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That would either mean really crimping into the bullet or the brass can only be 0.009" thick at the mouth. The fact that most of the Blazer wouldn't go all the way into the gage and that all the rounds drop into both barrels with enough room to spare that there's a little wiggle room for the round in the chamber suggests to me that the gage is too tight (either not bored out enough or maybe it left the factory with some preservative oil/grease that needs to be cleaned out.

Something else that just occurred to me...I should probably take some brake cleaner and a barrel brush and make sure there's no oil/grease or other crap inside the gage.

How and how often do you clean your powder funnels? I've had my RL550B setup for about a year, loaded 5000 9mm (and nothing else) so I hadn't really torn things down until tonight when I started setting up to load some .45. There was a bunch of universal clays stuck to the inside of my 9mm powder funnel...from the top, all the way to the bottom. I ran a dry q-tip through it a few times, but I'll probably use some alcohol to give it a better cleaning before using it again.

I'm using an RL550B, Dillon dies, Dillon case gage, PD 230gr FMJ and WCC Match brass from TJConevera. The brass thickness at the mouth is 0.011-0.012. The bullets are 0.451. My Speer manual says the loaded cartridge mouth should measure 0.4730. That seems kind of optimistic. Assuming I'm just crimping to remove the flare done by the powder funnel, 0.451 + 0.0115*2 = 0.474. I made a few dummy rounds while setting things up, and found that I had to crimp down to 0.471 to even get close to the rounds dropping into the case gage. Out of 4 dummies, one gages without trouble. One goes in, but has to be pushed hard to get it out. Two won't go all the way in...most of the rim of the case stays outside the gage. The only .45acp factory ammo I have is Blazer aluminum. I grabbed a box of it, and the first bullet I grabbed out of the box dropped into the gage. I spent some more time trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I took out my Springfield 1911 and Glock 21. I fed a few of the dummies through the 1911 without issue. Then I took out the barrels from each gun and found my dummies would drop right in (and shake around) in the chambers. Then I thought to gage a few more Blazer and the next half dozen Blazers I tried also wouldn't go all the way into the gage. Conclusion...I need to contact Dillon and see about getting this gage replaced as it seems to be much tighter than spec. Should I be crimping any tighter than the 0.474" calculated above based on bullet diameter and brass thickness?

Oh...yuck. I store my dirty brass and clean brass differently...dirty brass in ziplocks, plastic shopping bags, or 5G buckets. Clean brass goes in washed out 1/2 gallon juice bottles sorted by headstamp.

If the brass being too clean is a possible cause, I wouldn't think tumbling again would do any good (unless you have some extra dusty media). Is it safe to get a little case lube (Dillon, HOS) on the inside of the neck of the brass or on the outside of the funnel? Would that make the bullets any more susceptible to setback?

Funny you should mention that about R-P. While readjusting the seating die (I decided to try the FMJ shaped side of the seating stem), I used a few pieces of brass I had laying around to even things out (having brass in stations 1-3) while making a FC/MG-124grJHP dummy round. One of the pieces was R-P, and it stuck on the powder funnel just as bad or maybe even worse than the S&B brass had been the other night. I guess S&B and R-P 9mm are on my do not reload list.

I've only shot a few of them, most loaded a little shorter (don't have my notes handy, but I think they were 1.125"). They worked well. I was loading the MG 124gr CMJ to 1.150" and have shot hundreds of those with no issues.

It does look long in the photo. It's 1.130". The bulge almost seems like the brass brass began to buckle during seating...or maybe the bullet isn't seated quite square with the case and the bottom edge of the bullet is pushing against one side of the case? I flipped the seating stem last night back to the FMJ side. It's just odd that this was only a problem with the S&B brass...and not with the Win or FC that I loaded with exactly the same setup.

Here's what one of the marginal ones looks like. I say marginal, because while it won't drop all the way into the Dillon case gage, it will drop into my G17 barrel. It doesn't show very well in the picture, but there's a bulge I can see and feel about half way around the case in the area circled. Even with that slight bulge, with my calipers, I can't find any portion of the cartridge that's over the specs for 9mm according to my Speer manual. How do you figure out where the feature is that keeps it from gaging?

What were your COAL's for the CMJ and JHP?

I use pure lanolin, but the way I use it, it only gets on the outside of the cases...so it doesn't help keep the funnel from sticking. It does make the resizing so much easier.

I just got some MG 9mm 124gr JHP and loaded 50 in Win brass to chrono (no issues). After testing out those first 50, I loaded some more. I did about another 100 in Win brass, and then decided to load some in S&B brass. I use the S&B for matches where I might not be able to recover the brass. The S&B was giving me a real hard time on the powder station (RL550b with Dillon dies). It didn't seem to want to bell, and then on the upstroke, the powder funnel was really sticking in the cases. I noticed when placing the bullets in the S&B cases that they had less flare than the Win cases, but the bullets seamed to be seating, so I figured "just enough to seat the bullets is good, no?" After about 100 S&B cases, I'd had enough. I'd even stopped about midway through and given the powder funnel some scotchbrite rubbing, which didn't help. Then I decided to try loading some with FC brass (I've previously only loaded using Win and S&B...but have various others sorted and cleaned). The FC gave me absolutely no problems...no sticking or resistance with the powder funnel, and it seemed to resize even easier than Win. When I was done, I decided to case gage a few rounds (I don't generally bother with more than a very occasional random check and haven't had any problems) and was kind of shocked to find a number of the S&B wouldn't go all the way into the gage. Some would go in, but needed to be pushed out. I decided to use my very dirty G17 barrel as a gage, and ended up pulling 6 bullets from the S&B. All the Win and FC loaded that night dropped right in and out of the gage. Looking at the bad brass, it looked as if it had bulges right under the base of the bullet. After pulling the bullets (impact pulling "hammer"), those cases would drop right in and out of the gage. Of the cartridges that failed, some were "new" S&B brass on its first reloading. Some were ones that I'd already reloaded and shot at least once. After recently reading that some S&B brass is actually steel with a brass look, I tested the 6 with a magnet and they didn't stick. I guess I'm going to shoot the S&B that I've loaded and lose that brass...and stick to other brands that are easier to load.

