ChemistShooter

I had a problem like this with Bayou Bullets coated once. I'm pretty certain the problem was an uneven coating on the bullets. Either a bad batch or quality control being tossed out the window. I initially thought it was me, of course. i went around and around and around trying to figure why my COALs were suddenly varying so much. Eventually I started wondering about the bullets. I got a test batch from another supplier, don't remember who. (Been months since I've been able to reload.) And damn, that was it. I proved it by making a test run alternating bullets on the same run. The Bayou Bullets varied all over the place. The other supplier was nice and tight. I noted the Bayou Bullets had a rough-feeling coating, whereas the other supplier's coating was shiny-smooth.

If it's not coming out, something is making it stick, unless you have some kind of mechanical problem with the powder bar. I would think the most likely cause is some kind of chemical build-up.I used to use case lube until I realized case lube was spreading all over my 650, in particular getting into the powder funnel and causing variation in powder drop. It wasn't as much as a grain, at least as far as I know, but it was more than I wanted. I cleaned all the dies and the powder apparatus inside and out with isopropyl alcohol, stopped using case lube, and my powder SD tightened up spectacularly. My first cleaning paper towel for the powder funnel came out black. I realized the powder itself had to be leaving chemical sticky-stuff residue behind too, if not as bad as the case lube, so now I routinely disassemble and clean the powder funnel with isopropyl alcohol at the end of a reloading run. What's flaky is the on-and-off nature. That doesn't quite fit with a chemical sticky-stuff hypothesis. It's possible a physical cause is indicated. Static electricity is the only physical cause I can think of. I live in a high-humidity area and have zero experience with static electricity. I have a relative humidity meter next to my 650. If it says 40% or less (VERY rarely) I don't do any reloading as an static-electricity spark in your powder funnel can, ahem, really ruin your day and is to be strongly avoided. I vaguely recall 40% is the Dillon recommendation? If it wasn't happening before, and now it's happening after thousands of rounds, it's most likely a maintenance issue of some kind. Something has either worn completely out or gotten dirty. My $0.02. Hope it helps.

Mine averaged 117gr. PF 140 with 4.0gr W231, w-o-o-w. My PF's run around 125. Okay, this is where I get to be veddy, veddy careful, lots of digging around in my loading manuals. Internet searching has revealed my COAL is typical, but there is a distinct lack of load data. Thanks to all.

I am working up a new bullet after a bad experience with Bayou Bullets. I got a sample pack of 9mm 115gr .356 from Brazos Bullets, both lube groove and non-lube groove. Right at the moment I'm working with the non-lube groove. (Yeah, I've read Brazos uses softer lead, and I should've gotten the .357, and watch out for leading in my barrel.) I am reloading for a Springfield Armory 9mm 3.8 full-size. In doing the initial COAL determination, the bullet is coming in a lot shorter than other bullets I've tried. It's coming in at 1.105 before the lands stop scratching the Sharpie-marked bullet and starts spinning easily and falling out of the barrel. Has anybody gotten similar COALs with Brazos? How much and what kind of powder have you used? I tried searching the forum but couldn't find anything. I have been using 5.5gr Power Pistol and it has worked fine with all my previous bullets, but I'm a bit wary because the COAL is shorter than I'm used to and I don't want a reduced case volume causing an unexpectedly big bang.

Got it. Thanks to all.

I saw where Brazos 125 gr coated bullets with a lube groove were being reported to be more accurate. I ordered a sample pack to play with. My question is: What do I do with the lube groove? Just ignore it? Since it's a coated bullet, can't really see where I would need lube.

I had this problem. (If you can feel the primer catching, you've got a better feel for that machine than I do.) Is your indexing block (triangle thingy on the side below the ram) loose? The indexing block controls when the shell plate turns. If the brass is not in EXACTLY the right position over the primer punch, the primer will catch and go in sideways and upside-down and every which-way. If that indexing thingy moves just a teeny bit, the brass is not going to be in the right position. Dillon has a thing called a "primer alignment tool" that fixes this. If you call them and explain the problem, they will just send it to you.

