RCBS 9mm expander shaving brass off case

[looking4reloadingdeals]

Hey guys, so iv posted on here a couple of times about the problems I was having with a high failure rate in my 9mm loads (about 10-12%) with coated 147 .357” bullets. Long story short I think my problem was with the expander die not doing its job.

So, I switched an rcbs expander which is a plug style expander which seemed to resolve the problems I was having while loading. But now with using the rcbs expander, I’m getting brass shavings all over my shell plate and In my “finished round” box. Pictures attached below. Anyone know why this is happening? Is it ok to keep going and just blow off the shell plate periodically? Obviously I know there shouldn’t be this much shavings on the shell plate, but what can I do to fix this?

 

 

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[looking4reloadingdeals]

Pictures didn’t come as well as I had hoped, here’s a close up.


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[igolfat8]

Are you using lube Or running dry? You should be using lube, even if your using carbide dies. Are you over belling the case mouth? This will cause brass wear. What station is the brass wear coming from? If it’s the crimp station then it’s likely your over belling and causing wear after the case mouth bell is closed up during crimping.

 

Clean off the shell plate and run only one case around the plate at a time until you locate the station that is causing the brass shaving.

Edited November 13, 2019 by igolfat8

[looking4reloadingdeals]

I’m only expanding. I couldn’t get the die to fit properly in my 650 so I was running some cases through with only the expander in the press.

I am not lining the cases, I will try that now though.

No I’m not over belling, only just enough for the bullet to go into the case.


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[George16]

There’s something wrong if you can fit the die properly in your 650. Even if you’re just expanding the cases on your 650 only, it seems like it’s either something is misaligned and also the cases are over belled.

 

Can you post a picture of a belled case again? Can you also post a picture of your 650 and your die setup and have you tried calling Dillon to ask why your die won’t fit properly?

[looking4reloadingdeals]

There’s something wrong if you can fit the die properly in your 650. Even if you’re just expanding the cases on your 650 only, it seems like it’s either something is misaligned and also the cases are over belled.
 
Can you post a picture of a belled case again? Can you also post a picture of your 650 and your die setup and have you tried calling Dillon to ask why your die won’t fit properly?

The die hit the shell plate early, and the stem wouldn’t go down far enough to bell the case, it was just barely touching the case.

Here is a picture of the belled cases. The two in the middle are belled and the two on the outside are not. If you zoom in you can barely tell which are and which are not belled. So if anything it seems like the cases could be belled more. Like I said, I did the bare minimum as to not overwork the brass unnecessarily.


Here is the 650, I had the expander in station 1 but removed it when I couldn’t get it to adjust far enough down and moved it Into the LNL, also shown here


No I have not called Dillon, I think the older rcbs die just may not be designed to have that much travel in it. I just started experimenting tonight, so at this point I’m not so much worried about it not fitting in the 650, just trying to figure why there are brass shavings everywhere. I do all my brass prep on the LNL in order to keep the majority of the walnut media out of the 650, so it would be easy for me to leave the expander in the LNL with my decapping/resizing die to have fully prepped, ready to load brass, and it will be lubed since I lube before I resize.

Let me know what you think.


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[m700]

3 things
On your Hornady move the locknut under the "toolhead"(not sure what it's called on non Dillon. Lube. And try polishing die smooth, this comes up from time to time, if you put a mirror finish on it it should help a lot

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[George16]

2 hours ago, m700 said:

3 things
On your Hornady move the locknut under the "toolhead"(not sure what it's called on non Dillon. Lube. And try polishing die smooth, this comes up from time to time, if you put a mirror finish on it it should help a lot

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I second this. 
 

I think the reason the due wasn’t going far down enough is because of the locknut being on top. Also, use a Dillon locknut which is significantly thinner compared to the TCBS locknut that’s currently on your expander die. If it’ still doesn’t go down far enough, install the locknut underneath the tool head instead of having it above.

[looking4reloadingdeals]

It’s not that the die won’t go down far enough, I can get it to go in, and touch the shell plate with no problem. The problem is that when I start to twist the plug down to adjust the flare (once the die is locked in place in the tool head), the plug doesn’t travel far enough down to flare the case. But again, that’s a not big deal for me right now as I’m already processing brass on the Hornady anyways.

I will try the process with lube next week when I get some time, and I will also try to polish the plug. Thanks for the help guys


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[looking4reloadingdeals]

3 things
On your Hornady move the locknut under the "toolhead"(not sure what it's called on non Dillon. Lube. And try polishing die smooth, this comes up from time to time, if you put a mirror finish on it it should help a lot

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What would moving the lock ring below the toolhead do for me? The die already set and gives me the correct amount of flare on the Hornady, it was just the 650 I ran out of adjustment on. Also there was still about 1/2” of threads above the tool head after the die hit the shell plate, plenty of room to snug the lock ring on there


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[m700]

Sorry I misread I thought you couldnt get the die low enough. In some instances that helps

[looking4reloadingdeals]

Sorry I misread I thought you couldnt get the die low enough. In some instances that helps

Oh ok. I’m actually doing that with my crimp die right now, makes it just that much harder to adjust the die haha.


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[bigedp51]

If you had brass shavings inside the case then deburring or the expander is the problem.

Your brass shavings appear to be just on the outside of the case. This would be the case mouth rubbing on the inside of the die body.

Look at the inside of the die body and see if can see if the case is rubbing.

[looking4reloadingdeals]

If you had brass shavings inside the case then deburring or the expander is the problem.
Your brass shavings appear to be just on the outside of the case. This would be the case mouth rubbing on the inside of the die body.
Look at the inside of the die body and see if can see if the case is rubbing.

I’ll take a look, thanks. I think it’s a little bit of both. There were some shavings inside, but mostly on the outside


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[bigedp51]

2 minutes ago, looking4reloadingdeals said:

I’ll take a look, thanks. I think it’s a little bit of both. There were some shavings inside, but mostly on the outside


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Wet tumbling with stainless steal media can cause case mouth peening and cause the brass shavings.

[looking4reloadingdeals]

 
Wet tumbling with stainless steal media can cause case mouth peening and cause the brass shavings.

I was wet tumbling, but without media. I noticed the peening with the media and didn’t feel like chamfering and debuting the pistol stuff so I ditched it. There could still be a small amount of deformation from wet tumbling though. I’ll try debuting a couple and see if that helps at all. Thanks


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[Steve RA]

Clean up the inside of the die up to the area that actually does anything to the case.