Reloading Hates

Lee and their resellers not always discriminating in their ads between priming tool shell holders and press shell holders.
 
Nick Leduc said:
For whatever reason, 458 Socom is giving me trouble. I have made probably 20 rounds and I will say 75% of them have failed the plunk test. Started with Hornady dies, switched over to Redding dies, same issue. I stopped trying for a while, and will start from scratch some point this spring.
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I was having the same issue using Lee dies. What I found was during the seating/crimping stage, the shoulder was bulging slightly. I couldn't get the bullet seated far enough and also get a good crimp no matter how I adjusted the die.
My remedy was to use the seat/crimp die only to seat the bullet. No crimp at all with that die. I ordered a Lee factory crimp die and use that for the crimp stage. Every one passes the plunk test now.
 
ImYourHuckleberry said:
I was having the same issue using Lee dies. What I found was during the seating/crimping stage, the shoulder was bulging slightly. I couldn't get the bullet seated far enough and also get a good crimp no matter how I adjusted the die.
My remedy was to use the seat/crimp die only to seat the bullet. No crimp at all with that die. I ordered a Lee factory crimp die and use that for the crimp stage. Every one passes the plunk test now.
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I have a Lee factory crimp die for every caliber I load. I never crimp with ANY seating Die no matter which brand it is.
 
.32 cal for me. Just because they are so damn small.
 
Tailhunter said:
No. Do they pattern as well?
I have killed many a field rat while bushogging and using a snuby .38 with the cups.
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Can’t say how well they do in .38, but I used to roll my own for .44 Magnum using #9 shot and they worked great.

Drop your powder, seat a gas check in the case (cup up) over the charge. Drop the shot into the case, leaving enough space at the top to seat another gas check, then a slight roll crimp to hold the top gas check in place.
 
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nbkky71 said:
Yeah, I'd have to agree that processing rifle brass is my nemesis. So much so that I outsourced it for the last go-around when I had a 5gal bucket full.

Now I'm out of match ammo and I have 3k pieces of .223 brass just sitting there, waiting on me. Sigh...
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I dislike prepping .223 cases. They are tiny for doing the primer pockets and trimming and chamfering the case mouth. They make my arthritic fingers ache.
 
I have a single stage press so every complete handgun round takes 4 pulls of the handle plus one push of the Lee primer tool. I actually got tennis elbow from a marathon reloading session
 
rufrdr said:
I have a single stage press so every complete handgun round takes 4 pulls of the handle plus one push of the Lee primer tool. I actually got tennis elbow from a marathon reloading session
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You seem to be ready and needing an AP press.
 
scratchmark said:
Glue gun on bad crimped shotshells made my loading a bit more likable. I loadable of different bottle neck cartridges and I hate the "trim to length" process
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I like the glue gun idea.
 
You shouldn’t have to use a glue gun on anything gun or reloading related, it’s not arts and crafts. Get another shot wad with shorter legs, reduce the shot column or reduce the amount of powder. It should all fit in your shotgun hull and the petals fold over correctly. The correctly folded sg load is an important part of how well or poorly it will perform. You wouldn’t seat a bullet in a case without some kind of a crimp. Same difference. You might experiment with a roll crimp but that’s another step.
 
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baltimoreed said:
You shouldn’t have to use a glue gun on anything gun or reloading related, it’s not arts and crafts. Get another shot wad with shorter legs, reduce the shot column or reduce the amount of powder. It should all fit in your shotgun hull and the petals fold over correctly. You might experiment with a roll crimp but that’s another step.
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How many times has the shell been shot? I had to use a glue gun when I wanted to reload paper hulls that has been shot a few times to look cool.
 
I reload my WW AAs until they split then cut them down to 2 inch shells. I will admit to not knowing much about reloading paper shells though I have a bunch of old ones. The ones I have have a roll crimp and a piece of card with the shot size under the roll. My understanding was that when they frayed they were cut down with a tool and just reloaded shorter. I guess the internal fiber wad between the powder and shot was reduced as needed since there is no plastic wad.
 
I'm having an issue now where my polymer coated projectiles are being "shaved" when they are seated slightly off-angle. I tried belling the case mouth a bit more but that didn't seem to resolve the issue. I've developed a technique where I put the projectile on the case and then spin both about 45° on the up stroke to detect (or correct) the projectile alignment prior to seating. I never had this issue with my old Blue Bullets, but seems to happen constantly with my KCBC projectiles. Anyways, I hate it.
 
I've found that sometimes belling the case mouth a little less helps with this. Smaller mouth less wiggle room I guess. Could also vary with ogive of the bullet.
 
Thanks for the suggestions @Bahamadon and @baltimoreed. The projectiles in general seem a bit lumpy and rough and the weights seem fairly variable (still ~147 gr., but a pretty high variance), so I bet the OD isn't exactly consistent.
 
17 Rem that little grain of rice size bullet, 22 Hornet or 22 K Hornet, go slow or the
case will crush, sorting mil brass from others, going from 50 BMG to 5.56 or smaller,
trimming a few thousand of 5.56 cases. No really dis-likes ..just some are a pain

-Swoopz
 
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