I have seen EXACTLY that. Powder flakes sticking to the brass. Also powder gradually accumulating ALL over the shell plate. I thought about it. The only thing I could come up with was case lube building up on the powder funnel. I had never cleaned that before. I took the powder funnel out, cleaned the powder funnel and the die inside and out with a paper towel soaked in acetone. Paper towel came out BLACK the first pass. Worked on it until everything was clean, put it all back together. And poof, problem solved. Got the tightest standard deviation I've ever gotten, and no more powder all over the shell plate.

Had this same problem. High primers, primers upside-down and sideways. Called Dillon. They sent me a thing called a primer alignment tool. This is where I discovered how important that thingy on the side was. It had slipped oh-so-slightly off to one side, and the brass was NOT in EXACTLY the right position when the primer came up. Did the primer alignment procedure. Poof, suddenly all the primers were perfect, in fact better than it had been brand-new. Don't get me wrong; I love my 650 all to death. It's just not properly documented.

In my experience, COL is NOT going to be exact to .001 inch every time. The brass is going to be slightly different. The shell plate wobble is going to be slightly different. My experience is like MemphisMechanic, +/- .004. I would recommend you record ten-sample averages and standard deviations for powder weight and COL so you will know what your machine did when it was brand-new. So when it starts screwing up, you will be able to detect it.

IMO, the most aggravating thing about the Dillon 650 is that ridiculous primer ski jump. It flat doesn't work and launches what are essentially mini cherry bombs into the wild blue yonder. I have this sealed plastic container I bought where all the missed primers drop into, can't think of where I bought it. One recommendation: Keep all the new-machine stats you can think of, so you'll know when it starts to screw up. (And it will.) Right off the bat, that means recording ten-throw average and standard deviations for powder weight AND COL. I kept stats for powder weight but NOT COL and the machine started screwing up and I didn't catch it until it was producing really out-of-spec bullets. Now I've got to take it apart and try and figure out what the hell is going on. Which brings to my second peeve. Excuse the rant. The Dillon "manual" they give you isn't even close to good enough and the lack of proper documentation is costing Dillon TONS of money, IMO. It needs to be more like 120 pages, not 60 pages. Man, that "manual" SERIOUSLY needs a maintenance schedule. (Want to sell LOTS and LOTS of machines? Make it as easy to use as you possibly can. Dillon has NOT done this, although the how-to videos that have started popping up on the Dillon site shows they have gradually started becoming aware of this.) My personal additions to the Dillon manual: ----CHECK AND TIGHTEN EVERY SINGLE BOLT AND SCREW ON THE DAMN THING BEFORE EVERY SESSION. Make a checklist and go through it every time. The Strong Mount bolts, top and bottom. The primer system screws. The screws that hold the powder funnel on the powder die. The screws that holds that thingy on the side the plastic triangle hits to make the shell plate rotate. (That thingy controls timing and is MUCH more important than it looks.) Not to mention the die lock rings. I have seen EVERY SINGLE ONE of these bolts/screws/lock rings be loose at one time or the other. The Strong Mount bolts were a sterling lesson. I was having high primers for a mysterious reason and eventually tracked it to the Strong Mount bolts---but they didn't FEEL loose, not by hand. But I put the wrench on them and it was immediately obvious they were loose. A little tightening and poof, no more high primers. I've even gotten to where I will check the primer punch is tight, which requires substantial maneuvering to get to. ----CLEAN THE DIES THOROUGHLY AFTER EVERY SESSION. There's a reason those dies were made so easy to clean. Pull the pins, drop them out and wipe them down with rubbing alcohol. PARTICULARLY THE POWDER DIE. Disassemble and clean the powder bar with isopropyl alcohol after every session. Don't forget the powder funnel. The problem is case lube WILL accumulate on the powder funnel and powder will start sticking and causing variance in powder weights and it will drop powder ALL over the shell plate. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

I just recently had this problem. After about 10-15,000 rounds on the press, powder everywhere at the end of the run. I didn't normally clean the powder funnel. I cleaned the powder bar but not the powder funnel. I took the powder funnel out and cleaned it inside and out with acetone and paper towels. Paper towel came out black the first pass. Worked on it until no more black, back to reloading. Poof, no more powder everywhere. And damn if the drop weights didn't get a LOT tighter too, best performance I've ever achieved, standard deviation 0.028 gr with average 5.53 gr after ten throws. (Measured on 4-place analytical balance.) My best guess is case lube buildup on the powder funnel. Now I clean the powder funnel and the powder die at the end of every re-loading run. That powder funnel looked awful rusty but they always do. I have the feeling it's the oxidizer in the powder, so there's nothing you can do about it. Doesn't seem to affect operation.

