Seating issues with .223 and LNL AP

[cryogenic419]

Have a LNL AP and RCBS dies and loading up .223. I load up pistol rounds with no issues whatsoever, however when it comes to the .223 I run into issues where the bullet is not seating right. I'm almost 100% positive that after I set the bullet in the case mouth and and raise up, some how the movement on the machine is causing the bullet to shift/almost tip over just before it gets seated. I have had some that came out of the die seated crooked and some seated way lower than they should be. The ones that are seated lower has me thinking they are catching something in the die. The die is adjusted correctly and I can get it to seat correctly everytime if I take extra steps, meaning I set the bullet in the case, give it a slight tap with a hard rubber tool, and then seat. Problem is that if I do this tapping on the machine when there are powdered cases waiting for a bullet to be seated, the tapping knocks powder out of the cases.

I see Hornady and Dillion both make dies that are supposed to align the bullet prior to seating. Is this what I need to fix this problem?

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

With my lnl I set the bullet in the case mouth after raising the ram half way and the shellplate has already indexed. This will keep the bullet from tipping over. Good luck!

[FatWhiteMan]

Hornady's seating dies have a floating collar that aligns the bullet perfectly.

[Unclenick]

FatWhiteMan,

Not to hijack this thread, but if you have one of the Hornady seaters and a concentricity gauge, I'd be interested to hear what sort of runout numbers you get and in what chamberings. Some posts have suggested cartridges don't come out quite as straight from the Hornady design as from the Redding and Forster competition dies with their full chamber length sleeves, but I've never had one of the Hornady's to compare and would like to hear what your first hand experience has been.


Cryogenic419,

If you don't want to change dies, pull your seater apart and see if the edge of the seater stem's punch (the nose-accommodating section) has a coarse edge that can be radiused to discourage catching on the tip. You might even call RCBS and see if they will do something about that for you.

The other approach that comes to mind is to work a Lyman M style expander die in your loading process. These will slightly flair your case mouths, as they do for pistol, so even if you are not crimping your rifle loads, you still have to run the cases up at least part way into a crimp die to iron out the expansion. What is peculiar about the M-style profile is that unlike a simple belling of the case mouth that creates an unstable bullet base platform, they create a small step the bullet to sit upright in that keeps it pointed upward.

[zippy13]

Unclenick,

The M-style profile may help reduce eccentric run-out; but, won't additional expanding and crimping add to case mouth fatigue? Like so many things in life, it seems to be a trade off: case life or reduced eccentricity. I ask because I'll soon be in the market for a .223 Rem die set.

[Unclenick]

It will, same as it does with handgun loads and same as it does for rifle shooters loading cast bullets, who also bell their case mouths to prevent shaving lead. But belling lightly is not nearly as hard on the case mouth as forming a roll crimp is, which is common for AR shooters. I've had up to 50 reloads in .45 ACP using a taper crimp, despite belling the mouths every time, and taper crimp dies for rifles have started to become available and are fine for ironing the crimps out without forming a roll crimp.

The other factor is pressure. My 50 reloads were with light target loads that don't open up the case diameter as hard as occurs to the neck in a rifle case. That's why rifle case necks and shoulders need periodic annealing for long reloading life. But that annealing will undo stress caused by belling as well as by expanding, so total case life should not be compromised especially by it.

[zippy13]

Thanks, Unclenick

[BigJakeJ1s]

I see Hornady and Dillion both make dies that are supposed to align the bullet prior to seating. Is this what I need to fix this problem?

Hornady, Redding and Forster make these kinds of dies with floating alignment sleeves, Dillon does not.

The Hornady floating alignment sleeve only engages the neck of the case for alignment, whereas Redding Competition and all Forster seater's sleeves engage the entire body. Both the Forster Benchrest and Ultra-Benchrest have this feature, just the Benchrest does not include the micrometer adjustment, to save a little $$. Redding copied the Ultra Benchrest as their Competition seater after Forster's patent expired.

Andy

[Unclenick]

Originally Posted by BigJakeJ1s

Redding copied the Ultra Benchrest as their Competition seater after Forster's patent expired.

Actually, Redding just copied the sleeve from the expired sixties Forster patent, then got its own patent in 1988 to incorporate a floating seater stem with the sliding sleeve. The Forster does not use the floating seater stem. That remains the difference between the two designs today. The Redding patent described a scenario in which the Forster design could still tip a bullet. Forster has responded to that by changing the contours of the seating stem recesses. They say these improvements now keep 90% all bullets correctly aligned, and if you get one that it won't keep aligned you can get a custom stem for it.

[noylj]

Personally, I have never needed any case mouth belling to load a jacketed bullet in a bottleneck case.
For lead, you should get an M-die.
Personally, sounds as though your seating stem may be wrong for the bullet or it may have a rough ID that needs some polishing.
All the die makers I know will make a custom seating stem.
For my pistol cartridges, I have RCBS, Redding, Lee, and Hornady seating dies. The best for accuracy is the Hornady, followed closely by the Lee (I have no idea why, but it is so for .38 Special, .40S&W, 9x19 and .45ACP).
My Lee dies in .223 work very well.

[Unclenick]

The post-trim case mouth chamfer is all you usually need with jacketed bullets, though, if you take a magnifier to it, that chamfer can scrape off a little copper when it is new and has wire edges. Take the magnifier to commercial ammo and you frequently find a fine ring of scraped copper around the inside edge of the mouth, too. I once pulled a moly-coated bullet from a freshly trimmed and chamfered case to discover not one trace of moly left on the bearing surface sides below case mouth level. All scraped clean off.

The above is easy to address. Sharpen a hardwood dowel and press each newly trimmed and chamfered case mouth over it for a few seconds to let the wood burnish it. You can also run it on and off the expander in a sizing die to burnish it. I tried that and several other methods of polishing the chamfer and found they all pretty much worked. Testing by seating and pulling a moly bullet saw most of the moly staying put afterward.

Or, you can try the M-die and let it move the sharp edges out of the way. You don't have to insert the case far enough over the die to bell the mouth for jacketed bullets (though that would burnish the chamfer, too), but just far enough to get the little step put in. No scraping and good starting alignment. A two-fer.