Read the Directions . . . really.

[Prof Young]

Loaders:
So I've had this problem loading 223 where in the first couple of bullets I try to seat literally squish the shoulder of the case into a new mushroom form. Then I have to back out and readjust the dies etc. This could have been avoided if I'd paid attention to the actual directions that came with the dies and screwed the die in until it touched the case mouth not the shell holder. DUH!

Fortunately I've alway very carefully read and reread and reread the powder weight tables.

Live well, be safe
Prof Young

[Clark]

Using unadjusted dies that wreck brass is poor form.

I would never do that

[Marco Califo]

Read
The
Freakin'
Manual

[Panfisher]

I'm with Clark, glad I ain't never done nothin like that to ruin a case or few before. It happens, learn from it and continue to march.

[Jim243]

We have all done that at one time or another. Do not feel bad. Someone that tells you they haven't, well, they are not being totally truthful.


Stay safe.
Jim

[Longshot4]

OK So you goofed up. After you go back and read the instructions. Go through step by step. Also you need to learn to not be hasty. Look at all your components with detail and handle your tools with your finger tips not your elbows. Slow down feel and see the details. In short time it will be instinctive. Gook Luck

[F. Guffey]

if I'd paid attention to the actual directions

That is when instructions become destructions.

That adjustment is determined when the reloader decides to crimp and or not to crimp. When crimping it could be a good ideal to trim cases to the same length.

F. Guffey

[T. O'Heir]

Until what touched the case mouth? All dies are set up so the bottom of the die is just kissed by the shell holder with the ram all the way up. Then the decapper/expander is adjusted up/down to pop out the spent primer. The seating plug is adjusted up/down to give the OAL you want. Nothing to do with the case mouth on a .223.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Prof Young,

Reading directions is a good thing, but even then the instructions need to be applied with some common sense.

For example, following the directions of, in this case, RCBS as to adjusting their full length bottle neck sizing dies, while it will almost always allow a person to load shoot able and safe hand loads, will also, because of manufacturing tolerances, just as likely be the cause of over sizing brass and short brass life.

Hornady's instructions are comparable except for the fact that they include a, "foot note" that if noted, can lead to solving the problem of over sizing.

I have read of the over sizing problem so many times, and replied to the post with the solution so many times, that I finally made up a document containing not only the solution, but the reasons and causes of the "problem."

I send the document to anyone who requests it and sends me their person "E" address.

But saying that, reading the instructions is not only good, but should be required. However, at a personal level, those same instructions must at times be applied with a dose of head smarts.

Were this a perfect world, and manufacturing tolerances not a fact of our every day lives, this would not be a needed fact of life.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[F. Guffey]

This could have been avoided if I'd paid attention to the actual directions that came with the dies and screwed the die in until it touched the case mouth not the shell holder.

Until what touched the case mouth?

I place a case into the shell holder, I back the seating plug off, then I raise the ram then adjust the die down to the case mouth. I have dies that crimp, I have dies that do not crimp, I do not want the die contacting the case mouth unless I am crimping.

F. Guffey