RE: frustrated.. lead/lube problems

[Gun Nut]

thanks guys for all the great info i got in earlier thread..
I did alot of playing around and found out that my cases are swagging my boolits!! Even after i run through my expander die, but it only does like a 1/16 of the mouth of case ,not helpfull for my problem I need to actually flare to bottom seating depth. Thats why i am .001" short in dia. and if i look close the cases are buldged out where the lenght of boolit goes in. Does any body make a flare that will fix this?? I heard buckshot is pretty good at a lathe???

:Fire:

[missionary5155]

Good morning
You can hone out that sizer... 600 Grit wet paper with a wood dowel. Real easy with a drill press or just roll it on your bench top like rolling out pie dough.
Check it about every 20 passes. your goal is fired brass diameter minus .002.
Then I would just "neck" size the brass and keep those pieces segrigated to that firearm .

[Three44s]

Is this a bottleneck case or straight one?

If it's a bottleneck that Lee makes a collet die for ............ I have bought a different sized mandrel pin from them before.


Three 44s

[mooman76]

The Lyman M die expands the case mouth, not just flaring the mouth like Lee does.

[Gun Nut]

It is a straight walled .40 s&w

[Gun Nut]

Why should I sand my sizer, it throws perfect .401 bollits and my barrel slugs @ .400"

[fryboy]

ummm i believe they are referring to ur 40 caliber brass sizing die vs. the boolit sizing die ......

[Larry Gibson]

You might want that "coke bottle" effect though. The .40 S&W generally hits the feed ramp pretty hard and might drive the bullets back into the case on feeding if the cases aren't sized enough to hold the bullets in place. A cannelure in the case under the bullet can prevent that but it adds another step and requires a special tool. I suggest you get a .41 expander for your dies or a .41 M die. You can then chuck it in a drill and with a strip of emery paper held on a file can hone it down so it expands the case (as you currently size them) .002" under the bullet diameter. You can also hone the depth it expands into the case for the exact bearing length of the bullet you are using. It's not hard to do and the expander plugs for the die or the M-dies are not expensive if you mess up.

Larry Gibson

[geargnasher]

thanks guys for all the great info i got in earlier thread..
I did alot of playing around and found out that my cases are swagging my boolits!! Even after i run through my expander die, but it only does like a 1/16 of the mouth of case ,not helpfull for my problem I need to actually flare to bottom seating depth. Thats why i am .001" short in dia. and if i look close the cases are buldged out where the lenght of boolit goes in. Does any body make a flare that will fix this?? I heard buckshot is pretty good at a lathe???

:Fire:

Don't confuse bellmouth (flare) with expansion, but you are correct that the expander portion of you Powder Through Expander die is way too small and way too short.

Forget honing that carbide die, you didn't restate that you were using Lee carbide dies in this thread so people are offering you good advice for a different situation. You won't be able to hone that carbide ring much, it's harder than most sandpaper. Besides, like Larry pointed out above, you NEED to squeeze that brass down in a standard cas sizer for it to function well, and also to stop the boolit from being seated deeper under recoil in the mag like I mentioned in my last post in your other thread.

The solution is to have one made or modify a .409" (or whatever size the .41 Magnum is) to expand AND bellmouth your .40 brass correctly at the same time, that means making sure your seating depth is going to work and commit to it, make the expander just .025-050" longer than where the boolit base will be seated, and make sure the flaring bell doesn't overdo it.

Here are some pics to help see what you need:

This one is for .38 special with softer boolits (ACWW). Three different boolit designs I have in the 150-58 grain range all have the same measurement from boolit base to the crimp groove, so I figuring the expander plug length was easy.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=25303&d=1284265634

Here's an RCBS .357 Magnum expander plug, it's .351" and made for jacketed bullets, needs to be .356" minimum for cast, but with hard, gas-checked boolits it does ok with the .351" expander. It makes PB or softer boolits lead like the dickens. It shows pretty well what the expander needs to accomplish with cast boolits: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=24608&d=1282019955

Gear

[runfiverun]

if your brass is sizing the boolit down one thou try making the boolit one thou larger and see if it holds the correct diameter.
if it's sizing it down from 401 to 400, try 402 and see if it hits 401.

[noylj]

For my current .40S&W loading, I am having excellent results with my Lee PTE die.
Your expander, I believe, should be .001-.002" less than the bullet diameter.
The only complaint I have ever had with the Lee PTE dies is I would like more flare at times and I need to go to a separate expander/flare die. I think this has only been an issue trying to load 0.358" lead bullets in 9x19 for my BHP.

[geargnasher]

The .40 S&W PTE die by Lee precision doesn't have a real expander. It has a bellmouth plug with a really short, tapered guide. Go look at the two links I posted in #9, you'll see what an expander is supposed to look like. Some of the Lee PTE dies work ok after a tapered punch is uses to swell the tip to the correct diameter for cast, and some (like the .45 ACP and, for some boolits, the .45 Colt) have long enough expander plugs for most boolits. The one I have for the .40 is the shortest one I've seen yet, it only expands for less than a third of the seating depth, and that's only really a glorified taper. If it's working for you, no problem. It works for me, too, but I'm using 22 bhn boolits.

Gear