Farmer

Doug, is ClayDot as peaky as Clays? Just curious for future reference.

If I’m going to spend that much on a revolver, it better feel like the action is on ball bearings and shoot a near caliber sized group at 50 yards from a ransom rest.

@Nathanb 124-2 is in stock right now.

If using Clays I would start at 4.0-4.3 grains. Like Doug says, it’s a bit more peaky than 310. I’ve gone to 4.5 to get one gun to function but that’s really unnecessary for a light load. I just had one gun that was sprung a bit heavy.

Yes there’s a fair amount of variation between shell holders. Redding is pretty snug as is RCBS. I mis-read your post and thought you were talking about a shell plate and not a single holder. Yes I’ve noticed that on mine too especially when sizing. The worst I’ve had are the Frankfort Arsenals that come with the hand priming tool. Alignment with center is ok but up and down and tipping side to side is horrendous. They lean so bad that it inserts the primer at an angle. Fortunately the Lee holders fit it.

I kind of doubt it, they are much much harder than brass. But I understand what you’re saying. I often wonder if the brass manufacturers are slightly cutting back on size to save material. I have some old old brass that fits tighter than some of the newer stuff. I also know that Lee shell holders are a bit looser than some of the other manufacturers.

That should be posted at every competition.

Yeh, sorry for the rant. Just tired of slackers that just glide through life on the backs of others.

Is your shell plate making a full stroke? It’s still touching the bottom of the sizing die? Nothing came loose in the linkages? If it’s not something up top gotta be on the bottom. My PW press suddenly lost stroke and it was the pins in the linkages that raise the shell plate had grooves worn in them.

Let us know how they work out.

I’ve never shot at a real match but have gone to some trap shoots and I can tell you if I was putting on a outlaw shoot or casual fun shoot I can guarantee if someone is slacking they are getting an earful and are outta there! Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky but I don’t have time or patience for that kinda BS anymore.

If you are using a FL sizing die it Will indeed lengthen or move the shoulder forward as it starts sizing the body and before it meets the shoulder. Depending on the chamber it was fired in it can be slight or quite a bit. If you have some range brass just measure one, size it in your die but don’t contact the shoulder then re-measure. I’ll bet you’ll find that it has grown if it was fired in a large chamber. That brass has to go somewhere and you being familiar with machining you know how much stuff moves around.

Where I really noticed it was while re-forming Rem 444 brass for my 338JDJ. It’s a simple one step process but after a couple of reloads some of the rounds wouldn’t chamber easily. So of course this led to the purchase of more tools to find out that the necks were around .005 +- thicker on one side. Already had a neck turning tool so that took care of that but was surprised at how much some of them varied. Like you said with 223 it doesn’t matter as much but a real lopsided one could be a problem in a tight chamber.

To add to @Chills1994post I have found some new brass that is thicker/thinner on one side. There’s really nothing you can do about that but just load it up. Usually it’s only a thou or two but it’ll get worse over several loadings and sizings. Something that’s there and don’t worry about until it gets bad enough to not chamber. I’ve never tried the Lee collet sizing die but some seem to like it.

Not a Prodigy but watch the Excelon video in this ad. The gun is wet and around the 25 second mark you can definitely see a blast coming out of the chamber area. A fair amount right back onto the optic. It may not be any debris but possibly a shock causing the problem. https://www.springfield-armory.com/echelon-series-handguns/echelon-handguns/

I don’t have either Redding or Dillon 9mm sizing die’s but is the mouth radius on the Redding the same size/shape/angle as the Dillon? Is your press level? Reason I ask is I use a Lee sizing die between my APP press for processing and an old Lee turret press at the range for load development. The APP is mounted level and the brass zips through no problem, but the turret is just temporary mounted, sometimes not level and is getting worn, and it always hangs up during sizing. I can also see the turret move slightly at times when sizing, expanding and seating. Just might be something to look at. Some of the wear and adjustments change so slowly over time they go unnoticed until there’s a big pileup.

That looks like it should be really slick (literally). I always liked the step, “M-die” type much better than the old funnel.

Does it look like you’re getting blowback on the cases? Is that what everyone is suggesting that there’s blast back breaking the glass? I would think you’d feel that if that’s the case.

Geezer load. 4.3 clays, any case or primer @ 1.250 or whatever feeds the best in your pistol. I’ve loaded from 3.8-4.5 and all shot well with 4.3 being the best in all my guns, runs 780 fps.

I just wish I would have bought more when I did. For vanilla loads they work just fine. I just loaded some in my 327 FM so we’ll see how that goes.

With a spring loaded ejector in the bolt it would be extremely difficult to do. It would have to be removed first. No insult intended but I think you are really really really overthinking this. I once chased this around for a long time and it caused more problems than good results so I just fully size them to function and go shooting.

Just for the heck of it, load a couple up a little hotter to see what happens. I notice that the ones in the CBC brass (thicker) look more normal. It’s more like the primer is flowing around the pin while it’s out than flowing past the pin into the hole. I’ll have to check mine again because I just got some a month ago.

I tried powder (#9 because of its fineness and higher density) when trying to figure out my low numbers. It wasn’t until I checked it with water that it really showed up.

I’ll throw another fly in the ointment. Brass. I was doing some ladder testing just to test increase of velocity per tenth of a grain of powder. I chose some Fed brass I had, bullets were within .2 and loads were hand weighed. In every group there was one round that was consistently 20-30 fps slower than the rest. This sparked another test, narrowing it down to 4 pieces of bass I found the one bad apple and marked it. It looked the same, same headstamp but it was one that had been glocked and ran through the push through sizer. Water volume testing showed that it had greater volume than all the others. I couldn’t visibly see any stretching internally but somewhere the case gained volume which lowered the vel. I may section it to try and get a closer look.

You are correct on that. I just noticed that I didn’t get the “1/4” in my teaspoon measurement above so corrected it. I also think the car wax adds a bit of buffer/surfactant to it also. The first batch I tried with just Lemi and Dawn came out very clean but very dry (squeaky clean). That’s why I added the wax. I process everything beforehand anyway so it’s already sized but the wax seems to keep the brass from tarnishing in storage and slides on the expander a bit easier. If you have hard water the acid helps combat that to help with the water spots.