What's going on? Need help.

awsomeo

awsomeo

CGN Regular
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NW Ontario
I'm new to reloading and I've reloaded about 200 rds. of .40S&W so far with no problems at all. Today was another story... I started to reload some 9mm and I was having some difficulty. The 9mm bullet wasn't seating right, I had some that were ok and others that I could push into the brass with one finger. Can I still use the ones that aren’t very tight into the brass? Then I was reloading some .40 and was having the opposite problem. The bullet was seating way too tight and this is what happened to a few of them.
P7310179.jpg

Some seated ok and some looked like these. All the brass was just once fired. What am I doing wrong? Thank you for your help.
 
Usually when you crush the side of the case like in your picture you are not flaring the mouth of the case enough before seating the bullet so the bottom edge of the bullet is pushing the case rim down. Lower the flaring die a bit; I adjust my die so that a bullet will sit on the case mouth in the flared end without you holding it. I'm not sure what is happening with your 9mm reloads, sounds strange to me too.
 
Remember that the 9mm case is a tapered design. You MUST expand the mouth just enough to allow the bullet to start smoothly without hanging on the case mouth or it will tear it.
Adjust your expander.
Good luck!
PP.:)
 
Sounds like your dies aren't set up right. The shell holder should just kiss the bottom of the die with the ram all the way up. Then adjust the expander to give a wee flare like Silverback says. Then adjust the seater to give you the OAL you want and taper crimp.
The loose bullets may be ok, but it's more likely that the bullets will get pushed farther into the case. You could re-crimp them.
 
i have the same problem once in a while so i have to make sure i have the case flared just right to avoid this problem.
 
get about 20 rounds of the 9mm and check the diameter, and how much variance you get across them... I had s similiar problem with the cheaper .40 reloads I was using.. one would be tough getting in, and one would slide in by hand.

as for the crushed cases, as people have already mentioned, lower the flaring die a bit, so you get a bit more bell on the casing, that will fix it.
 
Flare more, or chamfer the cases more.

And don't forget a good snug crimp when you're done. I HATE the crimpers built into most seating dies, the Lee factory crimp is a LOT easier to use, and (IMHO) works better.
 
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