I wasn't so much asking about brands (at this point) as asking if people have noticed a difference in velocity between FMJ and JHP. I probably should have started a new topic.

Interesting results...I shot most of the MG 124gr JHP I loaded today. Given the same powder charge (4.35gr Universal Clays) that I used for 124gr PD FMJ/MG CMJ, I consistently got a little more than 20fps more velocity in a G17, even more in a G34. From a G17, my PD/MG FMJ/CMJ loads generally did about 1060fps. With the MG JHP, I did 3 10 shot strings through the G17 and got avgs of 1087, 1081, and 1084fps. 1 10 shot string through a G34 avg'd 1112fps. My CMJ load in the G34 would do 1070fps. COAL didn't seem to have any measurable impact. I had a couple that I'd loaded while adjusting the seater...as short as 1.117, and as long as 1.1325. They all shot within a few fps of each other. I had one lucky 10 shot string with the G17 that had an ES of 4fps. All the other strings today had ES's in the 45-60fps range. I'm curious if others who've loaded PD or MG FMJ/CMJ and MG JHP have also gotten higher velocity from the JHP while keeping powder charge the same and case volume about the same?

Blazer aluminum? But seriously, one of the guys at the local matches shoots 9mm major, and his brass scares me. When I'm picking up brass, it's easy to identify. 9mm minor brass comes out of most guns looking "normal". His brass looks frosted and the primers have such shallow hits, I'm amazed they went off. I try not to pick up his brass, and wouldn't want it for reloading.

I loaded up 50 at 1.122". While adjusting things, I loaded a few as long as 1.130, and those dropped in/out of my Glock 17 barrel. I hand cycled the 1.122's through the G17. Hopefully I can test/chrono them this weekend. The design of these bullets makes pushing them into the mag hurt a little If they don't shoot noticeably better than the CMJ and don't expand, I may just go back to using their CMJ.

My bullets arrived. The MG 124gr JHP seem to generally be around 0.020" shorter than the MG 124gr CMJ...and though both are marked as being .355, the CMJ's measure as .355 on my caliper, but the JHP tend to be .354 or .3545. Since the MG JHPs are really a truncated cone shape with a tiny hollow point cavity rather than a long blunt JHP like a Speer Gold Dot, it seems like there's no reason to load these particularly short to avoid the tip of the bullet hitting the rifling...but keeping the case capacity similar to my CMJ load, they'd end up with an OAL of around 1.130". One of the guys at the local matches loads MG 124gr JHP for 9-major, and is loading them real long...beyond spec. Others online say they load them shorter than 1.100. For seating these with a Dillon die, should I use the FMJ or Semi wad cutter end of the seating stem? Neither seems to fit the profile of the bullet terribly well.

Major-sub? That's cheating. On the Glock-M and 5-to-Glock stages, you fire half as many rounds, so you have half the opportunities for C's and D's. If you shot 5-to-Glock on the "left set", I might have RO'd you. We should all wear GT name tags at the matches.

Do you have a closer-up shot? Its hard for me to tell from the pic you posted, but it looks kind of like some brass I've picked up at a local match. I tracked it down to the shooter, and found it's factory Federal 9mm FMJ. His primers end up with a raised area around the firing pin impact...kind of like the primer is a volcano with its top blown off. Assuming this really is Federal factory ammo are you saying that too light a spring driving the hammer could enable the primer to be able to push back against the hammer and flow a bit into the firing pin channel?

I put in the order with MG yesterday for a case. I got confirmation today that they've shipped. What's a good COAL for these? I've been loading the 124gr CMJ to 1.150". I'm guessing the MG 124gr JHP should be loaded a bit shorter, maybe somewhere around 1.120"?

On the pickup tubes, magazine tubes, or both? Fireant: I've loaded multiple pickup tubes before and then laid them down in one of the bench drawers without that causing a problem...but this last session, I only loaded the pickup tubes as I needed to load the magazine, so they never went horizontal.

Do you bother trying to salvage the brass? It seems like an upside down primer would be particularly dangerous to try decapping. I pulled the bullet and reused it, but I tossed the brass and powder

I finally seated a primer up side down yesterday. It didn't feel any different, but it sure jumped out at me when I boxed up the finished cartridges. Is it possible if I didn't have the pickup tube perfectly square to the primer magazine while dropping the primers that one tumbled on the way out? This was small pistol, loading 9mm, on a RL550B. A couple months ago, I had a sideways primer, which indicated I was overdue to clean press / primer system. I did that, and have probably loaded about 1k since.

Even though I can probably afford to wait as much as a few months...I think this http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=100695 is going to force my decision towards MG.