Reloading Notes - Part 1 (Sizing)

[Mint]

Over your guys' entire reloading lifetime, have there ever been some major (potential or actual) mistakes that made you change how you do things? Ie, I almost ****ed up X really bad, so from now on I ALWAYS do Y.

If so, can you tell me not just what the potential mistake was, but HOW and WHAT you changed your process to acommodate it not happening again?

After doing this, I see the BIGGEST thing is to just be extremely deliberate and aware. Double and triple check things.

I can tell the biggest risk will be getting comfortable... not necessarily complacent (I am not one to get more sloppy as I get more comfortable), but rather comfortable in that the thought to triple check something might not even come up because you feel more confident and "safer" in your process.

As a basic example, I had small primers on the bench. When I went to reload them a day later, I just grabbed the box and started loading them, sort of innately trusting me putting them on the bench yesterday. It occured to me as I was loading them that I never explicitly checked the box a second time. Small little things like this I suspect are what bites a person doing this... and really one must form some kind of rules or processes such that it "guards" against small slips of the mind, or (even brief) lapses of mental laziness. Kind of like 1 powder on bench at once rule, etc.

[45_Colt]

After doing this, I see the BIGGEST thing is to just be extremely deliberate and aware. Double and triple check things.

This is it, be methodical. Don't stop and leave until everything is cleaned up and back in place. When reloading think about what you are doing.

On another note, grounding, it is a good idea to have the press grounded. Just a small wire between it and Earth is all that is needed. IIRC, from your first post the bench legs are metal and are resting on a concrete floor. If so just run a wire from somewhere on the press to a leg. Staple/fix it out of the way.

It isn't an electrical ground where NEC must be followed. Just something to drain off static.

And by just your touching the press, R&R'ing cases and so on you too will be grounded.

45_Colt

[Ed K]

After doing this, I see the BIGGEST thing is to just be extremely deliberate and aware. Double and triple check things.

Yes and no.

Yes: "be extremely deliberate and aware". Methodically confirm your recipe, remove your primers from storage, load your primer feed tube, etc. All of this is following the same sequence you've done over and over. Don't "recall" the recipe from memory. Use your notes or reloading handbook. Don't pick up your primers off the bench. Why are they there? Why aren't they in bulk storage in OEM boxes with your large pistol and Rifle primers? Load your primer feed tube and put them away. Don't resume loading the next 50 rounds with the remaining primers leftover in the primer feed tube from last week's session. Why are they still there?

No: I don't double and triple check things. That interrupts the flow. Do you double check primers and triple check powder? Do you double check some things and not others? What is the process? Is it consistent? No TV, No radio, No people, concentrate.

I've never had any kind of accident but 1 is too many so 30 years later I'm still very careful. The Dillon progressive was mentioned earlier in the thread. Bought one in 1994 around 2-3 years after my Rock Chucker kit. I still am not as confident in the loads from the Dillon as the single stage. I mentioned to Mint via PM never to sell off the single stage for a progressive. If you are in this for the long haul I guarantee you will be buying it back (unless I suppose you only load 9mm FMJ in bulk). Do you think even half the progressive handloaders experiencing galling are even aware it is happening? Mint I believe the attention to detail that is inherent in your personality should prevent you from ever having an accident and will contribute greatly to the performance of your handloaded rounds once you are fully up to speed.

Lastly I want to take a moment to recognize the Cast Boolit shooters that are taking the time to help this new handloader out. I simply don't have the time to contribute in the way a number of you brothers have been doing over the past few weeks. Thank you!

[Mint]

attention to detail that is inherent in your personality

Heh, both a gift and a curse. Gift for me... curse for those on the receiving end

All excellent input, thank you

I'm about to make 1 more thread with my results... but I will do that when I'm done typing this. For now I think I only have one other question for this particular thread...

This below happened 3 times. I fixed it by turning the bullet seating stem much deeper. This occurred when I was installing the die fresh, all 3 times, and then trying to follow the instructions ^ above in this thread how to properly do a seating die.

My current understanding of this process is... seat bullet to proper height with stem, then back off stem. Get proper crimp by twisting entire die. Once crimp is right, put the full bullet in thats been seated, and re-screw the stem down till it hits.

Now, I did that, but I also wasn't sure the "starting" screw in for the die. The Lee manual says 3 turns + 1 3/4 extra for magnum. So when I first insert the die I did 4 3/4 turns. Then I followed the steps above.

