do you have to bell/flare for jacketed bullets?

[codemonkey001]

i did a search and it looks like the consensus is split on adding a bell/flare for jacketed bullets. some people do it but it's not noticeable, and some people do not. i plan on reloading only jacketed bullets from Precision Delta, I am using a Dillon press, and i'm trying to set up the 2nd station, the powder drop/flare station. should i add a bell just to be safe? would it make my cases wear faster? thanks

[Jonathan Taliani]

For jacketed bullets, I still do a small bell. I don't have an exact measurement, but enough that the bullet sits stably on top of the brass.

[Poppa Bear]

I bell all pistol bullets because they tend to have either a flat base or a semi-hollowed out base. I do not bell most of my Rifle bullets because they are boat-tail bullets that can stand on their own inside the case mouth.

The key to my belling or not is will the bullet stand in the case mouth on its own. If not bell the case enough that it will.

[Skydiver]

I bell all pistol bullets because they tend to have either a flat base or a semi-hollowed out base. I do not bell most of my Rifle bullets because they are boat-tail bullets that can stand on their own inside the case mouth.

The key to my belling or not is will the bullet stand in the case mouth on its own. If not bell the case enough that it will.

Yes. There is nothing more annoying than the bullet falling over on it's side right before it goes into the seating die and crushing the case. I would rather have the bullet fall off completely rather than having the bullet just tip over.

[codemonkey001]

thanks guys, i wasn't sure b/c some people say they don't, then others would reply that if they didn't, they would get copper shavings from the jacket of the projectile. i guess it depends on the projectile.

i think i'm going to test by taking a fired case, then run it through the decapper/resizer and then take it out. and just see how a projectile sits on it. if it sits just fine, then no bell; if not, i'll bell it as little as possible.

[Singlestack]

You have to work real hard at getting your brass back for belling to matter. Bell it enough so your bullet sits easily and stays put when you index and shoot it until it splits. You will lose way more than you ever split.

[MARKAVELI]

I also give it a slight belling where the bullet stands on its own without tipping when indexing..

[kevin c]

I have found two ways to make reloading on my SDB come to a literally bone jarring stop: one is the unsized case not getting set deeply into the shell plate; the other is a bullet going sideways before it gets seated. The first is annoying. The second is annoying and aggravating both, as very often the case is mangled and I have to remove it, dump the powder, deal with salvaging the primer, empty the other stations to run a new case to replace the damaged one, and then replace the partially completed rounds in the shellplate.

Now, if I get just one case that falls over, I immediately stop and reset the bell by an eigth to a quarter turn. This is well worth it to me, as I tend to batch cases by number of firings and by head stamp - if one case is short, there's a fairly high probability the others are the same.

[joelpend]

I always bell a little because the bullet sits on the case better and I have found if you don't you will occasionally crush part of the neck for whatever reason.