ring indent loading 10mm today with Hornady dies

[Tripplebeards]

I always use RCBS or lee dies but couldn’t find anything a dot for Hornady the other day in 10mm. Loaded up my first go at 10mm today using 180 grain ACME boolits. I had a big ring indent on my boolits when seating them. I’m use to changing out seater plugs and polishing the plugs in my RCBS dies to eliminate this. Doesn’t look I can do this with the Hornady die set. Any suggestions? Guessing if I flared my cases a little more the boolits would seat with less pressure?






The other issue I had is the boolits looked like they were seated to far in at max SAMI length of 1.260”. I seated them long at 1.288”. The longer OAL seemed to fit I’m my Glock 20 magazine and manually cycled fine. I’ll have to try a feet to the range this week if I fill my turkey tag so I can try these out.

Here’s a 1.288” VS a 1.255” loading. To me the shorter OAL round looks like it needs a circumcision. When loading long at 1.288” the boolit measured .393” in front of my case neck before crimping. The way the ACME boolit is designed it has to long of a tapered ojive IMO. Reminds me of the Lyman devastator in 44 cal that I have to get creative with my crimping because of the same issue. After crimping the brass case neck was .421” so I would assume I’m good to go.

[Dan Cash]

I don't see the indentation problem. What ever is there, I would not worry about it is the cartridges will feed and chamber with out problem. Seating depth can be tailored to the individual gun so don't worry about that either. Your shorter ammo looks as though there is precious little bullet shaft for the case mouth to bear on so be sure that the feeding cycle of the pistol does not drive the bullets deeper in the case.

[megasupermagnum]

It has been a while since I've used a Hornady die set, so I can't give specific help on their expander. I believe those Acme bullets are of a hard alloy, so they should be able to handle a lot of neck tension. It might become an issue if you decide to try softer bullets. All manufactuers that I've tried make their sizing dies to as minimum as SAMMI spec allows. This is one of the pitfalls of carbide dies is they are so hard to lap for us cast shooters. Instead we rely on expanders like those from NOE, and they aren't perfect. It would be nice to see a die that takes carbide bushings. As for the OAL, I wouldn't sweat it. I always load mine as long as I can. The magazine is almost always the limiting factor. If they go into the magazine without any hint of binding, they will come out fine too.

[stubshaft]

The "ring indent" you are referring to is caused by the seating stem not perfectly fitting the bullet nose. It is relatively insignificant and not a reason to worry.

[megasupermagnum]

I did not even realize that is what he meant by ring indent. One quick trick you can try for that is take you seating plug out, and hit it quick with a case chamfering tool. Often just breaking that inside edge a little will get rid of that cosmetic line it leaves.

[mnewcomb59]

If you are seeing that ring, it means you are using a lot of force to seat the bullets. I would pull a bullet and make sure it is not undersized at the base. Maybe your cases could be expanded more. Not belled, expanded. Or resize your cases in a larger resizing die. I have occasionally used the lee factory crimp die for a resizer because it tends to leave the cases .003 larger than their undersized carbide decap/resize die. I do this in my 45 colts after they swell to fit the oversized, tapered chambers because chambers and ammunition dimensions are so different.

[Tripplebeards]

I ran all my empty brass through a lee factory carbide crimp die after FL sizing in the hornady sizer. Some of the cases went in with zero force not needing re sizing. Some went through with extreme force.

My buddy has the same 10mm hornady die kit. He told me to lift up the little piece of foam in the corner of the die box. It had a flat boolit pusher under the foam. I switched it out with the conical bullet seater insert. I will have to load a few and try it.

[mnewcomb59]

What I meant was decap with a universal decapping die then use the FCD as the resizer. Adds a step but leaves you with deprimed, resized brass that is larger than using your hornady sizer to decap and resize. When I treat 9mm cases this way they will take softer lead without sizing the bullet down and marking the bullet ogive. When I treat 45 colt cases this way they last 8-10 firings at 30k psi instead of 3 firings.

I would only recommend adding the additional step if your bullets are undersized. If they are still full size at the very base of the base driving band after seating I would live with the ring on the ogive, or try to clean up the seating stem where it contacts the bullet. The reason I think your cases might be sizing the bullet as you seat it is because I don't see any line in the loaded round where the base of the bullet would be.

Were the cases that went through the FCD with "extreme force" nickel plated? I have seen where nickel cases have thicker case necks and don't play nice with oversized cast bullets. Either they are thick and strong and resize the cast bullet as you seat it, or you get the bullet seated at full diameter but now the cartridge is too big for the chamber.

[mnewcomb59]

One other possibility could be the cases are too clean. I have seen powder coated bullets get sticky on super clean brass. Like a rubber racing slick on hot asphalt. The SS pin cleaned cases would seat with extreme force and damage the ogive and sometimes buckle the cases. Dirty cases wouldn't do it, neither would wash and waxed cases, just the super clean SS pin brass. I fixed all the super clean brass by lubing the inner case mouths with far diluted alox and a q-tip.

Afterwards the bullets seated much easier and the ring on the ogive stopped appearing.

[Tripplebeards]

Yep, they were nickel cases. I noticed brass cases went through the lee die ALOT easier. Some of the nickel cases dropped right though the lee sizer as well. So the 60 some nickel cases i sized were all over the board. I’m sure the flat boolit seating stem will solve my “ring mark” issue as it won’t touch the outside of my boolit taper and just pushing down on the flat face of the metplat to seat.

[BC17A]

I've had that same ring on several cast boolits using Hornady seating dies. It also happens on some jacketed boolits also but not too often. I lessened the problem by increasing the stem's corner radius and polishing. I've since replaced most of my Hornady dies with RCBS and have made a custom seating stem for all of my castings. Even though the ring will not effect the boolit performance in any way, it keeps my AR-ness in check.

As for using a flat stem on a FN boolit, it'll work provided the boolit nose is actually flat, which many are not. A lot of Lee FN molds have a slight convex nose and don't work well with a flat stem from my experience.

[Tripplebeards]

RCBS has set me seater plugs I customized to a flat surface that I use for cast. Luckily the extra seater plug that came with my Hornady set is exactly how my custom RCBS seater plugs look like.

[Tripplebeards]

I just gave up on turkey hunting for today and loaded a few with the supplied hornady flat seater plug. I took a picture below of the results and both the conical and flat seater plugs I used.



Problem solved!!!

I did make a mistake and tried to crimp and seat 5 boolits in one operation and crimped to hard. Somehow the crimp adjusted itself tighter after I adjusted it. I would assume they are safe to shoot but accuracy will probably suffer????

Lesson learned to crimp in a separate operation from now on. I have always crimped in a separate operation in the past but wanted to try it together with the searing operation. The four above I crimped separate at .421. The other five are around .419 and I can see where the lead was pushed up above the case lip. The Hitec coating is still on the boolits where it's pushed up. I'll just use them for a function test before ladder testing the others.