Thats when I noticed the bullet wouldnt seat enough, so I would lower the seating depth, try again... lower seating depth, try again...

after the 3rd or 4th try this is what happened to the brass.

My current guess is that even though it doesn't look like there is crimp in the photos above (where Bazoo mentioned theres no crimp), maybe it IS crimping it at that depth? The photos above were taken with the same 4 3/4 backed off turns once it its the shell holder.

I'll have to try again... dialing this one in definitely is taking some time

PS are these recoverable? I have just thrown them in my waste bin.

PPS I forgot to mention, once i got the seating die right, I didnt want to ruin more rounds messing with it as I only have 25 sample bullets.... so below that is a photo of a finished round. Maybe you can see if its actually crimping or not? Maybe I have to back it off like 5 3/4 turns before adjusting seating stem.

[Mint]

Also there is 0% chance of me selling this press...

[Three44s]

Looking at your last picture, you may need to seat just a bit deeper and maybe crimp just a bit less.

You need the case mouth just at the right position so it turns into the crimp groove. Then at the crimp, you want to gently turn the case mouth into the bullet groove.

Looking at your single round in your hand you have the case mouth crushed and folded up along the side of the bullet. The very end of you case is actually crushed in two and that will likely lead to premature case mouth split.

I am guessing on your seating depth but I am pretty sure that you have an over crush of the crimp on the cartridge in the picture.

That said, I hand it to you for being very diligent about educating yourself to become a good and safe handloader!

Load long and prosper!

Three44s

[Mint]

Awesome, thanks for that... yeah, I need to figure that one out. I think what's happening might be when I follow the Lee instructions for the die it's already too much crimp. Maybe I'll try backing off 2 extra turns and then go down...

[Winger Ed.]

Yep, those crushed ones are goners.
I had a buddy who asked me one time if he could have my charged and primed rejects like that.
Without asking or thinking, I just gave 'em to him.
Little did I know, the next time we spent the night at a property I called 'the poison ivy farm and tick ranch'--
After way too many beers, he brought all my old rejects out and threw them in the campfire.


I never did much counting turns on dies.
You'll soon get a feel for what adjustments to make.

As you go along, you'll end up with different head stamps and various lengths of brass in your stash.
On the crimp stage, you'll learn to feel if it's right, or stop the ram if it feels wrong up at the top.

[BLAHUT]

Blue one

[BLAHUT]

Ok I have a question... I bought 2 sample packs of .357 lead bullets.

Both are 157 grain RNFP.

On the red bullet, the crimp groove is obviously the green arrow.

But which arrow is it on the black one? I would assume the blue one?

Nice set up Blue one

[robg]

i put a shelf up so my beam scale is at eye level and not disturbed by any vibration from my loading bench.i prep cases in steps ,size a load of cases,next day expand ,then prime case .all in labelled boxes .then when i want to load them up all i have to do is put in powder check tray to make sure the cases have equal amounts of powder seat boolits. if you keep to a routine your are less likely to make an error.

[jetinteriorguy]

I’d only have a couple comments, one of which may be wrong based on my impression. I get the impression from your posts that you are just basically picking a load that’s somewhere within recommended data and then just going out and testing it. This is not a good habit, always start at recommended start loads and work up in increments. My second comment is more geared towards where I think your headed in the future, if you decide to bump up to a progressive press, anytime you have a glitch just remove all of the cases and set them aside to deal with later. Don’t pull them out and try put them back in thinking you have them in the right order, then just continue with the cycle. I learned the hard way and double charged one of my .357’s with an already stout load of Titegroup and it cost me one of my favorite revolvers, luckily no injuries other than my pride.

[Mint]

I’d only have a couple comments, one of which may be wrong based on my impression. I get the impression from your posts that you are just basically picking a load that’s somewhere within recommended data and then just going out and testing it. This is not a good habit, always start at recommended start loads and work up in increments. My second comment is more geared towards where I think your headed in the future, if you decide to bump up to a progressive press, anytime you have a glitch just remove all of the cases and set them aside to deal with later. Don’t pull them out and try put them back in thinking you have them in the right order, then just continue with the cycle. I learned the hard way and double charged one of my .357’s with an already stout load of Titegroup and it cost me one of my favorite revolvers, luckily no injuries other than my pride.

Hmm, what comment of mine gave you that impression? So far I have only done 2 recipes, one of which I used the start load, and the other I used LESS than the start load by going to the 38 spl data (I'm shooting 357 mag)

And very good point about the progressive, I didn't think of that. Is it a possibility with a progressive that you dont actually do multiple rounds at once, but just 1 round to completion? Perhaps for learning that's a good middle ground.

