9mm brass 'sticking' in powder dropper die on Dillon 650

jakfrost

jakfrost

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I bought some Starline new 9mm brass for the Florida Open last Feb and had a hell of a time reloading it since the brass would 'bind' when the 'case mouth expander/powder dropper die' on my Dillon 650 was used. Seems the stainless steel dropper die and the brass just don't like each other. The force needed to bring the brass back down is excessive and sometimes 'shakes' the whole press so much the powder shakes out of the brass.
This only happens with brand new brass, or brass that I have cleaned using wet, ( stainless pins ) media tumbling. Dry media leaves enough carbon on the inside of the case mouth to avoid any 'sticking'.
Oh, and before anyone suggests the 18.1 Lanolin/Isopropyl lube solution, that is a great homemade lube but the residue causes a messy 'mess' at the top of the case, binding with my 7.4gr of 3N38 in my 9 Major loads...causing erratic muzzle velocity on occasion and messes with my power factor. Not good at a match hundreds of miles from home!

Is there such a thing as a TC powder dropper die? Anyone have a working solution?

Cheers,
Jim
 
Wet tumbling can peen the case mouth and roll the mouth edges outward, Then expanding the case mouth will cause small flakes to break off into the case and on to the expander.

I got tired of this and bought a sonic cleaner to prevent the peening. One thing I did notice was the Starline brass pistol cases were under minimum trim length and varied in length.

I have a old 1973 Rockchucker press but my guess is the peening and rolled over case mouths is causing your cases to bind on your progressive press.

I bought a Redding Titanium Nitride type "M" expander with the brass flaking, and that didn't help so I got the sonic cleaner. And a vibratory tumbler with walnut or corn cob media will not peen the case mouths.

As a experiment try deburring the inside of the case mouths on a few cases and see if the problem stops. You can also try a Lyman or Redding type "M" expander that doees not over expand the case mouth.

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Unique Tek makes a powder funnel for the 650 that bells the case in two stages. This helps with the brass sticking somewhat.
The other solution is to also run your new brass in a tumbler with dry media. I use crushed walnut shells from Princess Auto with some polish added.
 
I had to polish the hell out of my Dillon powder drop every 4-5K to stop the powder drop from sticking.
Then I got a MR Bullet feeder. The Mr Bullet feeder powder drop is a lot better than the Dillon.
No issues with Mr Bullet powder drop yet.

I tried tumbling with pins and wet tumble. Pass
Corn cob media with car polish works best for me.
 
I reload pistol ammo on a Dillon Square Deal B and it took me some time to figure out why the brass was hanging up on the powder drop/mouth flare station. It is indeed the wet cleaning method that cleans the brass so well that it sticks to the die. Prior to that, dry vibrating cleaning did indeed leave enough slippery residue inside the case mouth.

I don't think that wet cleaning peens the mouth of the brass. It just cleans it so well that there's nothing but brass left there to touch the die.

That said what I do is I stack a pile of brass in a cardboard box in a fashion that all the brass is oriented case mouth up. I look in the box and all I see is the gaping open mouths of my brass. I then give it a couple of fast squirts of alcohol/lanolin spray lube. Not a lot but enough to get a bit of lube into most (doesn't even have to be all) the cases. This is one time you can be stingy with the lube. It has saved me a pile of effort when reloading. I'm certain you could use any lubricant you want but I use the DIY mix and I've got lots.

You could try some dry graphite lube on the case mouths but I never tried this because I had no desire to lube each case individually. I'll do it for some rifle brass but not when I'm trying to crank out a couple of hundred 9mm or 40 S&W.

Best of luck.
 
speedjunkiesracing said:
I had to polish the hell out of my Dillon powder drop every 4-5K to stop the powder drop from sticking.
Then I got a MR Bullet feeder. The Mr Bullet feeder powder drop is a lot better than the Dillon.
No issues with Mr Bullet powder drop yet.

I tried tumbling with pins and wet tumble. Pass
Corn cob media with car polish works best for me.
Click to expand...


Wet tumbling only brought me problems,
As much with my rifle in single stage than my pistol on a 650.
Dry tumbling with car polish is the answer to many brass processing problems.
 
I give the case mouths of my 45 colt brass a very light spray with a dry lube. It makes a big difference
 
Most powder dies will stick a little when the brass is wet tumbled. Muscle through it or use a very light coating of One Shot.
 
This only happens with 9mm for me. I wet tumble but do not use pins. 38 & 45 do not do this in my 650.
I agree the Mr bullet feeder funnel helps some.
Is it just 9mm for you guys?
 
snooker said:
This only happens with 9mm for me. I wet tumble but do not use pins. 38 & 45 do not do this in my 650.
I agree the Mr bullet feeder funnel helps some.
Is it just 9mm for you guys?
Click to expand...

I had the issue with new 45 brass as well. After tumbling the brass in dry media the sticking was much less, but I also use the Unique Tek powder funnel for 45.
 
Never had an issue with the lee powder though expander dies. Not sure that’s an option? Polishing sounds like a viable solution. Peening isn’t your problem. Especially if it’s worse with new brass.
 
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