Thoughts on expanding: Lee powder through expander vs Hornady expandi

[RandyLahey]

I have my Lee Loadmaster setup for 9mm and I've been fairly happy with it. I know people love to hate Lee, and it is NOT a perfect press, but for my $ and time, it's been decent and has a fairly low rate of failed rounds(missing/tipped primers, bent brass rims etc...)

When I only shot plated bullets, the Lee powder through expander seemed to work very well. Now that I'm shooting some BBI bullets, I noticed that going from 124gr 9mm Xtreme plated RN to 147gr BBI flat point bullets, I needed to open up the bell quite a bit on the cases. Without opening up the cases that much, I would get some shaving of the coating and leading of the barrel. I think I may have been over crimping just a touch, but I'd say 98% of the issue was shaving, as I could see some plastic black shaving at times. So I opened up the bell as much as I could, while still being able to seat bullets. If I opened up too far, I could get crushed rims of the case on entering the seating die. Finding a happy medium, I was able to get the adjustment to where it seems I avoid the shaving, and don't get any hang ups on the seating die. Also adjusted the LCD to just take the bell off, and measure at 3.77-3.78.

I am also using a Hornady expanding die in station 2 of that press to help hold the shell in place while priming. I have it adjusted to just hold the shell and not bell the case. I got to thinking the other night, that maybe the Hornady would do a better job of expanding the case w/out excessively belling the mouth of the case????????? I've never used the Hornady to expand the case though, and before I start messing with the dies I thought I'd ask here.

I ask these questions as I've come across threads talking about "improper" expanding, but I wasn't really following which dies were good or bad at this process.

thx

[Miranda]

that is curious...

if you have a 38 seating die.... try it?

I am far more interested in why the BBI bullets need so much expansion.

miranda

[RandyLahey]

I have a hornady 9mm seating die I may eventually try, but for now the Lee seater is working well enough.

I assume the BBI need more belling as the coating may bring the OD of the bullet somewhat more vs the plated. Or maybe it's b/c the 147s are so much longer and need the belling to extend "lower" to avoid the shaving? I'm not sure myself. Fairly new at reloading :/. Learning a lot along the way .

[Miranda]

hi RandyLahey,

where to start...

I am guessing that you have more than enough belling.

the coating is flaking/shaving off at the curve where

the expansion becomes the sized case.

I am not sure how to change the radius of that curve, however.

a coated bullet expander...

got a metal lathe?

miranda

edited to add....

you may want to wait for another member to add to this

these guys often have good solutions and know about products

to fix such issues.

.... me I'd be at my lathe cutting at my expander.

I also would order another because learning often leaves something to be desired.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Miranda

[Sandbagger123]

Are you using the seating die to just seat or to seat and crimp?

[RandyLahey]

Miranda, No I don't have a lathe, or more importantly any ability to run one lol. I'd be a true fish out of water there

seating dies is just to seat. I have a LCD to crimp.

I will say that at first, I had my seating die adjusted that it would start to crimp my 124's but not totally remove all of the bell. With the 147's it seemed to fully crimp, so I had to back off on that as well.

[cslafrain]

Plated 9mm bullets are typically 0.355 diameter while coated lead are 0.356. The bullets are sized after coating so the coating does not add to the OD of the bullet.

[Sandbagger123]

Miranda, No I don't have a lathe, or more importantly any ability to run one lol. I'd be a true fish out of water there

seating dies is just to seat. I have a LCD to crimp.

I will say that at first, I had my seating die adjusted that it would start to crimp my 124's but not totally remove all of the bell. With the 147's it seemed to fully crimp, so I had to back off on that as well.

yep. adjust it so it just shove the bullet in. The FCD will do the finish crimp. i don't adjust anything when going from FMJ/plated/ coated or plain lead

[2ndSupporter]

If you really wanna bring your Lee up to speed, google mikes reloading bench. He is in a Texas and a genius. You can send him your press he charges something like 90 bucks it will be night and day when you get it back. I've loaded in excess of 10k 45s, can hold an oal of .003 all day long.

I have 2 of them for 9/45 and 223, I'm quite pleased, It's not a Dillon, but Mike makes it pretty trouble free and consistent.

[RickT]

I'm using a Hornady PTX with a universal expander from Powderfunnels. I've run well over 20K rounds of 9mm and 147gr Bayou bullets with no problems whatsoever. I'm currently using an RCBS micrometer seating die and Lee FCD. The rounds are perfect enough for me; never a failure either to chamber or in my case gauge (although I haven't used the case gauge in 15K rounds at least).

[rtp]

I've got a powderfunnels.com PTX expander for my LnL AP, but for 9mm, actually just use the Lee expander that came with their 4 die set. It's 'close,' meaning that Lee die threads are on the short side, so I almost needed to put the Hornady lock-ring on the bottom side of the die, but it's worked fine for BBI, Bayou, SNS in various weights - 124, 125, 147gr, as well as with Xtreme and Montana Golds (plated and jacketed, respectively).

Measure a sample of your BBI 147s OD - I'm expecting they're ~.356". Check only the belling operation, and post a pic of a belled case and measure the OD of the 'bell.'

For 'crimping,' sounds like you're now doing the right thing - you want finished round case mouth to be 2 * wall thickness + bullet OD, no 'real' crimp, or maybe - .001-.002 at most.

The only thing coming to mind here is maybe your press/turret is slightly out of alignment?