reloading question

[jballs918]

well guys this diesnt deal with equipment, well not yet. as alot of you know im just getting my feet wet in this thing we call casting and reloading. tonight i was in the garage and i decided to lube a few boolits. tihs is for a 32ws. i sized them and checked them with a set of calibers. .323 right on. ok thats good news. now to try my new rcbs die. i set it up and after 3 boolits i get close to the 2.6 oal really close to what i need. as i said i was just messing around trying to see what it looked it. well i noticed that on all of my shells there is a slight bulge on the neck. me being very green, i was wondering is this normal. also i just noticed that it is on one side only. hhhmmm. i will look into this more. from what i read nothing really goes into leaning. so now im confused. not hard to do here lol. but would having used 30-30 shells have anything to do with this.

thanks
jason

[David R]

Are you loading 32 special in 32 brass? Did you chamfer the case mouth? Was the boolit started nice and straight as it went into the case?

They will shoot and prolly well. Some of my pistol look like that and shoot fine.

When ya gonna pull the trigger?

David

[jballs918]

as fair as i can tell the boolit is going in streight. but then again i just set it on there and then i push it in. so hopefully they are going in streight. its using 30-30 renecked to 32ws. when i sized them to 32ws.

[August]

In addition to chamfering, I find that I have to mess around with different amounts of belling the case mouth in order to properly seat boolets. I pinch my fingers a lot as I guide the casing and boolet up into the seater die.

[scrapcan]

After you reformed the 30-30 bras to 32WS did you trim to length or square the case mouth with a trimmer?

This could be caused by one side of neck being longer and contacting the crimp part of the seater die and creating a bulge. You will see the same thing all around the neck if you crimp to heavily.

Just something else to think about.

[jballs918]

i am trimmering them, most of them didnt need it. also im chamfering them, inside and outside. i did notice that the case was a bit uneven. i just i will grab about 20 shells or so and see what i get for results that is the great thing about reloading cast i can pratice as much as i want and just remelt them

[fourarmed]

Measure your case neck diameter before and after seating the bullet. If the difference is more than about 5 or 6 thousandths, that may be the problem. Others may quibble over the exact numbers, but it sounds like you are stuffing your bullets into too small a hole. Case necks are usually thinner on one side than another, and if the fit is too tight, you will always see the outline of the bullet on that side. The cure is a larger expander ball.

[Bent Ramrod]

I had a RCBS die set in .22 Hornet that did that. The loads shot fine.

Did you expand the case necks with an "M" die or just bell it after using the regular expanding plug? Cast bullets are generally slightly larger than the jacketed equivalents and (in rifles, at least) generally don't need as tight a grip by the case neck. The M die expands the necks slightly over the jacketed standard. You can get a cast bullet into a jacketed sizing neck, but that bulge may show because of this.

[jballs918]

ok a few questions have now surfaced for me. all i did was to take the normal sizing/recapping die and use that. i have a rcbs. i have the 2 die set. from what i read in the abcs of reloading and what i understand is that i think im supposed to have 3 die, not just 2. if im right on this, can i still bell out the mouth more or no. do i need the 3rd die. it looks like when i seat it it is off just a bit. i adjusted the top of the rcbs die and that seems to help a little. i guess i will have to play with the crimp setting on the top. im waiting for some boolit to dry right now so i can see if i can get the crimp zeroed in. hopefully what will help

[StarMetal]

Most all bottlenecked rifle dies come with just two dies because that is all you need. Some exceptions are some bottleneck cartridges that are both rifle and revolver cartridges. Like the 32-20 for an example. Most all straight walled pistol cartridges come with three dies. Sometimes four. You're 32WS dies set is correct. To use your built in crimping in a typical die, such as your RCBS set, all the cases have to be the same EXACT length. Sounds like when you were trimming them that you were trimming to a longer length then some of the cases were. What you do it is take the shortest case and trim the rest to that lenght, EXCEPT if that short case is drastically short, which I don't believe it will be. After you got them all trimmed to the exact same length chamfer them again. On two die bottle neck cartridges you need an after market die to bell or expand the neck further for cast bullets. One set is the Lyman M dies, and Lee has a tapered expander set, that is cheaper. For now, until you get a special belling/expander die as I just mentioned, you can use a pair of needle nose pliers by keeping the jaws closed and merely shoving them into a case with alittle pressure and twisting them around to bell the mouth of the case some. Some trial and error will come into play here till you get it right.

Joe

[NVcurmudgeon]

You might try the Army Advanced Marksmanship Unit technique of partially seating the boolit, then turning the case one half turn in the shell holder, then completing the seating. You may find that the bulge disappears, or becomes uniform all the way around. Are the boolits being seated straight in the cases now?

