Lead bullets “shaved” during seating. Need advice.

Ganderite said:
Sure. It is even nicer here in Southern Ontario.

Bring your sharpening gear and teach me how to use my new Stihl hand sharpener.

I can check you out on a single stage, turret, a 550 Dillon and a 650 Dillon.

In the mean time, flare the case mouth enough so a bullet sits in without touching the case mouth.
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Excellent.
So lower the Lee powder-through-expanding die?
The way it is set up now, I screwed the die in until it touched the shell holder and then backed it out two turns, as per the instructions. I then tweaked it a bit by screwing it in a slight bit more. Obviously this isn’t deep enough and needs to be lowered more.
 
McHoss said:
Excellent.
So lower the Lee powder-through-expanding die?
The way it is set up now, I screwed the die in until it touched the shell holder and then backed it out two turns, as per the instructions. I then tweaked it a bit by screwing it in a slight bit more. Obviously this isn’t deep enough and needs to be lowered more.
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Yup. The further in (lower) it's turned, the more flare it puts on the mouth. Unlike lowering the bullet seater/crimp die, it won't affect anything else.

Looking at bigedp51's excellent illustration (yet another of many...) I can see the benefit of the Lyman M die. However, I'd have to invest in a new press with more than 4 stations!
 
A little crimp goes a long way. Back off on it. If you think the crimp is too light, try the "Push against the side of the desk" test to see if the bullet move back easily.
 
Looks like over crimp and searing depth issues. Set your crimp first. Take a sized and expanded case and put it in the press. With the ram fully extended thread the die into the press until it touches the case. Add a quarter a turn and lock. Adjust seating depth. seat bullet to proper depth and try to push the bullet into the case. I push it against the bench. If if moves turn the die in another wuarter turn and try again. Keep going you can’t push by hand.

You may want a second seater die if you load 38 and 357. You have to adjust every time you seat the other calibre. Shouldn’t have to change seating depth unless you change bullets.
 
stampede said:
A little crimp goes a long way. Back off on it. If you think the crimp is too light, try the "Push against the side of the desk" test to see if the bullet move back easily.
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covert ops said:
Looks like over crimp and searing depth issues. Set your crimp first. Take a sized and expanded case and put it in the press. With the ram fully extended thread the die into the press until it touches the case. Add a quarter a turn and lock. Adjust seating depth. seat bullet to proper depth and try to push the bullet into the case. I push it against the bench. If if moves turn the die in another wuarter turn and try again. Keep going you can’t push by hand.

You may want a second seater die if you load 38 and 357. You have to adjust every time you seat the other calibre. Shouldn’t have to change seating depth unless you change bullets.
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If I were to push any of these against the bench they would likely go all the way into the case. Obviously waaayyy too loose in the neck.
 
McHoss said:
If I were to push any of these against the bench they would likely go all the way into the case. Obviously waaayyy too loose in the neck.
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Looking back through this thread, I think laurencen was right in post #6: "lead seated too deep causing crimp to try to grab the reduced diameter of the lead". Your OAL doesn't matter as long as the nose of the bullet doesn't protrude beyond the cylinder mouth. Pointy bullets like those will have a longer OAL than, say, a SWC or WFN of the same weight. (You'll also be pushing pressures up if you seat too deep, although likely not enough to damage your GP100!) Seat them out far enough that the case imouth is maybe 3/4 of the way up the stippled, straight portion of the shank and see if they still fit. Just out of curiosity, whose bullets are those?
 
josquin said:
Looking back through this thread, I think laurencen was right in post #6: "lead seated too deep causing crimp to try to grab the reduced diameter of the lead". Your OAL doesn't matter as long as the nose of the bullet doesn't protrude beyond the cylinder mouth. Pointy bullets like those will have a longer OAL than, say, a SWC or WFN of the same weight. (You'll also be pushing pressures up if you seat too deep, although likely not enough to damage your GP100!) Seat them out far enough that the case imouth is maybe 3/4 of the way up the stippled, straight portion of the shank and see if they still fit. Just out of curiosity, whose bullets are those?
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They are Hornady bullets. And they specify 1.590 as COL.
 
