Coating being scraped off bullets

[PharmDShooter]

I’ve tried searching for the fix to this problem, but it looks like everyone just says it’s a potential problem and to watch for it. 

I just started losing coated 40 (0.400 diameter) bullets. On some of them the coating is scraped off while loading. I know the issue is somewhere in my sizing die (I think). Now for the stupid question: How do I need to fix this? I am using Lee dies.   

 

Thanks in advance

[Racinready300ex]

You probably just need more bell

 

And those .400's should be easier to load then .401's.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Racinready300ex

[Racinready300ex]

Do you seat and crimp in the same station or do you have two different stations?

 

I've had trouble getting them to seat and crimp in one station with out scraping the coating. I found I had to get it just right, with very little crimp. If your crimp gets down to the bullet before the bullet is all the way seated it'll scrape it off as the bullet gets pushed down. I load 9 and 38 crimping and seating in one station, but never go my 40 to do it right. I've since upgraded to a 650 and load all my 40 there seating in one station and crimping in another.

[PharmDShooter]

I am seating and crimping in one station. I’ll try to reduce my crimp and see if hat helps

[Adamj]

I had this same problem loading up some bayous. My fix was increasing the bell just enough to stop the case from scraping the bullet. I seat and crimp in different stations. 

[Furrly]

seat and crimp seprately, increase bell..

[MikeyScuba]

Maybe I’m off the mark but I’ve leaned the seating die itself will start to remove the bell.  So I moved up seating die up and the seating stem down. Way down. So now the bullet is seated before the bell starts to get pressed in. 

 Maybe I missed how to set up the seating die but maybe others are in the same situation?  Using a lee die too.  Works like a charm.

 

Anyone figure out how to stop the shaving of the brass?  The lee sizing and FCD makes a mess.  It’s 9mm revolver rounds and I have so much 9 I never reuse the brass, just collect it in a bucket. But what a mess.

 

Using Bayou too.

[jim m]

Increase bell first, then to seat.  One thing at a time

[ddc]

On 6/29/2018 at 2:54 PM, MikeyScuba said:

Maybe I’m off the mark but I’ve leaned the seating die itself will start to remove the bell.  So I moved up seating die up and the seating stem down. Way down. So now the bullet is seated before the bell starts to get pressed in. 

 Maybe I missed how to set up the seating die but maybe others are in the same situation?  Using a lee die too.  Works like a charm.

 

Anyone figure out how to stop the shaving of the brass?  The lee sizing and FCD makes a mess.  It’s 9mm revolver rounds and I have so much 9 I never reuse the brass, just collect it in a bucket. But what a mess.

 

Using Bayou too.

Not sure exactly what your situation is: It sounds like you are using separate dies for seating and crimping? If so then if the seating die was set up correctly then it should not have been crimping also. It may be that originally the seating die was not setup correctly but now, after your adjustments, it is.

 

You mention shaving brass. The initial thought is the flare is not sufficient. Are you loading brass plated? Or brass jacketed? Flaring is much more critical with plated. You almost have to try to shave brass off of jacketed bullets.

 

Also with respect to the FCD: Can you give more info on that the "mess" is exactly? I'm not sure the "mess" is related to the sizing or FCD dies. More likely the flare is at fault.

[rustybayonet]

On 6/27/2018 at 3:11 PM, Racinready300ex said:

Do you seat and crimp in the same station or do you have two different stations?

 

I've had trouble getting them to seat and crimp in one station with out scraping the coating. I found I had to get it just right, with very little crimp. If your crimp gets down to the bullet before the bullet is all the way seated it'll scrape it off as the bullet gets pushed down. I load 9 and 38 crimping and seating in one station, but never go my 40 to do it right. I've since upgraded to a 650 and load all my 40 there seating in one station and crimping in another.

+1

[Judo]

On 8/5/2018 at 3:02 PM, rustybayonet said:

+1

Me too.

[Steve RA]

You don't want to "crimp", just straighten side of case.  (not discussing revolver rounds).  Sizing die should reduce case enough to have the loaded round look slightly "wasp waisted" which will do away with setback of the bullet as cartridge is loaded into chamber from magazine.

