Reloading 40 Polly coated bullet help!

[nikdanja]

I’ve reloaded thousands of the same brand of Polly coated bullets for years now and I’ve always had problems but just dealt with it. Now it’s the off season I want to get it squared away before I start loading in mass quantity again. 

 

I just ran 100 Polly coated bullets through my hundo gauge and they all fit. But when I reload those bullets 5-7 of them won’t fit. Now some take some convincing and if you work some of them in and out, you can see where some of the Polly cost has come off. Some of them are real bad and if you really work it in and now of the gauge, a chunk of lead will come out and the bullet will fit no problem.  So I think I’ve narrowed the problem to my dies. I have a EGW under size die, mini mr bullet feeder powder flare, mini mr bullet feeder sets a bullet on the case, then a Dillon seater die seats the bullet, and a Dillon crimp die to end the process. This is all on a 650. 

 

But if my bullets all fit through my hundo gauge, then they should fit once the actual round is complete right? So something in the reloading process isn’t aligning true. Help,

 

I use these bullets to practice and only use extremes for matches and I’ve NEVER had this issue with extremes. 

 

OAL for both of these bullets is 1.188-1.191. 

 

Any help would be great. 

Edited December 7, 2017 by nikdanja

[Ken6PPC]

If you are shaving lead, you need more flare.  Nothing else causes shaving.  

 

If you increase the amount of flare, and then just crimp enough to take that flare out, your problems will go away.  

[nikdanja]

3 minutes ago, Ken6PPC said:

If you are shaving lead, you need more flare.  Nothing else causes shaving.  

 

If you increase the amount of flare, and then just crimp enough to take that flare out, your problems will go away.  

 

Im going to try that now, thanks!

[nikdanja]

25 minutes ago, Ken6PPC said:

If you are shaving lead, you need more flare.  Nothing else causes shaving.  

 

If you increase the amount of flare, and then just crimp enough to take that flare out, your problems will go away.  

Nope. Didn’t work. Same problems and I flared it pretty good too. 

Im shaving lead right above where the case ends and the bullet starts. It’s almost like if I took a file out and removed material from the one side of the bullet that’s not perfectly straight, then it would fit in the guage no problem. Which is essentially what I’m doing by working the bullet in and out of the guage. 

 

Well, I dunno if straight is the right word because I don’t know what the problem is or how to fix it. I’m assuming the problem lies in my seater die but don’t want to spend $918274782 on different dies trying to fix the problem. 

 

Hoping someone one had the same problem as me and can help out. 

Edited December 7, 2017 by nikdanja

[Ken6PPC]

If the case is flared enough, it won't shave lead.  If it is shaving lead, you need to flare it more.  

 

Try flaring it more than you think you need to.   

 

Your seating stem does need to be reasonably matched to the profile of your bullets, but it would have to be pretty badly mismatched to seat a bullet out of concentricity as much as you are describing.  I always modify my seating stems as required to match the bullet I am using.  

 

Are you using round nose bullets, flat nose bullets, or something else?  What is the shape of your seater stem?  

[nikdanja]

8 minutes ago, Ken6PPC said:

If the case is flared enough, it won't shave lead.  If it is shaving lead, you need to flare it more.  

 

Try flaring it more than you think you need to.   

 

Your seating stem does need to be reasonably matched to the profile of your bullets, but it would have to be pretty badly mismatched to seat a bullet out of concentricity as much as you are describing.  I always modify my seating stems as required to match the bullet I am using.  

 

Are you using round nose bullets, flat nose bullets, or something else?  What is the shape of your seater stem?  

Im using a round nose and my seater system does match the profile of the bullet. Tomorrow I’ll try flaring more  

[L3324temp]

It’s probably not the issue but I would try a standard sizing die as a sanity check.


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[titandriver]

Dunno if this will help but are you using mixed head stamped brass? I'm using a 650, new style Mr. Bulletfeeder with 115 RN Blue Bullets with mixed brass and I've noticed that occasionally a short 9mm case will not get the proper amount of flare, due to the shorter case length, so the bullet does not drop completely perpendicular into the case. If I don't visually catch it and straighten the bullet out then the bullet enters the case a tad askance and will scrape a tiny bit of the coating off. It's very minute though and has never presented a problem when actually shooting them. I do not case gauge any of my ammo and I've shot hundreds of thousands of rounds since becoming a member in 1989. 

[RangerTrace]

If I read your post right, the case gauge is removing material from your loaded bullets, right?  

 

I just got a Hundo case case and they tell you that the coated led bullets will hang up just a tad in the gauge because most are .401".  I found this to be true with my 9mm rounds as my Zeros gauge perfectly and the BBIs have to be pushed in with a bit of pressure.  But they fall in to a Dillon gauge with no issue at all.

