a hardwood dowel to rough 7.62x54r dimensions. Another 5 minutes spinning it to shape in the chamber. Then a little hunk of steel wool slipped into a slot cut on the end, spun it up to speed with a power drill for less than 2 minutes.

Rounds that would not chamber before slip right in after.

Bore scope says that 90 degree square edge is now a 45 degree radius curve.

No more issues on mine. Groups tightened up and all is well. YMMV

[cainttype]

The shorter case will easily allow lead to be shave by, or eroded by blow-by, in the slightly longer factory chamber... before you even reach the throat. This might be avoided somewhat by mild loads, but better would be to avoid it altogether. Using full length cases to fill the void at the end of your chamber caused by the shorter case might go a long way towards curing your issue.
I'd clean the gun carefully, paying special attention to the last 1/8 inch of the chamber and the throat, then use full-length cases with your bullet choice.
Seating deeper than the crimp groove may be a non-issue, and crimping with the FCD can be done wherever you want it in relation to your projectile.
The FCD does not crimp on the mouth so "adjusting" it to crimp lower is no biggie. If necessary, the internal collet of the FCD can easily be ground for a shorter rim-to-crimp length specific to the combination you're using.