[Yeti]

On 6/27/2018 at 2:11 PM, Racinready300ex said:

Do you seat and crimp in the same station or do you have two different stations?

 

I've had trouble getting them to seat and crimp in one station with out scraping the coating. I found I had to get it just right, with very little crimp. If your crimp gets down to the bullet before the bullet is all the way seated it'll scrape it off as the bullet gets pushed down. I load 9 and 38 crimping and seating in one station, but never go my 40 to do it right. I've since upgraded to a 650 and load all my 40 there seating in one station and crimping in another.

Increase flare so that you can just start the bullet base into the flared brass.  Seat & crimp in separate steps.

For Hi-Tek coated bullets, crimp should generally be about a 1/2 turn or so down (often less) once contact with the case mouth is made.

[Racinready300ex]

1 hour ago, Yeti said:

Increase flare so that you can just start the bullet base into the flared brass.  Seat & crimp in separate steps.

For Hi-Tek coated bullets, crimp should generally be about a 1/2 turn or so down (often less) once contact with the case mouth is made.

 

Correct, I was trying to say it is much easier to seat and crimp in separate stations. It can be done in one, but that can be a PIA.

[HeavyForCaliber]

On 6/29/2018 at 4:54 PM, MikeyScuba said:

Anyone figure out how to stop the shaving of the brass?  The lee sizing and FCD makes a mess.  It’s 9mm revolver rounds and I have so much 9 I never reuse the brass, just collect it in a bucket. But what a mess.

 

Using Bayou too.

 

I have been able to minimize brass shavings, but not eliminate.  When I first started loading 9mm with Lee dies, everything seemed to work properly using the setup instructions that came with the die set. Somewhere around 5K rounds, what I was doing no longer seemed to work very well.

 

I had trouble shaving the coating off during seating (Bayou Bullets too) and ended up backing out the seating die and running the seating stem down really deep. This eliminated shaving.

 

After solving that problem, I had brass shavings everywhere. After loading a few hundred rounds, my press and the floor underneath it looked like an episode of Gold Rush.  I ended up tweaking the case flare to the absolute minimum before coating would get scraped and that helped a lot.

 

I still get some brass shavings, but nothing extreme like before. I sent my dies to Lee for maintenance, and they did a few things to them, but informed me that some brass shavings are normal with 9mm, so I just ignored it after that.

 

The odd thing is that some pieces of 9 brass load smoothly and do not create shavings (I use 1/2 turn of crimp on the FCD). Others scrape inside the FCD or shave burrs off the outside of the case mouth. I'm guessing it's variations in brass length, but I just load it, move on and make a mess.

 

I do wonder if some other die set would make this problem go away.

[Miranda]

get out yer dremel and polishing cone.

Put the best shine you are able onto the mouth of the seating die and crimp die.

 

if you use SS pins as your media, you will get shavings/dust because the media seems to peen the case mouth.

 

miranda

 

[MikeyScuba]

I did a search that also mentioned that using .358 Bullets doesn’t help as the die is made for .355-.356.  I’m using 160gr .358 Bayou’s in 9mm brass for S&W 929’s revos.

[Steve RA]

Look up inside the die and remove anything that seems to stick out from the wall (I used a Dremel).  I load some .358 dia bullets and have had no problem after cleaning up the inside of the die.  

[ddc]

On 6/29/2018 at 2:54 PM, MikeyScuba said:

Maybe I’m off the mark but I’ve leaned the seating die itself will start to remove the bell.  So I moved up seating die up and the seating stem down. Way down. So now the bullet is seated before the bell starts to get pressed in. 

 Maybe I missed how to set up the seating die but maybe others are in the same situation?  Using a lee die too.  Works like a charm.

 

 

It's been a while since I set up my 9mm Lee dies but I recall that when I followed the directions to set up their seat/crimp die to seat only it still resulted in some minor amount of crimp being applied. It wasn't until I backed off the seating die an additional turn or two that I got it to seat only.