What the heck? Case bulging..

[jpsw44]

Hi guys,

Im a little stumped...Did some loading tonight of some .45 ACP 230 gr RNL's that I cast up..I sized them at .452..After I loaded 2 or 3 I checked them in my case gauge...No go. HMMMM. They went in just about half way and stopped..Tried them in my KKM .45 Glock barrel..NO Go. The cases are bulged at the bullet..Mic'd my bullets-evrything OK. Played with seating depth(more/less), case mouth belling(more/less), and crimp(more/less)..Nothing seems to work. I even loaded up some unlubed bullets figuring it was lube buildup inside the case all to no avail..Deciding it had to be a problem with my bullets I loaded some .452 commercial cast bullets from Leadheads..Still no dice..I spent a good hour or so trying to diagnose the problem..Everything was great before when I was using my Lee FCD but I lost it when I moved, though Im still able to load jacketed and everythings fine. Im using RCBS dies and crimping separate from seating...Should i be sizeing down to .451 mayby? My barrel slugs out at .451 so I figured .452 would be good..I cant imagine what else go be wrong..Any help would be appreciated

[mooman76]

Could be you put too much crimp on them. When you crimp over the bullet it can cause the brass to bow out from the crimp. FCD crimps different so it does not do this and in some cases it solves this problem.

[Cherokee]

Not familiar with KKM glock barrels, but sounds like a minimum chamber. Assuming you have taper crimped the loaded round just enough to get rid of the flare ( about .470 right at the crimp), try 451 sizing and see how that fits in the chamber, especially since 451 jacketed works.

[littlejack]

44:
I don't shoot jacketed in my acp, but I do believe that they are sized at .451.
That being said, I cast and size my boolits to .452. I get a lot of other peoples boolits in trade, and I do size them also to .452 also. My Taurus eats all of them and spits out the hulls.
I have not tried a case guage with my reloads. They may not fit with the .452 boolits. All I know is that all my reloads fit in the chamber of my pistol.
I believe you are on the right track.
Jack

[oldracer]

Might be that the case mouth is not expanded enough? I have the same issue when I load cast boolits into 357 cases and I get a bulge just below the bottom of the bullet seating area. I saw several pictures in Handloading and a couple of other places and they all said this can happen because of the increased friction when pushing the bullet into the case. I found it does not happen when I do the same load with 38spcl cases so I am figuring the wall of the 357 cases are just a bit thinner. I am loading 148gr DEWC boolits both bought and ones I have cast myself and the result is the same.

To make this be a non issue I now use a Lee Carbide 4 die set and do the crimp and also size the case and there have been no further case size issues.

[HeavyMetal]

Tight chamber and thick brass can create that no go deal.

The Lee FCD die has a carbide ring in it to resize any "Oversized" case's so everyhing feeds no matter what!

So you may have had this issue for awhile and just noticed it beacuse you lost the FCD die.

Some ideas to try out to get rid of the "bulge": sort by head stamp, try some Nickel case's if you have them they are thinner walled.

Try sizing to .451 and shoot them. Odds are after a pass through the Lee FCD die they were 451 anyways!

[35remington]

Check:

Case diameter at the mouth after loading. Should be .472" or less.

Case diameter over the "bulge"......should be .472" or less, once again.

The most common newbie mistake with loading the 45 ACP is in failing to turn in the case mouth flare or seating the bullet so crookedly the case bulge is large or offcenter, causing failure to chamber.

If they won't go in, it's too big somewhere.

Period. Your gauge and chamber say so.

Keep measuring until you find the oversized area, then tell us where it was.

You don't need the LFCD to load good ammo.....all it does it cover up the source of the problem. Fix the problem by identifying it rather than covering it up by ramming the rounds willy-nilly through the factory crimp die.

Properly loaded ammo should not "need" the factory crimp die for correction. If it did, it wasn't loaded properly.

[jpsw44]

Check:

Case diameter at the mouth after loading. Should be .472" or less.

Case diameter over the "bulge"......should be .472" or less, once again.

The most common newbie mistake with loading the 45 ACP is in failing to turn in the case mouth flare or seating the bullet so crookedly the case bulge is large or offcenter, causing failure to chamber.

If they won't go in, it's too big somewhere.

Period. Your gauge and chamber say so.

Keep measuring until you find the oversized area, then tell us where it was.

You don't need the LFCD to load good ammo.....all it does it cover up the source of the problem. Fix the problem by identifying it rather than covering it up by ramming the rounds willy-nilly through the factory crimp die.

Properly loaded ammo should not "need" the factory crimp die for correction. If it did, it wasn't loaded properly.

Took some measurements..All cases are PMC once fired..

Case mouth after sizing - .467
After seating..no crimp - .474
After crimp - .473

[RobS]

Try sizing to .451 and shoot them. Odds are after a pass through the Lee FCD die they were 451 anyways!

I agree.............. as the ring in my FCD always would swage down lead bullets in my case.......some alloys more than others but would still work down a bullet that was .452 or larger which all my 45 acp bullets are sized at.

Another thing how hard are your bullets.........what alloy are you using i.e. WW air cooled, WW water quenched, Lyman #2 etc.

I ask as water quenched WW bullet (18-20ish BHN) will not give as it is hard enough to retain it's diameter and can create a larger bulge. A air cooled bullet 10-12 BHN will swage down some and more than likely to a .451 bullet so the brass won't bulge out as much.

If you are water dropping bullets and like that method it's fine, but you'll need to size to .451 then.