McHoss said:
They are Hornady bullets. And they specify 1.590 as COL.
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1.590" is given as the nominal OAL for the .357 in my Lyman manual. But the GP100 cylinder is 1.610" so you have a little room to play with. OAL is pretty much irrelevant as long as a) the case has enough bullet to get a grip on - certainly not a problem here - and b) they don't protrude beyond the cylinder mouth. Something is certainly wrong if the crimp is ahead of the straight portion of the bullet and you can still push them back into the case :)

ps- I think those are fairly soft; most reviews I see are by people shooting .38 Spec., so you don't want to drive 'em too hard, maybe 1100 fps. max.
 
josquin said:
1.590" is given as the nominal OAL for the .357 in my Lyman manual. But the GP100 cylinder is 1.610" so you have a little room to play with. OAL is pretty much irrelevant as long as a) the case has enough bullet to get a grip on - certainly not a problem here - and b) they don't protrude beyond the cylinder mouth. Something is certainly wrong if the crimp is ahead of the straight portion of the bullet and you can still push them back into the case :)

ps- I think those are fairly soft; most reviews I see are by people shooting .38 Spec., so you don't want to drive 'em too hard, maybe 1100 fps. max.
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Thanks for the good info.
I am loading them with 4.5gr of Unique which should give roughly 850 fpm so no worry there. I made up a dummy round and the shortest I could make it and still have some shoulder exposed was 1.620. That actually fits in my GP100 with a little room to spare even.
 
McHoss said:
Thanks for the good info.
I am loading them with 4.5gr of Unique which should give roughly 850 fpm so no worry there.
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That's for sure. You'll have time for a cup of tea as they amble down-range :) You won't even need a separate crimp for that load; just set the powder-through-expansion die enough to remove the flare on the case and you'll be good to go. Let us know how those shoot.

ps- as to "pushing back on a loaded round and the bullet slips into the case", I just had this problem last night when loading some .357 mag rounds. I had finished up a box of Bullet Barn 158gr. RNFP and switched over to Berry's... or so I thought. I did the push back test and- surprise! - the bullet slipped into the case. Turned out I had grabbed an open box of Berry's 9mm (!) which are a thou smaller. I had to pull about 25 rds. as I had dumped the new ones into a box with rounds loaded with the proper Berry's bullets. I had in fact run out of Berry's, so I continued with the new box of Bullet Barn 158 gr. SWC I'd just picked up at Rusty Wood. Where is the "egg on face" emoticon?

ps- Yes, that loaded round looks just fine. Now go shootin' and see how they do. :)
 
rick357 said:
Umm, the powder through expansion die is what makes the flare.
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AAARRRGHhhhh.... I sit corrected! What I should have written was, "You won't need the FCD die; just set the bullet seater die enough to remove the flare." (As I've just finished doing while loading a bunch of 148gr. WC .38 Spec.) Sigh... Looks llke he's done it just fine despite my "help", though.

Thanks for catching that.
 
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laurencen said:
lead seated too deep causing crimp to try to grab the reduced diameter of the lead
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This was the first correct answer.

Seat the bullet shallower so the crimp is on the full diameter, not the reduced nose diameter. Adjust your seating die accordingly.
The bullet is shaving when seated because the expander die isn't set properly and isn't expanding the case mouth enough. Screw the die in some more and flare the case mouth a bit and it won't shave anything.

That's all that's wrong - seating depth and expander die setting. Adjust your dies and move on.
 
Update.
I followed the advice to lower the expanding die and flare the mouth more. I lowered it so I could sit the bullet in easily. I also made the OAL 1.62 which fits nicely in the GP100 cylinder and the crimp sits just below the top of the shoulder.
Shot some today and they were easy shooting and accurate with only 4.8gr of a unique. Will have to keep an eye on leading in the barrel.
Thanks for the help folks.
 
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