[StarMetal]

I was just rereading your first post. You said there was a slight bulge on the neck. You didn't state if what you were seeing was the bullet bulging the thru the case, in other words you can tell where the base of the bullet is because it's bulged out there, or whether the case is bulged from improper crimping. If your cases aren't all the same lenght and you set the crimp tight, the longer cases will get too much crimp and bulge the neck. All you need for crimp is just to turn the case mouth in, into the bullet, just a tad.

Joe

[carpetman]

JBBalls---When I bought my 30-06 dies back in the 60',I bought Lyman Deluxe set which was a three die set---it included the expander die. Lyman,ofcourse selling casting equipment offered this 3rd die. What to use to expand the mouth other than an M die creates as long a thread as what to use for an ingot mold. Get a Lyman M die and most likely the bulge will go away---if a cast bullet is started just slightly crooked,you,ll get a bulge but a little flair to assist in starting seems to eliminate it.

[jballs918]

star metal

the bulge is all the way down you can see the bullet. i seated it and i it looked to big is all. some are all the way and some are on one side. i missed with the cramp and found the differance on that, im still working on that. i have ran all the cases thru the trimmer. i have a lee trimmer for a 30-30. i took the shell in the shell holder locked it in and then stuck the trimmer in and spun it. not many needed it. i think most of the brass i got was only shot once your twice. well i looks like a need to maybe get another die. not sure i will keep playing with it and see what i get . i maybe a little to anal on this but i just dont want to blow me up. well thanks guys for all the help. i have to go to bed now

[StarMetal]

Another thing to check is pull your seating plug out of your seating die and see how it fits the nose of the cast bullet you are using. Normally rifle bullets do go in as cockeyed as some short stubby pistol bullets. Example is loading 380 acp's. Hard to get the bullets to seat straight in those. Being rifle bullets are longer, they tend to be guided better by the die,but if your seating plug doesn't fit the nose good it will cause it not to center good.

Joe

[sundog]

Jason, I'll try to remember this evening to take a few measurements of prepped and fired case necks. It could be that your sizer die is squeezing them down too much. I had an '06 die one time that did that and finally trashed it when I figgered out what was going on. My 32-170-FN are at least .323 and I have no problem in either 32 Spl cases or resized 30-30 cases. No buldging and no loose neck tension. One other thing I thought of was that the buldging can occur along the neck or shoulder if your seater die is screwed in to far and you're trying to put too much crimp on it. Something is not right, and before you go on, let's try to find out and fix it. No reason not to have good looking ammo. sundog

[StarMetal]

Corkie,

Another thing too is his expander plug might be too small...hell it may even be a 30 caliber one. He's needs to take that out and mike it.

Joe

[sundog]

Joe, kinda along the lines I was thinking. Okay, here's a several times fired W-W Super case that started life as a 32 Win Spl case and it's prepped and ready to go. Neck OD is 0.339, and ID,as best I can measure is ~0.317 - certainly bigger than a 30 as you suggested, Joe. Seating a .323 or .325 sized boolits requires a twist of a needle nose plier (my universal M die) for a little flair (pun intended), and it's ready to seat a boolit.

Jason, if I need to, I can measure the exander ball, but I think the above measures should help. btw, the onliest die set I have for .32 Win Spl is a Lee 2-die set. Been using it for quite a spell. One other thing, whenever I use a die that runs a ball or plug through the inside neck, I'll lube it inside neck to help the process wehter it be spray OneShot or hand applied with a qtip. sundog

[jballs918]

alright guys i got some sleep, but before i hit the sack i ordered a lyman m die. so maybe that will help. i caled the case and im getting .338 on the outside.

[StarMetal]

Well that's within Sundogs measurements. Next check the fit of your seating plug to your bullet's nose.

I think you're almost there.


Joe

[jballs918]

ok i will pull my die apart in a few and see. is there anything i can do to fit it better

[D.Mack]

jballs, one more item to check. Pull your shell holder out, place a shell in the shell holder , then look at the primer pocket, is it centered? If not clean out the groove where the rim fits, just a small amount of crud, can cause off center seating. DM

[jballs918]

ok guys i pulled my die apart and looked at it, i also took it and lined it up on hte bullet. it looks ok. so i set it up it took me about an hour, i ran about 30 bullets thru it. i still have a bit of a bulge on one side. not bad but i still can tell. its only on one side. i have done everything that has been said on the board. maybe it just a bit off. i may call rcbs on monday and see what they say. i also even tried using the needle nosed and pretty much the same. come to think about it i may check my sizer die. i wonder if its set to deep and its not letting the bell open it up properly. it just seems like they are not wide enough