I am destroying brass when seating

p14shooter

p14shooter

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Tell me what I am doing wrong. When I am seating my bullet, dimples will form near the shoulder on the body side of the brass. In extream cases, the whole shoulder will fold up. I have destroyed up to 10 peices of brass when reloading only 40 rds. Now for the particulars. My seating die is screwed down so that the bottom touches the shell holder, the correct shell holder is being used. I am using the same motion each time I raise and lower the ram. I hear a crunching sound when I seat, I presume that is the powder I hear and perhaps it has stuck a bit on the inside of the neck. I am using a lyman press and lee dies. I FL resize. I am loading .223 68gr hornady HPBT into rem brass and the brass is within length specs. My seating is also not very uniform, I presume this is from the quality of equipment that I have. It will seat anywhere +/- .006. You should hear me curse when I have to pull the bullet out to reseat, and when I reseat, that is usually when the whole shoulder folds. I do not have any touble when I load my 308, so I am at a loss. I have cleaned my dies as well. Has anyone else had this type of trouble?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this.

Paul
 
p14shooter said:
Tell me what I am doing wrong. When I am seating my bullet, dimples will form near the shoulder on the body side of the brass. In extream cases, the whole shoulder will fold up. I have destroyed up to 10 peices of brass when reloading only 40 rds.
Click to expand...

See stanway and tommyg's posts below

p14shooter said:
My seating is also not very uniform, I presume this is from the quality of equipment that I have. It will seat anywhere +/- .006. You should hear me curse when I have to pull the bullet out to reseat, and when I reseat, that is usually when the whole shoulder folds.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are measuring to the Meplat (tip) and not the Ogive. I often see lots of variance if measuring from the bullet tip to the case end because the tips are not consistent. Measure your naked bullets and try seating five or so that measure the same out of the box and see if the COL is different or get a Bullet Comparator which measures to the ogive.
 
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I have had similar problems with the 30-30 when I was using the internal crimp. I had the die set down too far. Try backing it off a half turn or so. You'll still be able to adjust your seating depth with the adjustment screw.

Good luck.

James
 
Are you attempting to crimp the cartridges at the same time??? if so back the seating die out until the crimp is removed, then readjust for OAL, then turn the die in( down until you get the desired crimp. you' find that the OAL is a little short but you'll get consistant crimp and no shoulder damage. consistant crimp is more important than OAL for accuracy, especially in a self loader.

BTW you did not mention make and model of loader/ dies

tg
 
tommyg said:
Are you attempting to crimp the cartridges at the same time??? if so back the seating die out until the crimp is removed, then readjust for OAL, then turn the die in( down until you get the desired crimp. you' find that the OAL is a little short but you'll get consistant crimp and no shoulder damage. consistant crimp is more important than OAL for accuracy, especially in a self loader.

BTW you did not mention make and model of loader/ dies

tg
Click to expand...

Sure he did. Lyman Loader. Lee Dies.
 
Unscrew your seating die until it will no longer touch the shellholder or case when ram is lowered all the way down. Put the case in the shell holder, lower the ram all the way down again, then screw your seating die until it touches the mouth of the case.(your press handle will just begin to move). Tighten your lock ring. Put a bullet in your seating die, adjust your seat to desired OAL. If you want crimp, then back out your seating adjuster, loosen your lock ring and turn your die in 1/2 to 1 turn (depending on how much crimp you want), retighten your lock ring, then (using same bullet with proper OAL)readjust seating depth until it touches the bullet. It should now seat and crimp without damaging your cases. Ask me how I came to know this.KD
 
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Place a brass in the shell holder,run its all the way up into the seating die. screw the die down until it just touches the brass. Back the die off by one turn. That will work fine.
 
Yup, problem fixed. Thanks. Although I did still have to turn the die down a bit further, so it must be almost resting on top of the case without touching as there was not enough adjustment on the die to seat it at proper length without turning the die down more.
 
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