By the way I understand the principle of the FCD in that its intent is to correct any bullet that is not at standard specs (whatever those might be). However if a person sizes bullets to what their firearms need then a FCD shouldn't be necessary.

[Edubya]

Drop a sized brass into your barrel. If it fits, measure it and use that measurement for final measurement. It will probably measure about .470", .472" would probably be a maximum.
Which press are you using? On my Dillon I have pulled the decapper pin and pushed a few oversized back up into it.

EW

[35remington]

Those measurements are on the large-ish side. If the chamber was cut too small or the leade too short, that could be affecting things as well.

There's no reason for a small chamber on a Glock, even aftermarket.

FWIW, I loaded a HG 68 clone we made on the Castboolits forum, sized .452" in Remington R-P brass recently, and it measures .4705" over the sized portion of the bullet in the case. It may be that R-P brass is a skosh thinner than some, screwing up the comparison a little for all I know, but still, it also may be that you need a couple of thou less than what you've got.

Check your bullet seating step, observing how the bullet goes into the case a bit at a time. Is it straight? If it isn't, there's ways to improve it.

Is the existing bulge in the case uniform all the way around?

When the cartridge fails to chamber, how far above the hood or the gauge does the case head stand? A little or a lot? Numbers would help, use the step thingie on your caliper to measure.

The LFCD occasions either praise or damnation on the part of various handloaders depending upon just how much it's sizing. Reports vary on this. Mine doesn't size very much (the above mentioned loads not at all as the inside diameter is noticeably larger than that) but I've heard of others that do.

If you've got cases bulged to this degree you're certainly best advised to fix it and keep the heck away from "restoring" these in the FCD as it will possibly make things worse. Badly oversized rounds are the very worst ones to be running through the FCD....they're turning nonfunctional ammo into very bad functioning ammo at each stroke of the press handle.

The only thing worse than a crooked bulged case that won't chamber is a "corrected", still crooked (with a possibly now loose fitting bullet in the case) cartridge that will!!!

If you noticeably size anything in the FCD set it aside as suspect and do not rely on it save for slowly hand feeding it into the chamber and carefully firing it. It may not be suitable for normal recoil fed feeding as far as safety is concerned. The degree of sizing of your own FCD will determine if this statement is true or not, dependent upon the die and the degree of bulge.

[jpsw44]

Just a little backround info..Ive been reloading for about 5 or 6 years now though i am in no way a seasoned vet..Took a break from casting but the bug has bitten me again so im back. My alloy is straight wheelweights, air cooled and dropped from a Ballisti-Cast mold..Im working up a load so im using my Lyman turret press. Once I get a load I like I'll switch it over to the 550. Got a .451 sizer die coming from Midway so we'll see what happens with that..

I pulled the barrel out of my Glock 21 and same deal, would not fully chamber..I will take some measurements. I also pulled the barrel from my Springfield Champion and whaddaya know..All rounds dropped right in. Kinda strange a Glock has tighter chamber tolerances than a 1911 but thats neither here nor there.

35REM,

Im loading very slow, paying close attention to bullet seating. I thought of that too but have been checking and double checking to make sure they are seated straight..The bulge appears to go around the entire case to my eye. Im going to experiment with different brass just for the heck of it..Also gonna run over a friends house with a couple rounds and put them through his FCD..Im just curious..Ill take measurements before and after..

Something is definitely going on here and im pulling my hair out trying to figure out what..I don't think it's operator error because im going very slow and methodical ..Ive eliminated the components or actually just the lead as I get the same condition with .452 commercial cast slugs..That leaves me with the dies and possibly the press..I'll give that a good once over to make sure everything is tight on that end..

[lwknight]

Seeing the bulge going around the base of the boolit is normal. That just means that your resizing die is tight.
That 1 more 1/1000 might just be the last straw.
I have a finickey SW 5906 9mm that will not except a .356 boolit and I'm thinking about honing the chamber a couple thousandths.

[blackthorn]

Instead of trying this and that indiscriminately, slug the barrel!!! Then you will have the basic measurement(s) you need to know and you will know if the problem lies with the bullet size or if there is something wrong with your loading regime! Since the rounds will not fit in the Glock and will fit in another .45 barrel, it sure sounds like a chamber dimension problem to me.

[lwknight]

What does slugging the barrel have to do with chamber dimension?

[jpsw44]

What does slugging the barrel have to do with chamber dimension?

I was thinking the same thing..Not to mention I stated in my first post that I did slug the barrel..

[mtgrs737]

If you have a set of pin gages you can check the chamber size easily. I would suggest that your brass is too thick or your chamber is too small for that extra .001" diameter boolit, and that is cutting it too close anyway.

[Echo]

Jpsw44, you might try R-P brass (if you haven't already). In my experience, it is thinner than anything else I have used - in fact, I don't use it for that reason. Not enough neck tension from my die set, and the boolits, while not loose, aren't tight. The extra .002 less OAD could solve the problem, with that gun. And you would know that R-P reloaded ammo fits that gun, and you could shoot other ammo in your other guns.

[GabbyM]

Round nose can sometimes be tricky to get seated straight if your seater stem doesn't fit well with your bullet nose. If they are out of line you will have a bulge on one side along with issues. Just another thing to check. Lyman M dies and or a better fitting seat stem is the cure for crocked bullets.

I set my 45 acp crimp to .470". Since I don't know what pistol they'll be shot in.

[Edubya]

Measure a fired case, mine measure .472". Measure the brass wall and double that measurement, about .022". That only leaves .450" for the boolit.

EW