[Bazoo]

Those crushed ones are gone. Now, if they are live rounds, save them. Later on you can disassemble them and save the primers and powder. Provided of course you know which powder is in which.

That crimp.....wowzers! That’s a healthy crimp! Stop that turn counting. That won’t amount to nothing. If you notice on that crimp, from the case mouth going down, there is a straight area of case, then an angled area that is the crimp, then the unmolested case body. You want to have just that angled area, and none of that straight area.

Are you measuring the case lengths? For consistent crimps, you need consistent case length. New brass is often consistent. But if you got a batch that isn’t, you’ll get some that are crimped, some heavy, some light and some none. Within .005 of each other is acceptable. If you have .010 differences, you will need to do one of several things. Sort all the short or long ones out. Trim them all to the same length, this is what I do. Set your dies to the longest ones and if the short ones get any crimp at all be happy.

[Mint]

I wasn't necessarily trying to turn count to find the right amount, moreso the STARTING position.

I would have guessed the Lee instructions would have given me a starting position that doesnt crimp like it's going into a magazine tube with a 200 lb spring.

You want to have just that angled area, and none of that straight area.

OOOOOOOh... makes perfect sense. So then the default directions are most certainly just down way too far. I will have to back it off so there's no crimp. That's partly what made this entire process of this 3rd die a pain in the ass, is I never actually got to adjust the seating stem without crimp happening. That's why the bullet was all torn up.

Next time I will just back an entire 5 or 6 turns, way more than the instructions. Only turn counting there just for the sake of getting it so 0% crimp. Beyond that I will just eye it.

I havent measured case length as I don't have a case trimmer. I vaguely recall someone mentioning not to worry about it in a lever gun

[Bazoo]

Many people say they don’t trim pistol brass. But I am not one of them. I trim my revolver brass because I like consistent crimps.

Uh, not a slight on lee, lee stuff is okay. But they ain’t got the best methods or instructions sometimes. I like lee products. But I prefer others for dies.

The way I set the crimp, after you have a bullet seated to the depth you want. Back the seating stem out Put the cartridge all the way up in the die, press handle down in other words. Then screw the die in by hand till it won’t go any more. That is the beginning of the crimp. Back the cartridge out, turn the die in maybe 1/2 turn and try it. And continue until you have the crimp you want.

Now if you got a serious flare, you might not be able to screw the die in if the flare is scraping the sides of the die even before it gets to the crimp area. That’s one indicator you got too much flare.

[1hole]

This ain't rocket science; any bullet groove we choose to use is "the" crimp groove. I think most of us tend to crimp into the forward groove.

Crimping is simple enough. Usually, only heavy revolver reloads with heavy boolits are roll crimped. Autoloader ammo rarely needs to be crimped so a taper crimper - used correctly - allows the user to flatten/remove the case mouth flair with minimum stress to the case brass.

I haven't followed any one's die instruction sheet since I got passed being a noobi. (Do they still print those things? ) I started casting and reloading .30-06, .30 Carbine and .38 special in 1965. It took me about a year to get over my noobi fears and learned to adjust my dies for the results I wanted; there were no carbide dies in those days.

I usually lightly lube for my carbide sizers.

[Three44s]

Many people say they don’t trim pistol brass. But I am not one of them. I trim my revolver brass because I like consistent crimps.

.......................................

The way I set the crimp, after you have a bullet seated to the depth you want. Back the seating stem out Put the cartridge all the way up in the die, press handle down in other words. Then screw the die in by hand till it won’t go any more. That is the beginning of the crimp. Back the cartridge out, turn the die in maybe 1/2 turn and try it. And continue until you have the crimp you want.

......................

+10!

I trim my revolver brass as well. I want consistent crimps as well.

I would likely be more cautious about half turns on the die body and go slower as I feel for the added resistance of reaching the state of crimp I seek.

Three44s

[Bazoo]

Yeah three44 is right, 1/2 turn probably is more than I do. Maybe 1/8 turn at a time. Sneak up on it.

[Three44s]

Yeah three44 is right, 1/2 turn probably is more than I do. Maybe 1/8 turn at a time. Sneak up on it.

It might approach a 1/2 turn at first contact but I agree that 1/8 turn or even a 1/16.

But “sneak up on it” certainly fits!

Best regards

Three44s