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Bulbous 9mm


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I'm loading fired brass in 9mm in a 550B. Occasionally, I load a round that when cycled (in a match, of course) won't feed because the casing is too wide near the base. Some of these loads I've pulled, and reloaded the case. They'll feed after the first stage (sized and primed), but not after seating the bullet (stage three). Am I hallucinating, or can the seating process cause the base of the case to bulge?

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Well, what I am doing is buying once fired and then dumping it after I fire it once.

Could be they were fired out of a glock. I have heard some problems with this. The remedy being the egw sizing die.

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Guppy-bellied brass can happen in 9 too. Grind down your sizing die about .020 to .040" then make sure it's ALL the way down in your press. I mean ALL the way. As in if you go 1/16 of a turn more the ram cams on the die. If that fails, call EGW and see if they'll make you a 9mm small base die.

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Occasionally, I load a round that when cycled (in a match, of course) won't feed because the casing is too wide near the base.

You do run your match ammo through a case gauge, right?

As Kingman said, get a U-die from EGW. It'll help.

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I've found the Case Pro to be abbsolutely wonderful for improving the quality of match ammo in both Super and 40 S&W. Other approaches also help, but the Case Pro is the ideal solution since it "rolls" the case back into shape, and does not tend to scrunch the brass towards the head.

Also, the Case Pro people are wonderful to deal with.

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Kingman

The CasePro100 is a roll sizer. It is a special type of case sizer that rolls the case between two flat steel dies that reforms the case from the base up. They are not cheap but they do a very good job. You still have to use a regular sizer die in the press but it takes out the belly that forms in cases shot in an unsuported barrel. You can read more about the unit at http://www.casepro.net . I dont have one myself but I do have friends with them that I can use for both 40 S&W and 38 Super.

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I'm not going to deny that the Casepro is simply wunderbar. I will say that you can solve 99.9% of guppy-bellied brass problems by judicious use of a bench grinder on your stock die - especially on the Dillon die. Best of all, as long as you have a grinder handy, the solution is $477 less than the Casepro.

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Eric,

What do you do with a square deal die setup. its not the typical die threaded into the block. Or is the way they are setup better for that type of problem.

Yeh noticed the price the u die is a whole lot cheaper and I have a couple old single stage presses around.

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The SDB dies are threaded are they not? If so, you can do exactly the same thing. If not, I would promptly ditch the SDB for a 550.

Just my politically incorrect not so humble opinion....as usual.

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They are, just need to remember how to adjust them. The sizing part is a piece of steel that sits inside the toolhead then get tightened onto it.

Will have to look really carefully at that.

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I've had the Crock brass problem in .40 but never 9mm. Get a LEE FCD (Factory crimp die) Don't try to seat and crimp in one station. I use the Standard Dillon dies in my 650 and the FCD and they run fine. Only problem I had was with Star bullets that were FUBAR. They were not round and caused a bulge. Switched to Zero's and no more problems.

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A Lee Factory crimp die will take those little "imperfections" out of all your loads. I love mine in 40. I shoot alot of once fired Glock brass. It is a life saver. You said you were loading on a 550 correct? Grinding down your sizing die slightly will help with bulges in once fired brass. Hope this helps. TXAG

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Well, what I am doing is buying once fired and then dumping it after I fire it once.

... whereupon somebody may well pick it up and sell it again as "once-fired"... hence the need for case-bulge-repair tools.

IME "once fired" usually isn't.

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Well at least my practice brass no one can touch but me or two other people. My range is private and only 3 people have keys to it.

Anyone know the deal on an sdb if you can grind anything down.

at matches it is different.

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