Romany

Measured the first 10 rounds this morning and this is what I came up with: OAL Run-out 1.097 .002 1.096 .002 1.099 .001 1.095 .002 1.094 .001 1.096 .002 1.097 .002 1.101 .001 1.099 .002 1.094 .001 Rounded up from the 4th decimal point. The OAL range for this sample varied from a min of 1.094 to max of 1.101, with an average of 1.097. Run-out fell between .001 - .002. It a small sample but it agrees with my spot check that I did last night on a batch. All this proves - to me anyway - that the Redding does a better job - at least with run-out. The AOL variation appears to also be tighter than what I was seeing - but not by a lot. I have no idea if this translates into more accurate or safer shooting in real life as compared to the results from using other seating dies. For me to crank out ammo that has smaller deviation from the norm is better - mostly from the safety aspect - my family will be shooting these reloads with me after all - is my goal...

Another use for this device - it good to look into your barrel (anything larger than .316 inches). You can tell if you have cleaned out all of the leading that may build up - it shiny in the light...

I'm close to finishing up reloading 3K of Acme's 115G RN coated bullets. Couple of observations I wanted to make - see if others had similar impression. Dillon's sizing die - about every 10 or 15 rounds the primer does not punch out. In the majority of cases I'll catch it - pull the brass from that station - and see that the primer is 95% out - but those that I miss causes a jam up later on. I'm using "once shot" brass order from Monmouth. I've put up with this annoyance until today - and replaced it with a Lee that I had laying around. So far no issue. Setting up the Dillon is pretty much screwing it down to the shell plate - there is no adjustment to the primer punch. I've disassembled it - cleaned and oiled it....no improvement. Redding Competition bullet seating die. I had an issue with run out earlier - talked about in this thread - pretty well solved that issue - at least kept it around 0.004 - 0.005 - which is probably good enough.. But I had talked myself into ordering the Redding seating die while I was still having issues - that it did a great job in seating the bullet. Came in today. Swapped out the Lee that I was using and measured at least 25 or so finished rounds on my concentricity gauge and run-out is barely over 0.001 - and OAL seems to be to a tighter range. Is the Redding worth the $85 - who knows. Does it make any difference when shooting? Again who knows. I'm probably straining at a gnat with this effort but wanted to mention what I saw. This is on a Dillon 1050 btw...

Why did I conclude I had run-out? If the round went into my case gauge w/o issues - AOL also was spot on - but sometimes I could feel resistance when rotating during the plunk test - I assumed it had to be run-out. The Hornady concentricity gauge seemed to back that theory up. If RO was over .004 that is where I *mostly* seemed to see that slight contact. I know the bullet was touching the rifling - I used a sharpy to blacken the bullet - and placed into the chamber - rotated - and looked for marks. It was just barely touching - not enough to scar the coating. But it rare now for me to have that condition - maybe I just had to get that specific bell on the brass. I think I'm good to go. All that you said about max AOL - how to determine - etc - I'm familiar with (or at least I think so)....For these specific coated Acme bullets I'm using an AOL of 1.10 - the HK I have will take a max of 1.12 for this type of bullet - it is my most restrictive (my glock will accept an AOL of 1.45). Question for anyone - is a safety margin of 1.12 - 1.10 = 0.02 sufficient? To allow for variation in the brass and the bullet? I never could find publish data with a suggested AOL. One guy on youtube did a 20 min video on how to determine AOL for these bullets - he had a Glock (1.161) and a 1911 style 9mm (1.045) - he did like I'm doing and loaded for the most restricted (1911)....

I was having an issue with run-out - bullet slightly out of alignment so that it would sometimes touch the rifleling during a plunk test (or worse). But your response pointed out another newbie error - I did not know the swaging station also served as an expander - I thought that part was there to provide physical support for the brass when the swage entered the pocket. So I pulled the Lee expander - went back to the Dillon powder drop and the Dillon expander - and still had some run-out. Adjusted the bell (it was too much - like .390) - and that reduction to about .384 seemed to make the bullet set more stable on the brass - and the run-out was a lot better - but still occurred perhaps 10% of the time (just barely making contact with the rifling). I bought a concentric gauge - and it seemed to match up when I had issues (run-out over .004). So I started messing around with how I seated the bullet - it seems if I just held the bullet in-place - w/o trying to force it in - that I had much better results (with run-out). Just cranked out about 60 rounds - measured each one in my case gauge - and did a plunk test in both of my 9s - all of them spun freely. Thanks for your response. I missed the swaging station - I catch most of the primers that did not get knocked out in the sizing die during the swage operation....

I thought that I was having an issue with run-out - where the bullet was slight off-center. That may (or may not) have been the case - that hard to measure. So I thought that an expander might be the fix - nothing more than that. Currrently I replaced the Lee expander die (and the Dillon powder funnel) with a Double alpha mr bulletfeeder powder funnel - it bells and expands. I got my swage station back (#2 on a 1050) - not that I needed it for swaging (at least for 9mm) but it a great help to detect primers that did not get punched out. The perceived issue with run-out may have been something else (operator error) - now that I got everything running well I'm kind of reluctance to go back to the Dillon funnel to see if it does fine now. BTW, how much bell did not find worked for you?

Someone else in another forum posted this camera: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GX4CGEO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I wanted to try a camera to monitor powder, etc on my Dillon. This one is powered via USB - has to be connected to a Android or PC or MAC. For $38 I figured it was worth a shot to see if it would work under linux. I'm running the latest version of Ubuntu - and was surprised that it actually had a driver for this device. Quick google search for a open source app and I was in business. Worked great. The Dillon power checker is still better - but this does give me another station if I want to use the cam alone. I have a 1050 and just ty rap the cam mount to the Dillon vertical shaft holding the brass. Not pretty but good enough for now.

Station 2 on a 1050

So I consider myself a newbie though I've been reloading for several months. My focus is on quality over quantity. I recently purchased a lot of ACME coated bullets (115G) - and have found them a bit more difficult to work with - to keep from shaving the coat off. I got that part working (lot of reading in these forums) - have the Lee universal expanding die - with a NOE plug. My question is: for a .3565 bullet (coated) what size plug should I use? I ordered .355, .356, and .357 - and the .357 plug seems to work the best. Seems like an obvious answer but I've made a lot of mistakes I try not to take anything for granted. Bullet tension seems to be fine - I can't seat it any deeper by pushing against the table - and a few hits with a kinetic bullet puller does not move it. Second question on the Lee setup - how deep should I go? I measured how far the bullet seats for my OAL - and adjusted the die to stop at that point - again - seems obvious but is that the best approach? On a related question - the Lyman case gauge. How many folks use that? It has very tight specs - much less forgiving than the plunk test (though I still do those). I find it a great tool to tweak your setup. It does raise some false negatives (if the base is .390 the case won't fit flush in the case gauge - but works find in your pistol). If your bullet is just slightly off center the gauge should catch that. Thanks for any advice. Great website - just found it last week.