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Old October 25, 1999, 03:58 AM   #1
Red Bull
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Join Date: August 18, 1999
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Hello,

Some of my brass is having trouble chambering due to bulging. What do I do to fix the brass? I have heard of doo-dads that fix the mis-shaped brass, but I don't know what they are called and how much they cost.

thanks!
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Old October 25, 1999, 05:57 AM   #2
John Lawson
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Stop in your tracks and determine the cause of your swelling cases. You either need to reduce your loads, or you need a new barrel with a proper ramp.
Don't fool around with this problem. If a case blows out at the feed ramp, it will be a very unpleasant experience.
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Old October 25, 1999, 06:24 AM   #3
Joe D
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If you are getting excessive swelling John gave you good advise. Some bulging of the case is normal. Certain Glocks are worse than others (.40). I am not aware of a fully supported barrel that is available. I don't see how it would feed. You can reduce the bulging by going to a barrel with a "match" chamber. There is a possibility of less reliable feeding when you do this though. You did not state what type of weapon you had so it is hard to determine the problem. One thing I have done to more fully resize the case for reloading is to surface grind the shellholder appox. .040" to allow deeper sizing. Some dies have a large "bell mouth" and do not size as well. Look at your primers. They will give you a good indication of the pressure level. If you are shooting a .40 S&W do not try to made a 10mm out of it.HTH
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Old October 25, 1999, 08:14 PM   #4
karlfitt
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In addition to the advice you have already recieved....
There is a company that make a REAL full length resizer.
I have seen it advertized in the USPSA Magazine, but it is very expensive $455 and $175 for each additional caliber you might want.


Karl
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Old October 26, 1999, 03:17 PM   #5
DblTap
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http://members.aol.com/Casepro1/index.html

I've got one and it does wonders! Mine is serial number 177, purchased about 4 years ago. I case gage all my reloads (better to find a bad round while sitting on the couch then in the middle of competition!) Before using it, I had a reject rate of about 10 percent. Now there are no rejects, unless a cracked case gets by my initial look thru.

Well worth the money. I have two sets of dies, .45 ACP and .38 Super.

It boils down to making sure the ammo goes bang when you _have_ to have it go bang!

For me, it's just one less thing that I have to worry about.

DblTap
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Old October 31, 1999, 09:33 PM   #6
wolfz
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Just has been mentioned, if you have bulging brass (and I would bet you have a GLOCK, you can get it back to factory specs by using a Lee factory crimp die. It not only puts on a good taper crimp, but it resizes all the way to the head. A word of caution, if your brass has bulged, you fixed it with reloading,and it happens to line up again in the chamber like it did before, that brass is not only unsupported again, but the brass is not 100% anymore. It could ruture. It is a VERY rude surprise. If you are shooting Glocks get a Federal match grade barrel (~$150) well worth the brass and E.R. bills you will save.
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Old November 7, 1999, 06:18 PM   #7
WalterGAII
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I've shot about 20,000 rounds of my reloads through my G21; have yet to see a bulged case. I also shoot a bunch of .400 Cor-Bon through an Accu-Match barrel. Again, no bulges. Most of the bulged cases are with .40 Glocks. I personally would not reload for .40 Glocks.

I've reloaded .45 (which is half the pressure of the .40), until the cases split, with no problems. I did have a Kb, but that was related to a bullet setback with .400 Cor-Bon.

[This message has been edited by WalterGAII (edited November 08, 1999).]
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Old November 8, 1999, 09:14 AM   #8
WESHOOT2
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Just because you can buy a machine to resize bulged cases doesn't mean the bulge was never there.

Discard bulged cases; reusing is false economy if your gun goes blooey.

Buy a better barrel and have a professional install it (usually the manufacturer will offer 'hard-fitting").

IMHO.....

------------------
"All my ammo is factory ammo"

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Old November 8, 1999, 05:05 PM   #9
Big Bunny
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We have yet to have the 40S&W Glock problem here, probably because the police ammo is downloaded for prac shoots and only factory ammo is used shooting the bad people and the cases go to forensic never to be seen again. Thanks for the warning I will be on guard as a serious blowup could affect our OHS guidelinesi/ssues badly !

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***Big Bunny***
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Old November 11, 1999, 01:48 PM   #10
Mikie
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I have seen two kinds of bulges. One the resizing die can deal with and the other the resizing die will cover up and give you a shell that is waiting for the opportunity to blow out your magazine from the frame. In developing some 45 +P loads to fire in my USP45 I have seen brass develop a bulge which is like a bubble at the web of the brass that meets the rest of unbulged brass with a distinct line. This shell either shouldn't be used or should be designated to be downloaded, fired, and left on the firing range ground. This may seem overboard, but I mark the headstamp of such bulged cases with permanent magic marker as a warning to other brass scroungers at the range. My experience has lead me to spend a little more time inspecting brass and keeping brass separate that is used for target loads vs brass used for high-power loads.

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