[RangerTrace]

4 hours ago, titandriver said:

Dunno if this will help but are you using mixed head stamped brass? I'm using a 650, new style Mr. Bulletfeeder with 115 RN Blue Bullets with mixed brass and I've noticed that occasionally a short 9mm case will not get the proper amount of flare, due to the shorter case length, so the bullet does not drop completely perpendicular into the case. If I don't visually catch it and straighten the bullet out then the bullet enters the case a tad askance and will scrape a tiny bit of the coating off. It's very minute though and has never presented a problem when actually shooting them. I do not case gauge any of my ammo and I've shot hundreds of thousands of rounds since becoming a member in 1989. 

I like it.....you risk taking Rebel!!

[bowenbuilt]

Sounds like the body of your seating die is turned into the tool head too deep and is starting to crimp the bullet before the bullet comes to a stop when seating. Run your seating die up about a quarter inch and readjust the seating stem deeper into the die. This should cure the extra material being pushed up in front of the case mouth.

[Ken6PPC]

1 hour ago, bowenbuilt said:

Sounds like the body of your seating die is turned into the tool head too deep and is starting to crimp the bullet before the bullet comes to a stop when seating. Run your seating die up about a quarter inch and readjust the seating stem deeper into the die. This should cure the extra material being pushed up in front of the case mouth.

 

Yes, of course that IS a possibility. 

 

Does the Dillon seating die even HAVE a crimping feature?  OP said he crimps in a separate crimping die on his 650...  

 

[Joe4d]

sounds like that could be it,  I went to dillon dies and started getting the same problem. a few out of 50 wouldnt chamber in my sti barrel. Even though I was using a Lee FCD on last station. Made no sense. Finally took the dillon seating die out and put the Lee seater in and problem went away. Maybe like above I had the body too far down. But I would have assumed I would have tried that.

[3gunDQ]

I would recommend getting out the toolhead alignment thingy out and follow the steps to align your tool head. I had the same problem loading blue bullets... this took care of my problem. 

[Racinready300ex]

Could be your seating die not seating the bullets straight. So you'll get rubbing on one side when you case gauge. I had this problem, only with 40 and went from a LEE seating die to a Hornady. It's working much better now.

[dsu96]

I'm confused.  You run just the empty brass through the hundo first, and everything passes?  Then, you load the brass with primer, powder, and bullet, repeat the hundo process, and some fail?  Is this correct?  If true, then I would agree that something's amiss with your dies or press.  If not, and the failure to feed is with the gun, then I would look at diameter of the bullets themselves.

 

Since you don't have issues with Xtremes (plated bullet) but have issues with coated bullets, maybe the coating on the bullet is slightly thicker on some, causing problems when they contact the throat/rifling?

[nikdanja]

10 hours ago, bowenbuilt said:

Sounds like the body of your seating die is turned into the tool head too deep and is starting to crimp the bullet before the bullet comes to a stop when seating. Run your seating die up about a quarter inch and readjust the seating stem deeper into the die. This should cure the extra material being pushed up in front of the case mouth.

If I move the seating die then my OAL will be off

[nikdanja]

7 hours ago, Racinready300ex said:

Could be your seating die not seating the bullets straight. So you'll get rubbing on one side when you case gauge. I had this problem, only with 40 and went from a LEE seating die to a Hornady. It's working much better now.

Was it just a basic hornady die?

[nikdanja]

7 hours ago, Racinready300ex said:

Could be your seating die not seating the bullets straight. So you'll get rubbing on one side when you case gauge. I had this problem, only with 40 and went from a LEE seating die to a Hornady. It's working much better now.

Was it just a basic hornady die?

[Ken6PPC]

Measure the OD of your flared cases, and post it here.  

[Racinready300ex]

52 minutes ago, nikdanja said:

Was it just a basic hornady die?

 

I don't think so, I think it was the nicer one. It was recommended to me to get the Foster or Reading competition seating die(I forget which one), but I didn't want to spend that much and cheaped out.

 

I'll have to look when I get home.

[Yeti]

Aligning the toolhead should be the fix.    I'd set aside that EGW U-die for jacketed use.

 

 

[tcazes]

over flaring isn't always the answer. i had the same issue until i finally sat down and setup my press properly. which flaring/powder funnel are you using? i switched to the mr bullet feeder powder die and all of my issues went away. it doesn't flare the neck, rather it expands it to the diameter of the bullet. 

 

on another note, my 650 was having all sorts of issues until i set up each station WITH ALL 5 STATIONS FULL. if i didn't have a round being made in each station my reloads oal, powder drop, etc were all over the place.

 

also, are you putting each bullet on by hand? if so, try and hold each round perfectly straight while going up into the seating die. i bet its falling over and shaving on the up stroke.

[rowdyb]

stop using a coated bullet if you say you never have problems with plated. is 1.5 cents a round worth this aggravation for you? it wouldn't be if you asked me.

[racerba]

On 12/10/2017 at 11:24 AM, 57K said:

And I agree with Yeti, you don't need to be using a U-Die when loading coated or cast bullets. The bullet is already larger than nominal jacketed diameter.

The U-Die is for the brass, not the bullet...Bullet type doesn't matter...it gets rid of the Glock buldge...