New Brass Problems Loading 9mm

[HesedTech]

57 minutes ago, XrayDoc88 said:

1. I don't really understand how COLs are determined.  I understand that if a bullet is seated too deeply, there is less room for the powder which causes higher pressure.  But if you seated the bullet "long", wouldn't that just decrease the maximum velocity of the bullet?  My manual says to use a COL of 1.069".  If I just seated longer, might these problems mostly go away?

2. I'm following this advice.

4. I deprime and then wet tumble my brass before it gets resized.

5. Again, lube all pistol cases on carbide dies?  What's your favorite way to lube in bulk?

 

 

Let's talk OAL, over all length of a loaded cartridge. For shooting 9mm minor PF deep seating and increased pressure is normally a non-issue. Additionally loading long or short has relatively little effect on the velocity of the the bullet in a given barrel. Yes there will be minor variance but so will normal powder drop variance.

 

The HAP bullet may seat longer than 1.069," but I have never used that one. I have used the Blue Bullet TC which is similar in profile and it loaded easily out to 1.15" and ran in my guns. It all depends on the chamber and the bullet profile.

 

Your reloading goal is to first make sure the loaded cartridge fits in your gun's chamber, that is done via a "plunk test." This has been cover multiple times on the forum so do a search for it.

 

The next goal is will the loaded cartridge will function in your gun? Too long an OAL and the magazine might not reliable feed the ammo up or the round may not load into the chamber (FTF) consistently.

 

Nextl is to maximize accuracy by adjusting powder amounts, consistent with your desired PF, and OAL. To do it properly you will need access to a Chronograph, which helps you adjust the powder amounts.

 

The "book" numbers, OAL and such, are what the powder manufacturers have tested and advising you for liability reasons. It is up to you to determine what is safe and works for you. 

 

Finally using the primer as an indication of "pressure" is highly unreliable for 9MM minor pistol ammo. 

 

Yes always lube for carbide dies. I use One Shot for pistol and good old lanolin mix for rifle.

 

I de-prime, resize and then wet tumble all my 9MM brass first and then reload them in a 2nd pass. 40SW and 45 acp I dry tumble clean first and then process them all in one pass. Why? I find very little variance in 40 and 45 range brass and I found wet tumbling with primers caused more stuck primers due to corrosion in the pockets (can't dry them perfectly, even with a dryer).

 

Hope this helps. The challenge is to come up with a process that work for you.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by HesedTech

[HesedTech]

55 minutes ago, XrayDoc88 said:

What is a U-die and why do you prefer that?

 

I have to add I tried the "u-die" and I found very little difference between them and the Dillon in 9MM. Both "coke bottle" and prevent "setback."

[XrayDoc88]

HesedTech, so there really is no danger in trying a longer COL than what the book states, as long as it plunks and feeds reliably?  Somewhere I read that you might get better accuracy if the dead space volume beneath the bullet was kept to a minimum.  In other words, if you could seat right on top of the powder, that was ideal.  True or false?

 

I would think that you could maximize accuracy just by shooting different loads carefully using a rest.  How do you incorporate the chronograph as well, or do you just want to also attain a certain velocity in addition to being accurate?

 

Why would you wet tumble after resizing 9mm?  I thought it was nice to only resize clean brass.  At least the idea of putting dirty brass in my shiny Dillon press seems icky. 

 

Thanks again!

 

[AHI]

6 hours ago, MikeyScuba said:

I would add a Lee FCD.  How much flair are you doing with the powder funnel.

 

AHI - Steel brass washed WIN and S&B cases?  I’ve only ever come across 1 steel case (can’t remember HS) and there is no mistaking something is wrong when you try to size a steel case

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/winchester-usa-forged-9mm-luger-115-grain-handgun-ammunition

ran into a lot of these lately. S&B I have only found 3 cases now that i run one of these https://ammobot.us/ammobot-steel-case-guard/

Edited April 26, 2020 by AHI

[Postal Bob]

Do you clean your brass before reloading? I ask, only because your brass is relatively dirty with burn marks. Not that you can't load dirty brass. But it makes sizing and everything else smoother.

Looking at your loads, I'm wondering if maybe you're not putting enough flare on the case mouths. Which is why some of the bullets look crooked. Along with the fact that it'll put more force on the mouth of the case when seating a bullet, which may be causing the brass to bulge.

