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Old June 23, 1999, 01:43 PM   #1
MO
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I am having a great deal of trouble with my .38 spl loads. After cleaning,decapping/sizing, cleaning, I can take each piece of brass and drop it into the cylinder of my Taurus 606 or S&W 19. However after loading, about 10% of my relaods will not chamber into either weapon. Anybody ever experienced this or have any suggestions to help?
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Old June 23, 1999, 02:03 PM   #2
Mal H
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The most common cause of this is that you are crimping too much and buckling the brass. Do you see dimples in the brass after seating the bullet? Another common problem that causes the same thing is that the bullet is not straight up and down in the casing as you start the seating.
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Old June 23, 1999, 02:53 PM   #3
bear
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Run into the same problem years ago and found the SWC bullets I was using would do the same thing with a certian brand name brass, I was smelting my own bullets and would size/lube them but don't remember the size of the sizer or the name of the brass, may not be the problem, just thought I'd just let ya know.
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Old June 23, 1999, 05:27 PM   #4
Patrick Graham
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If you are roll crimping you might want to sort your brass by length.

If you are taper crimping I don't know what to say.. hmmm.
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Old June 24, 1999, 01:27 PM   #5
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I think my buddy found the problem. We think that we may not be crimping tight enough. Thus, leaving too much of our expander lip sticking up. He added a little extra crimp and seemed to solve the problem. Thanks for your help fellers!
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Old June 24, 1999, 04:11 PM   #6
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MO - I am surprised that this is the answer. I had considered and rejected it since you said that only 10% of your reloads had the problem. If you are consistent in the expansion process and the seating process, then all of your loads should have failed, and you should have noticed it immediately, at the mouth of the cylinder.
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Old June 24, 1999, 07:29 PM   #7
Cheapo
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10 percent is actually what I'd expect regarding overlong and overshort (undershort? naw, that's BVDs!) brass. Just finished trimming all my .357s, and will try harder to keep them sorted by number of firings so they all have a greater chance of growing at the same rate.

Otherwise, a crimp die adjusted for the "average" will kill about 10 percent of the motley lot, and will not crimp the short 10 percent at all. On average, FWIW.
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Old June 24, 1999, 07:44 PM   #8
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I'm not sure I buy that, Cheapo. A case will have to be extremely short for the crimper to not only not crimp it at least a little but to leave the bell in it. If this were the case MO is seeing, then why doesn't he get some squashed cases also if he adjusts to get a good crimp on the very short ones?
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Old June 24, 1999, 08:23 PM   #9
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I'll confer with my cohort and get back to ya'll. I haven't loaded any in a few days myself. But according to his account this cured the problem in his revolvers.
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Old June 25, 1999, 10:51 AM   #10
Bill Hebert
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Whenever I load LSWC's that are moly coated, debris collects in the die causing the bullets to seat deeper and deeper the more I reload. I have to remove the die and scrape out the lead and moly junk otherwise the bullets fall outside of the minimum overall length and the brass starts to buckle causing the problem you mention. I'm not suggesting that's your problem - only that it might be. watch the minimum OAL for the powder your loading - it varies from powder to powder. Good luck.
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Old June 25, 1999, 07:42 PM   #11
flatlander
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If your case length varies quite a bit, not only will the amount of crimp vary, but the expander won't bell the case mouth as much on the shorter cases either. So, your idea that not enough crimp was causing the problem is probably right. I've never had to trim any of the brass for my auto pistols(9mm,38Super,45ACP), but my .357 & .44 Magnums need trimmed every fourth or fifth reload.
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Old June 26, 1999, 12:12 AM   #12
Joe Portale
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This one may seem like it came from left field, but Mo what kind of loads are you running? I had a strange experience with .357 mags a while back. I was attempting to dummy down the loads for my wife. She had just started shooting and was real timid about the recoil. I took the load data for cowboy loads and actually dropped them a bit more. (Yes, yes I know that was real stupid...live and learn). The charge was so light that the pressure actually belled the bottom of the case. The cases would pop right out of the cylinder, but would refuse to chamber. Again, not all of them would do this. When I mic'd the outside of the cases, I found that there was a slight buldge (0.05) near the base. I cranked up the powder charge to where it should have been and the problem went away.
Also, I have heard that cases that are past their time can do this also. I have seen cases that develop a ring just above the
base.

just a thought.

Joe

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Old June 26, 1999, 10:09 PM   #13
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Well, we tweaked the crimp in a little tighter and this cured most of the problems. We also ran them through the tumbler after loading to clean up any crud that might have deposited on the case. I had a FEW still stick. I "encouraged" one of the problem rounds into the cylinder and with a pair of pliers gave it a little twist to mark the area that is becoming jammed. It appears that just above the "lube groove" (whatever that place is called) and just below this groove seems to be a little large. Our next hypothesis is that the feller that we buy our bullets from is not sizing these perfectely?? We have some NBC bullets and are going to try and pay attention to them to see if this occurs with them also.

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Old June 27, 1999, 03:37 PM   #14
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MO, its not a very wise practice to tumble or vibrate loaded cartridges for two reasons. The first is safety - although the probability of touching off a primer is very low, it's not zero. The second is more important - you will change the chemistry of the powder by damaging the inhibitors and coatings on the powder. You can make a safe load into a very unsafe one.
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Old June 27, 1999, 07:49 PM   #15
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I felt a little "iffey" about it myself to tell you the truth. Someone recomended it and I was weak enough to try it. Thanks for the tip!

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Old July 1, 1999, 10:24 PM   #16
Rob62
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Mal H.
You mention a topic that is very interesting to me. Tumbling loaded ammo. I agree with you on the safety issue to some degree. I only shoot SWC bullets so I'm not really worried about a spitzer bullet hitting the primer. Actually, I personally doubt that even spitzer bullets would cause a problem. (NOTE- for anyone reading this I am not saying that you should tumble any ammo)

I have done some *limited* testing of tumbling loaded rounds. About 6 different powders and caliber combinations. I only have a Chronograph to compare results with. But the bottom line was that after up to 1 hour in a tumbler the loaded rounds showed NO increase in MV over the untumbled rounds.

Have you ever read of (from an authoratative source) or had personal experience with tumbled rounds causing pressure problems ?

Regards,
Rob
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Old July 1, 1999, 11:39 PM   #17
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I have no experience tumbling or vibrating loaded cartridges because I know intuitively this shouldn't be done. Actually, I don't believe tumbling will cause the type of powder changes I am talking about. Vibrating cleaners would be much harder on them.

As for an authority, I quote from Lyman's 47th Reloading Handbook (page 22), "Loaded ammunition, and primed cases, should never be tumbled. There is a risk of the primer pellet or powder granulations breaking down and causing unintended problems. It is also possible that ignition of the loaded ammo or primed cases could occur."
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Old July 3, 1999, 08:29 AM   #18
Quantrill
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I had the same problem and found it was the combination of [3] circumstances.
1] bullet dia. size of .3585
2] military brass [which is a little thicker than commercial]
3] a minimal chamber size on a Dan Wesson revolver.

Any of these items by itself would probably not result in a problem but together they were a problem for me. Luck!
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