The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post

locknloader · December 17, 2018, 07:53 AM

I am using Hornady dies, a decap and resize, powder fill, powder cop, expander, seat/crimp in that order. The gauge is a ‘Lyman Pistol Max Cartridge Gauge.‘

I am thinking these cases may be ‘work hardened’ like someone mentioned but I need to test that theory on new brass with a known history, if not it’s gota be the dies. Even after passing some of these through the bulge buster die they still had some spots that didn’t want to smooth out and seemed to retain their original shape.

I thought perhaps I had too much crimp on the die, but found out I had no crimp. Didn’t see any obvious crap in the die when looking for debris. The seating stem was for a round nose bullet but I was doing flat point. Not sure if that matters the tips of the bullets did not look like they deformed at all so figured that was not the problem. Adjusted die back where I wanted it and had a slight crimp this time, still had most of them fail case gauge.

Most of the issues seem to be around the top of the case where the bullet goes in. Seems to be deformed and not a perfect circle around the bullet, bulge buster cleans them right up. I also was able to chamber all these failure rounds so at least I know my gun will not have an issue running them.

December 17, 2018, 07:53 AM	#10
locknloader Senior Member Join Date: August 28, 2017 Posts: 164	I am using Hornady dies, a decap and resize, powder fill, powder cop, expander, seat/crimp in that order. The gauge is a ‘Lyman Pistol Max Cartridge Gauge.‘ I am thinking these cases may be ‘work hardened’ like someone mentioned but I need to test that theory on new brass with a known history, if not it’s gota be the dies. Even after passing some of these through the bulge buster die they still had some spots that didn’t want to smooth out and seemed to retain their original shape. I thought perhaps I had too much crimp on the die, but found out I had no crimp. Didn’t see any obvious crap in the die when looking for debris. The seating stem was for a round nose bullet but I was doing flat point. Not sure if that matters the tips of the bullets did not look like they deformed at all so figured that was not the problem. Adjusted die back where I wanted it and had a slight crimp this time, still had most of them fail case gauge. Most of the issues seem to be around the top of the case where the bullet goes in. Seems to be deformed and not a perfect circle around the bullet, bulge buster cleans them right up. I also was able to chamber all these failure rounds so at least I know my gun will not have an issue running them.