[usmc1974]

This is just what I do, I take all the dies out of my Dillon Square Deal except for the decapping and resizing die. I then setup a bucket, to catch the brass when it is dropped out at station 4. I then throw all the brass on a piece of cardboard  and spray it down with Dillon's Lube . Then resize all my brass and Decap it. Then I throw it in the tumbler overnight. I put my machine all back together with all the dies in their prospective holes. And then I again resize all the brass as it is being loaded. It's an extra step the brass is all sized twice and I don't have to worry about anything like a 380 getting in the middle of my reloading.

[zzt]

3 hours ago, XrayDoc88 said:

HesedTech, so there really is no danger in trying a longer COL than what the book states, as long as it plunks and feeds reliably?

 

Yes.  You can always load longer as long as the rounds plunk and spin in your gun.  For example, I had my throats reamed do I could load HAPs to 1.165".  I did that because I wanted to use 9x21 load data.  So by loading to 1.161" I can keep pressures for 9mm major in the SAAMI or SAAMI+P specs, depending on the powder used.  In addition it lets me use lots more powder so I have more gas to 'work' the poppels and comp.

[36873687]

U die an Lee factory crimp u  be golden

Edited April 26, 2020 by 36873687

[HesedTech]

4 hours ago, XrayDoc88 said:

HesedTech, so there really is no danger in trying a longer COL than what the book states, as long as it plunks and feeds reliably?  Somewhere I read that you might get better accuracy if the dead space volume beneath the bullet was kept to a minimum.  In other words, if you could seat right on top of the powder, that was ideal.  True or false?

 

I would think that you could maximize accuracy just by shooting different loads carefully using a rest.  How do you incorporate the chronograph as well, or do you just want to also attain a certain velocity in addition to being accurate?

 

Why would you wet tumble after resizing 9mm?  I thought it was nice to only resize clean brass.  At least the idea of putting dirty brass in my shiny Dillon press seems icky. 

 

Thanks again!

 

Someone already answered, there is no danger in a longer OAL.

I have to mention some chambers allow for really long OALs but the magazine may restrict you to a shorter length. That is why testing everything is super important. 

 

As far as volume in the case goes, again for pistol shooting there is no significant advantage to excess space in the case. The problem your heard being addressed is a consistent and smooth flame front as the powder is ignited and burns. Now if you are loading major PF most use a slower burning powder, for various reasons, and fill the case to the point where compressing the powder and not getting complete burns is an issue. But, since I don’t load 9mm for major PF I’ll let those who do explain. 
 

I had a 650 and now load on an Ammobot powered 1050 and to be honest it is always messy and after 10s of thousands of rounds it will lose a bit of its shine. A used press is a good press.

 

However, I wet tumble with no pins for 9mm after de-capping and sizing because of three things. The first is my brass is much cleaner after reloading and I don’t have to clean again to get the lube off.  Second reason is the wet tumbler can hold over 2000 cases in 9 mm while the dry tumbler about 200. The third and final reason is, as I mentioned, wet tumbling brass with the spent primers adds one more point of failure to the process. 
 

BTW the best wet tumbler cleaner by far is Brass Juice. I’ve tried the various  home recipes and they just don’t beat juice. 
 

Here’s the dies I found work best for me:

 

Dillon resizing die.

MBF powder funnel, although I hear others are now making equally or better ones.

Hornady bullet seating die with micro adjustable addition 

Dillon taper crimp die.

 

That combination worked best on my 650 and 1050 with the fewest gauge failures. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by HesedTech

[BJB]

5 hours ago, XrayDoc88 said:

I've wondered if my OAL might be a misprint in the 2019 Hodgdon reloading magazine.  For 125 gr Hornady HAP it states a COL of 1.069".  That is the shortest COL for 124/125 gr bullets in the magazine.  A more common COL for that weight of bullet is 1.169".  Do you think that is an error?  Am I seating my bullets too deep?

You're not seating them too deep.  The HAP is a truncated cone with a flat meplat.  In essence, the tip is cut off as relative to a normal round nose so it just seems that you're loading really short at 1.069" but you're not.  I just measured a factory Hornady Critical Defense and it was 1.07".  It's a FTX bullet which is really just like a HAP bullet.  

Take some of your offending bullets and adjust your seating die to shove them in a little more and then see how they plunk....just to see if anything changes....and this will take ogive problems out of play.  Maybe they're worse.....or maybe they better.....but find out.

 

5 hours ago, XrayDoc88 said:

I barely crimp to about .378".  That works fine on the thinner brass.  I'm sure the crimp is more damaging on the thicker brass.  Should I sort brass and change the crimp for non FC, Speer, or Blazer brass?