Number One: Keep everything SQUEAKY CLEAN. After EVERY reloading run, I take a Walgreens isopropyl alcohol wipe and run it through all the primer loading tubes and primer magazine tube with the primer following rod. First time I did this, it came out yellow, which is lead styphnate, which is the priming compound, which is explosive. So I had explosive dust in there, which is a Really Bad Thing. So now I clean them after every run with the wipes. Takes a staggering five minutes. If it means anything, I use CCI SPP primers and have crunched them every which-way, sideways, upside-down, at an angle, and they've never gone off. (Then Dillon sent me a thing called the primer alignment tool (IIRC) and that actually stopped the mis-feeds. Even high primers are rare now.) 30+ thousand rounds loaded and never a bang. The FIRST priority in avoiding accidents as always, is proper maintenance.

Fixed it. Damn thing was just dirty. Took it apart, cleaned the funnel with acetone inside and out. Paper towels and and Q-tips came out BLACK the first pass. Ya know, I don't think it was case lube. I think it was the powder itself. Very, very fine grains sticking to the funnel. Went back to +/-0.1 grains after cleaning. Learn something new every day. Hmm, you know what the best possible powder funnel would be? Glass-lined. Or better, solid glass. You listening, Dillon? Hint, hint.

I own a Lee Breech Lock Single-Stage Press and have the Lee 4-die pistol die set. Decapping/sizing die, powder pass-through/expander die, seating die, and resizing/crimp die. I need a powder measure to put on top of the powder pass-through die. Lee sells a thing called the Perfect Powder Measure but the Internet word is they leak powder. So I went looking around and got a little lost. Any opinions on what a good powder measure would be for this thing? (he said naively. )

If I cann If I cannot get this thing working right, it WILL be replaced. My guess is at the moment One-Shot has built up and causing stickiness. I am going to clean the entire thing with rubbing alcohol and see if that fixes it.

I have a Weird Chemistry Reason for wanting clean brass. To get more powerful loads and more consistent loads. If you leave any of a waste product in the brass, the reaction doesn't proceed as far, i.e. less power. If you have varying amounts of waste product, energy yield will also vary. I don't have any dry-tumbling equipment but will keep this in mind. Wouldn't there be a problem with tumbling media in the brass?

Gawd. You know, this is a possibility too. I do have the occasional piece of brass sneak through my cleaning process without being decapped. It really sticks out when I'm putting them in the bullet box, although it is not completely impossible I didn't see a fired primer then too. Can't tell if it fired or not. I have earpro on and my hearing has started to fade the tiniest bit.

I inspected the case. Looked fine as far as I could tell, threw it in the garbage anyway. Bullet was stuck in the lands exactly like my no-powder squibs. I clean ultrasonically. Procedure: ----Decap all brass in a Lee Challenger press with a Lee Decapping Die. (I like cleaning the primer pockets too.) ---Clean ultrasonically in three steps: 1. Two teaspoons salt, two cups vinegar, one tablespoon dish soap, 4 cups (or thereabouts) boiling water. Sonicate thirty minutes. 2. One teaspoon baking soda in 8 cups hot tap water. (Did this originally to neutralize the vinegar, but it turned out to clean too. Water turns black.) Sonicate thirty minutes. 3. Repeat step 2. 4. Rinse with tap water. Rinse with denatured ethanol to remove water and allow to dry overnight. It will be bone-dry. 5. Store empty cases in bullet boxes. They sit for at least a week before I use them. Lubing procedure: Slide a piece of cardboard over cases and turn over. Remove bullet box and inspect cases for blue streaks and cracks. Spray One-Shot into Ziploc. Seal Ziploc and rub bag to get a uniform coating on the inside. Pour 100 cases into bag and rub and tumble bag. Dump cases in case feeder. This has been working fine for thousands of rounds. Contaminated powder occurred to me but didn't seem likely given my cleaning and lubing procedure. If it's not the crimp then I like Memphis45's theory. Piece of random crap on the primer. Thanks to all.

