Die problem

T

TSPIRI

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Montreal, CANADA
Hi all, I have been using lee dies for years, never had an issue, thousands of cases sized and loaded without issue. I recently picked up a basic 2 die set (fl and seating)for 300 win mag.

When I run through my process,get everything ready, resize, trim prime, throw powder charges and when I go to seat my bullets I get about 10-20% completely loose, neck tension is almost zero. I can pull the bullets with my fingers. The other 80% are perfectly normal.

Any ideas what's happening?
 
What kind of bullets?
I have had dramatic differences when using cheap FMJ’s like CamPro.

All the cases the same brand? Same age?
Thickness can vary quite a bit.

i cant imagine its the dies.

Do u lube the inside of the necks before seating,

Do you lube the inside of the necks when sizing?

To me it sounds like variation in the brass or bullet. I would start with the bullet.

I set neck tension at .002 using APW mandrels for most of the ammo I load and that is a pretty small margin. Less expensive projectiles can vary by that much or more.

Anyway. I would start there.

Good luck.
 
How much of the case are you actually sizing?
If you are sizing the whole neck, you can polish the expander section of your die down a bit at a time to get more neck tension.
It may also be the bullets you are using are a tad small, as has been suggested.
Cat
 
You need to measure everything. Compare cases before and after sizing. Take apart die and measure the expander. Measure a good sample(20-30 bullets) of the bullets

It would not be the first time that a Lee die came with an incorrectly sized mandrel or that a lot of bullets is undersized.
 
Dmay said:
If a problem only shows up on 20% of your cases, it'd highly unlikely that the dies are at fault in any way. You likely have a variance in neck wall thickness for some reason. Consider what could be causing that.
Click to expand...
I missed the 20% part!!
Yes, I would look at the case variances for sure.
Annealing may ( or may not) help in that case.
Sorting cases or etter quality cases may be the answer .
Cat
 
I’ve had things like that happen before. There’s a lot of things that it could be, starting with thin necks on the loose ones. Its a plus or minus world; if a die on the loose side of spec meets with a case neck on the thin side you can get what you’ve got. A slightly oversize expander can do it too; but on the other hand an undersized expander might fix a problem it never created. During my TSX bullet stage I had 3 calibers that wouldn’t reliably hold the bullets, and in two instances the issue was solved by taking about 3 thou off the expander ball. The third happened to be a 375 H&H and I ended up switching dies to make that one work. I’d picked up maybe 10 bags of new Remington brass and that seemed to be the issue. Seemed to be; because although it solved the problem neither the die or brass had anything wrong with them. The real issue was the bullets.
I have an STW built on a Shilen action that I got from a friend at a good price. Great price when you consider the “extras” he threw in included a Mark 4 scope, Redding competition bushing dies, 8 pounds of Retumbo, about 800 bullets, 100 new brass and a Sinclair neck turning tool. Probably some other stuff I forgotten. Reason for mentioning the extras is I had everything he was using, and he had an issue with loose bullets. In the bag of goodies was a large selection of bushings, enough to squeeze the necks down everything from right to rediculously undersized, which still gave loose bullets. I wasn’t even using the expander ball so that wasn’t it. I solved that problem with a highly technical method that I’m not even sure I should tell you about. I opened another box of the same bullets and the issue went away😂 180 Berger VLDs if that matters. The bases were very slightly larger than the body and when the larger part cleared the neck they got looser. Ironically the offending bullets worked just fine in my 7-300 Win.


Something can work perfectly; while still being on the verge of not working at all. Sort of like buying 5 dollar beers with 5 dollar bills. You could have been handing the same bills to some comely lass of virtue pure for years and it was always enough until it wasn’t.
 
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Annealing is almost always a good thing.

OP, If I were having your issue with a set of new dies, and I have in the past, the first place I look is at the expander ball on the end of your decapping rod.

It may be a bit on the small side. Even .001 undersize can make a difference with some bullets.
 
TSPIRI said:
Hi all, I have been using lee dies for years, never had an issue, thousands of cases sized and loaded without issue. I recently picked up a basic 2 die set (fl and seating)for 300 win mag.

When I run through my process,get everything ready, resize, trim prime, throw powder charges and when I go to seat my bullets I get about 10-20% completely loose, neck tension is almost zero. I can pull the bullets with my fingers. The other 80% are perfectly normal.

Any ideas what's happening?
Click to expand...
There are only really a few things that can cause your problem. I'd run through each of the following in order to find out where the problem is:

1. Die set up and operation - if the neck isn't being sized, you'll feel little or no resistance when you expand the necks - you should be able to feel this when raise the press handle after sizing. Also check that the stupid o-ring lee uses hasn't allowed the die to back out a bit. I'd recommend replacing the lee lock ring with just about anything else - you can buy forster or hornady lock rings cheap, or just pilfer another lock ring off another die you have.

2. Undersized bullets - this happens more than you'd think. You could have a Friday-afternoon batch of bullets

3. Very work-hardened brass - this is unlikely but possible - they could be so work-hardened that they're springing back after being sized. Try annealing or running them through the die twice. If you have an oversized chamber it can make this problem worse.

4. Dirty, faulty or poorly-built die - meaure your expander and either measure the ID at the neck portion of the die, or run a case through without the expander installed and measure the OD of the case neck. I doubt this is it, as you said it only happens occassionally, but if all else fails it's worth taking a closer look at your gear.

5. Neck turning issue - do you turn your necks? If so, how thin are they? If you do turn necks, you're using the wrong die. Get yourself a bushing die and don't use an expander.

Good luck - hope you can sort it out withot too much trouble.
 
Canuck65 said:
There are only really a few things that can cause your problem. I'd run through each of the following in order to find out where the problem is:

1. Die set up and operation - if the neck isn't being sized, you'll feel little or no resistance when you expand the necks - you should be able to feel this when raise the press handle after sizing. Also check that the stupid o-ring lee uses hasn't allowed the die to back out a bit. I'd recommend replacing the lee lock ring with just about anything else - you can buy forster or hornady lock rings cheap, or just pilfer another lock ring off another die you have.

2. Undersized bullets - this happens more than you'd think. You could have a Friday-afternoon batch of bullets

3. Very work-hardened brass - this is unlikely but possible - they could be so work-hardened that they're springing back after being sized. Try annealing or running them through the die twice. If you have an oversized chamber it can make this problem worse.

4. Dirty, faulty or poorly-built die - meaure your expander and either measure the ID at the neck portion of the die, or run a case through without the expander installed and measure the OD of the case neck. I doubt this is it, as you said it only happens occassionally, but if all else fails it's worth taking a closer look at your gear.

5. Neck turning issue - do you turn your necks? If so, how thin are they? If you do turn necks, you're using the wrong die. Get yourself a bushing die and don't use an expander.

Good luck - hope you can sort it out withot too much trouble.
Click to expand...
This, with the exception that I like Lee rings. I just had the same thing happen, it was the brass. The un-turned necks on a few were thiner and the bushing didn't size them down properly.

One potential fix is a Lee Collet die, those seem to handle different thickness well.
 
Do you anneal, if not how many times have you reloaded your brass. Do you cycle your brass and keep count? It may be you've hardened the brass, enough your starting to have it "spring back" causing a few loose necks. Measure the bullets as this is odd, I'm sure all reloaders have seen some variation on sizeing. A friend of mine bought match type bullets, but when he had issues he called the maker with the lot number. Turns out they were from 2 different bullet dies, they shipped out a batch of replacements!
 
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