A crimp of 0.378" should be OK. You might try 0.377", again.....just to see what happens when you then plunk.....and to see if the 0.378" crimp is allowing a little metal "rebound" with your thicker walled stuff.  You're not gonna damage a jacketed bullet too much with a little over crimp (but over crimping will damage a coated or plated bullet.).  Try more crimp to see what happens.  Maybe they're worse.....or maybe they better.....but find out.  

 

Again, on the offending cartridges, paint them with a Sharpie (including the ogive) so you can determine where the problem is buy looking for the ink to be rubbed off. 

 

As to your question about sorting brass, that's all up to you and your goals.  If you're looking for supreme accuracy like in Bullseye then yes, sort.  If you're just looking for quality range ammo then no need to sort and do different things according to different head-stamps because to do so will be adding a lot of different things to your process which will be very inefficient.  My goal is quality ammo for USPSA, Steel Challenge, and practice.  I'm not going to do all these extra steps that some guys determine is good for them.  Loading over 20,000 rds a year I have no time for that inefficient stuff.  I have one 9mm load and it runs in all my 9mm pistols.  I use a Dillon 550 with the normal Dillon carbide dies loading 137PF ammo in range pick-up mixed brass.  Ibejihead 135 gr coated bullets.  Nothing special here by any means, but this ammo will give me 10-shot 2" groups at 25 yds (from a rest) all the time.  A Bullseye shooter might scoff at that because they have different goals, but it meets my requirements.  Think about your goals with your reloaded ammo and go from there. 

 

Try different things like crimp, OAL, etc. just so see what happens.  You don't have to shoot it.  If you don't like it just pull it.  For instance, for your current situation try gauging all your cases after they're resized just to take that station out of the mix of possible problems.  If they all gauge fine but then you have a few of the loaded cased fail plunk you'll know that the resizing station isn't the issue.  You're not gonna gauge all your resized cases for now on because that'll be inefficient, just for now while you're troubleshooting.

 

[stick]

Here's what stepped brass looks like.  You want to avoid these rounds.  Some of the headstamps are IMI, AMMOLAND, FM & MAXX TECH.  

 

Here's a link on what stepped brass cases cause.

https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/260756-stepped-cases/

 

[jcc7x7]

Do the offending rounds chamber in the gun? If throw them in a practice bucket and keep loading.

[Hi-Power Jack]

2 hours ago, jcc7x7 said:

Do the offending rounds chamber in the gun? If so, throw them in a practice bucket and keep loading.

 

^^^^^   Exactly     ^^^^^^

[XrayDoc88]

No, none of them would chamber in two of my guns.

[rooster]

I’ve had the same problem when got a Faxon barrel for my g34. I was going nuts. No matter what I tried rounds would not plunk. For me it was crimp and took me forever to realize such a simple solution. Try these steps. Resize brass, bell, seat bullet longer than what you think will fit. Crimp to 375. Drop in chamber, it’s too long so go back to your seat die and gradually shorten till it plunks. My rounds wouldn’t plunk in less I was .376 to 375. For years I used 378 to 380 with the tight chamber of the Faxon that wouldn’t fly. I measured some factory rounds and sure they are 375. Also the portion of the case just ahead of extractor groove needs to be 387, 386 or that bulge will not let the round plunk. Your u die should take care of that.

[HHjr]

On 4/26/2020 at 2:19 PM, HI5-O said:

Looks like the bullets are seated crooked and maybe need a little more crimp. The third round from the left is what I’m looking at. 
 

I use a Redding micrometer seating die and it helps to seat the bullets straight.

I fully agree to this statement.... case edge stands proud and Ruff in the pic.    I don’t know Dillon stuff at all.   I use Lee or Redding crimp dies in All cals to a nicely burnished edge with slight taper.... Very slight

H

 

[Postal Bob]

What does the flare on your cases look like before seating the bullet? I still think you're under flaring the case mouth. And when seating, the bullets are being forced in too hard causing them to seat crooked, and bulge the brass.

[XrayDoc88]

5 minutes ago, Postal Bob said:

What does the flare on your cases look like before seating the bullet? I still think you're under flaring the case mouth. And when seating, the bullets are being forced in too hard causing them to seat crooked, and bulge the brass.

I have been striving for a minimal flare.  That has worked fine with my Redding dies and Forster press.  I'll try increasing the expansion a bit on my Dillon powder die and also slightly increasing the crimp.

 

Also, I have now confirmed that I have previously successfully reloaded CBC, WIN, GFL, S&B and SIG head stamps on my Forster press.  So even though thicker brass may be more difficult to dial in, it should be possible on the new Dillon.  I'll make some more tweaks on current die settings and will also try the MBF powder funnel die.