I had a weirdness with my 650 the other day. If you let it sit for a minute---the powder went up about 0.3 grain. But if you maintained a steady rhythm, it would stay at 5.5 grains +/- 0.1 grain (Power Pistol), which is normal behavior. I have a powder check die I have set for maximum sensitivity. A detector is at its most sensitive when it is right on the edge of going off. I've got mine set so that it "chirps" just a little with every round. That way I know the battery is good and everything's working. I have tested it and it will go off if the charge is 0.3-0.4 gr too high. I've had it this way for thousands and thousands of rounds and it hasn't gone off even once. The other day it went off on the first round of the day, be-e-e-e-e-p! My first inclination was I had messed the detector up somehow, because it had just passed the ten-throw quality control check. But I checked the powder weight first. Sure enough, it was 0.3 gr high. This set off a circus. If I maintained a steady rhythm, everything was fine. I let it sit for ten minutes, the first drop was high. This was a repeatable thing. I did a 100-round run. Every once in a while the powder-check detector would go off, and sure enough the charge would be 0.3-0.4 grains too high. This is NOT normal behavior. Something flaky is wrong with powder-drop system. So I have stopped making bullets until I know what the hell is going on. Maintenance: At the end of every run I will dis-assemble and clean the powder bar with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol). I do NOT clean the funnel, and maybe this is the mistake. Conditions: It was raining, so humidity may have been a factor. My temperature/humidity meter was reporting 72F/75 per cent relative humidity. Thoughts, opinions? TIA.

I had a squib at the range the other day. I had two other no-powder squibs with my 550 and upgraded to a 650 primarily to stop that from happening again. And it became clear that had actually worked. There was powder from the round all over the place. Inside the gun, in the handle, on the shelf. The primer fired---the powder did NOT. For the records: 9mm cast-lead 115 gr .356 Bayou Bullets RN cast lead, 1.161 COAL over 5.5 gr Power Pistol and CCI small pistol primers, fired from Springfield XDM 3.8 Full-size. Shot thousands of rounds with NO problems. This has caused considerable head-scratching. The only thing I can come up with is the crimp was a touch too light. I know it's supposed to be neck-tension only and I'm thinking I went a little too far. You can see the crimp line but can't scratch it. Sometimes it fades a little because the bullet coating is not rigidly uniform. Thoughts? TIA.

People keep talking about the "plate rotating too hard," but in my experience I don't think that's what the problem is. Here is my take. 1. As it comes from the factory, the Dillon shellplate has a little up-and-down wobble to it. You can put your fingers on either side of the plate and wobble it up and down. 2. Underneath the shellplate there is quite a powerful little spring with a hard steel ball in it. On the bottom of the shell plate there are four holes that ball fits into, the purpose being to lock the shell plate in exactly the right position after every ram stroke. When you cycle the handle, the ball slides smoothly out of the hole and additional tension is placed on the spring. When the next hole reaches the ball, the ball does NOT slide smoothly into the hole. Instead the ball snaps into position, HARD. Which causes the already-wobbly shell plate to jump UP a little bit, which imparts an upward force to the powder----and a little bit of powder jumps out of the case and onto the shell plate.(I sorta suspect the wobbly shell plate is not an accident, but something designed to make the shell plate absorb the snap without kicking powder out. It ain't working.) So all these shell plate kits do two things. One: They have a washer to reduce or eliminate the original wobble. Two: They have some way of reducing the spring snap, either by a weaker spring or a plastic ball which absorbs some of the impact (which means the ball will eventually deform to the point where it doesn't work anymore.), or both.

That nut was probably exactly right when I got it. Should not have touched that particular nut. Now I have to experiment to get it back to the right place. Ah, well, there was nothing in the instruction about that nut. Live and learn.

Ok, so you can actually tighten that thing too much. So I will have to experiment a little to see what the right amount of tightness is. Thanks for the feedback.

I was having a problem with primers winding up sideways in the primer pockets. I poked around the priming system, discovered all three nuts were loose, and tightened them, poof, the sideways primers went away. So I went to tightening the nuts before every reloading run. Now I can feel and hear the primer plate "catching" a little when it turns. It won't turn smoothly anymore. Just to look at it, I suspect it's the black 10/24 x 1/4 BH screw, Part # 13964, that's too tight. Going on the assumption I have tightened something TOO much, how do you tell when it's right? (Yeah, I know, "when it's not catching anymore", but I'm looking for a factory distance here, something I can set with a caliper.)