Anyone successfully loading 9mm on a Square Deal?

[crabo]

I am having a hell of a time loading 9mm on my SD. Dillon tells me my reload will be hourglass shaped and not look like factory ammo. I have loaded tons and tons of straight walled pistol cases on my SDs.

The resized case will drop in an EGW case checker, but when loaded with a Hornady 125 Hap or XTP, it pushes up a ring at the base of the case by the rim.

Anyone?

[broomhandle]

Hi Crabo,

My pal has a Dillon SD never had a problem! I have a 550B with RCBS dies never had a problem!
How many times have the cases been reloaded? Soft cases? Are the bullets the correct size, I had a batch of cast bullets that were .003 oversize from a well known caster!

Hope you find the problem, Good Luck,
broom

[pull the trigger]

I would check my case length and reduce the crimp a little. Is it doing the ring during the seating or crimping?

[Plate plinker]

Fairly common to get that it's not the press. I have made a few with that shape too.

[375RUGER]

Have you tried adjusting your crimp die?
Have loaded thousands of 9mm on a SDB, cast and jacketed, no problems. The SDB size die does size the case down a lot, hence the hour glass shape.

[Shepherd2]

I have a SDB that I use exclusively for 9mm. I load boolits sized to .357 and I get some degree of the hour glass shape with every round. The Dillon dies do size the case down a lot as mentioned above and I think they are designed for use with .355/.356 bullets so anything larger will bulge the case to some degree.

I think that some of hour glass shape comes from the brass too. I normally leave 4 or 500 cases laying on the ground each month at matches where I can't recover my brass. That being the case I'll reload anything that says 9mm Luger on it. I've noticed that some brands of cases have more of an hour glass than others when loaded. That's with FC, Win, CCI, Speer and the like. There seems to be a similarity within a given brand. I don't bother to sort my brass since I don't have a problems with it chambering. I check all my reloads with a Shockbottle case gauge and seldom have any that won't pass. The exception was about 20 PPU cases in a batch of 1000 that I did recently. The gauge wouldn't pass them but they chambered in which ever of 6 9mms I fired them in. They did seem to be fairly thick brass.

I can't address the problem you are having with the ring. I think it might have to do with die adjustment. Maybe the amount of crimp. I give my reloads as little crimp as possible since the 9mm is supposed to head space on the case mouth.

[flyingrhino]

I've loaded 10's of thousands of 9mm on a SDB over the past 30 years. That is common. It was never a problem for me. It's not a function of your crimp, it's how the case is sized down and the diameter of your boolit. I shot a lot of competition with the 9mm and didn't see any issue with those rounds. I reload 9mm on my 650 now. Not so much wasp waste as the SDB.

[dverna]

If the cases chamber, and you are not getting leading, do not worry about it.

[crabo]

The empty sized cases drop into the casechecker. EGW used a chamber reamer to make the case checker. I measured my 125 Hornady Action Pistol bullets at .3565 and the Hornady XTP at .355. I set the crimp die to barely put a bell on the case, so the case wouldn't shave the jacket. When I seat the bullet it pushes the brass down and as close as I can get the bullet to drop in the case checker, is to have the rim sticking out. No good. I have very little crimp. I've loaded cast boolits with these dies and it fed okay. I also loaded a hollow based, round nose plated bullet that fed. I think that one worked because it allowed the base to collaspe a little bit when crimped.

[dillonhelp]

What does the diameter of the case mouth measure on a loaded, crimped cartridge? .380" is absolute maximum. We prefer to crimped to .378"-.379".

[pull the trigger]

Can you post a picture?

[jmorris]

The resized case will drop in an EGW case checker, but when loaded with a Hornady 125 Hap or XTP, it pushes up a ring at the base of the case by the rim.

Anyone?

if your case comes out of the size die Ok then gets messed up somewhere down the line, I wouldn't concentrate on the size die, rather the portion of the process that causes the "fail".

[mold maker]

In my case, the under sized brass, being expanded to accept the bullet was the problem.

[crabo]

You can see how the base of the bullet has pushed up a ring where it stops.

Check post 135 in this thread http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?124464-38-357-Lee-powder-through-expander-in-9mm-die-mod/page7 and see if you think this might help.

Hornady 124 XTP

Dillon sent me a new crimp die, no change.

Thanks,

[jmorris]

The 9mm case has a taper, if you are sizing it too much raise the die.

[L Erie Caster]

It looks like you are seating the bullet far to deep, some of the bearing surface should be visible. Then set the crimp just enough to remove the bell from the case mouth.

[Virginia John]

This may sound very elementary but if I were you, I would recheck my total set up starting with the sizing die working each station with several cases and checking my results at each station. I have gone through what you are going through and inevitably it has been the set up that was slightly amiss.

[crabo]

Dillon says that the finished round will have a coke bottle look. It will NOT look like a factory loaded round.

You cannot adjust the sizing die in the square deal. Sized case drops into the case checker

Case flare is just enough to allow the bullet to seat without shaving

That one was seated a tiny bit deep, but all of the others still push a ring out.

I guess I will go over to a friends and use his 9mm sizing die and size a bunch of cases. Then try again. I could load them all on his equipment,but I want to be able to use mine. Dillon ought to have a better solution for this problem.

I am going to try wiping mica on the bullet before I seat it. Might make it slip through the case better.

Square deal works like a champ on everything else which is all straight wall.

[JimB..]

To your original questions, yes I've loaded lots of 9mm on a SDB, but no I've never seen that.

Coke bottle shape means wasp-waisted. Yours is bulged.

The problem is, without a doubt, NOT your sizing die.

First question, which has been asked several times is "when does this happen?" To be more specific, start loading until you have one completed round. Now pull the cases from every station and you'll know if the problem is being created by the flaring, the seating or the crimping.

BTW, my guess is that you've got a wrong die installed somewhere.

Edit: my first statement is wrong, a .380 sizing die might be doing this.

[pull the trigger]

Yeah check and make sure all the inserts are correct. How tight is the insert on the case in the bullet seater? Is there room for the bulge in there with the correct insert?

[crabo]

I misread the information I had. I was seating the bullet way too deep. All is good now. Thanks everyone for the help.