[Postal Bob]

Could be that your redding dies were opening up the case just slightly more than the Dillon powder funnel does, which is why you had no problems with the redding dies.. Now with a slightly smaller neck expansion, bullet heads are not entering the cases so easily.

Also, make sure the powder funnel is the correct one, or that it could be defected.

[sx2gl35]

Wow, the expertise here is amazing.  My head hurts from reading all of the possibilities why the OP is having problems.

 

I hardly feel qualified to answer the OP's original question, but here goes:   NO!

[Service Desk]

I load thousands of HAP bullets on my 1050 every year...the length I shoot for is 1.095", I use a Lee U die with Dillon case lube and a Redding Micrometer seater. This combination has solved (for me) all of the problems you have experienced. Everything else is Dillon. YMMV

[XrayDoc88]

19 hours ago, Service Desk said:

I load thousands of HAP bullets on my 1050 every year...the length I shoot for is 1.095", I use a Lee U die with Dillon case lube and a Redding Micrometer seater. This combination has solved (for me) all of the problems you have experienced. Everything else is Dillon. YMMV

Well, I still don't have this figured out.  I'm still having issues with thicker brass, namely CBC and a head stamp that looks like a small arrow.  S&B and WIN mostly work.  CBC never works.  Here's what I've done so far.  I made sure my Dillon resizing die was fully touching the case plate.  I believe the Dillon die also under-sizes so I don't think a Lee U die would make a difference.  I changed the powder funnel to an MBF.  I think I have the expansion set correctly.  I've carefully measured my 125 gr HAP bullets to make sure they weren't too large.  They measure .3555".  I have tried numerous crimp settings with the Dillon die.  Over crimping, under crimping, perfect crimping makes no difference with CBC.  The reason the cartridges don't plunk is because of a slight bulge right at the base of the bullet.  That doesn't appear until the bullet is fully seated to 1.069" as stated in the Hodgdon manual.  I'm beginning to believe that CBC brass must gradually thicken towards the base and the .356" bullet base simply can't fit that deep.  I'm trying to fight physics.  As Rooster said above, my next thought is to try seating the bullet a little longer to see if the bulge lessens and they will plunk.  If that doesn't work, I guess I could try my Redding micrometer bullet seating die, though I'm not sure that step is an issue.  Finally, I may just have to sort range brass or maybe try different bullets. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by XrayDoc88

[rooster]

CBC brass is junk, toss it. Go over to the reloading Section on the CZ forum it’s the best forum on reloading. If your not removing the bulge at the base your die is not getting down enough. With the dillon you can grind down bottom till flat that helps. I use the Redding Full length titanium carbide die. I think it’s better than the u die. I’ll get 98% of my rounds fit the gauge or barrel. I cull my brass as I reload, I always look at headstamp before resizing. I chuck all CBC, s&b, stepped brass, any brass  with funny numbers, that’s usually military, any stamp I can’t read. The cz forum has a list of good and bad.

[Vmax606]

10 hours ago, XrayDoc88 said:

Well, I still don't have this figured out.  I'm still having issues with thicker brass,  

 

The problem is your sizing die  is a little undersized, measure it against the Redding die that you have, you will see that the Redding die is a hair bigger, and in your case the U die will make it even worse, not all dies are EXACTLY the same size, that is why I have 2 different sizing dies for my press.

 

You can not use the same sizing die for everything, if your die works with thick brass and .356 bullets, then it will not work with thin brass and .355 bullets because of not enough  neck tension, and if it works with thin brass and .355 bullets, then you will have bulged case with thick brass and .356 bullets (and that is what you have right now).

Edited May 7, 2020 by Vmax606

[HesedTech]

1 hour ago, Vmax606 said:

 

The problem is your sizing die  is a little undersized, measure it against the Redding die that you have, you will see that the Redding die is a hair bigger, and in your case the U die will make it even worse, not all dies are EXACTLY the same size, that is why I have 2 different sizing dies for my press.

 

You can not use the same sizing die for everything, if your die works with thick brass and .356 bullets, then it will not work with thin brass and .355 bullets because of not enough  neck tension, and if it works with thin brass and .355 bullets, then you will have bulged case with thick brass and .356 bullets (and that is what you have right now).

Vmax606

 

I believe many if not most here on the forum have found the U dies and Dillon dies pretty much work on all the range brass. 
 

I’ve loaded from .355 - .358 with all kinds of 9mm brass, thin to thick, and while CBC in particular is a pain they all load just fine. 
 

Now I will state I have a Mighty Armor 9mm die and it is not undersized in any way so paying very close attention to the crimp is essential to prevent setback with that die. The solution was to use my Dillon sizing die (Lee U die works great too).