What is causing this bulging with 147 gr?

[dspring]

Recently I bought a couple of thousands Precision Delta 147 RN FMJ for the first time, just bought what was available. Am loading them @1.120 with mixed range brass.

 

Am experiencing an unacceptable reject rate, rounds are bulging and fail the plunk test miserably. Recently I have reloaded a lot of Precision bullets (the coated ones) and Acme and have had maybe 0.5% reject rate, things were running way better.

 

Am loading on 650 with a Lee undersize resizing/decapping die and the rest is standard Dillon dies. 

 

Below a typical failed round.

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by dspring
grammar

[dspring]

This is how much the rounds are sticking out. 

 

 

[George16]

Make sure that the bullets are not sideways when you’re seating them.

[nhyrum]

What that usually tells me is either the bullet isn't going on square, or, they're over sized. Coloring on the round and part of the bullet with marker will show you where it's rubbing. Usually I don't think the ring at the bottom of the bullet is the cause of failing a case gauge, usually it's oal, but your oal doesn't seem to be THAT long. A touch more flare, and maybe a touch less crimp (too hard a crimp in a seat/crimp station can crimp while the die is also trying to seat the bullet)

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[jeremy kemlo]

Make sure that you don’t have the flat point bullet seater. 
I had that problem with 147 coated Bullets. Double alpha bullet feeder powder drop fix that.

[jeremy kemlo]

The double alpha powder funnel flares the case at top and expands it a little more down lower. It also makes it much easier to set the bullet on top as it drops down in slightly. Would never reload again without one.

[HesedTech]

4 hours ago, dspring said:

 

Am experiencing an unacceptable reject rate, rounds are bulging and fail the plunk test miserably

I shoot the same round and it took a lot of experimentation to find a reliable almost fail free method to load them.

What’s causing this?

1. At 1.12 the bullet is set deep into the case.
2. CBC brass and some others, case wall thickness which grow thicker sooner.
3. The bullet is not pressed into the case perfectly straight.
4. Precision Delta FMJ use a fairly thick copper jacket and do not swage slightly as they are pressed in like others, especially coated lead.
5. If you can consider using a case expander like the M-die after resizing, but before belling for powder drop. Allows bullet to press in straighter. 
    

Loaded almost 20k of these and find them very accurate (if not the most),  but have switched back to coated for cost savings. 

I found Hornady seating die the most accurate and straight press of the bullet.

 

 

 

[Farmer]

Try a different brand of brass if you have some. Generally Hornady, Fed (without the crimp ring) Speer, Starline, Buffalo(also Starline) and WW are a bit deeper. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Farmer

[gng4life]

Also, something that happened to me, the gauges are sometimes tighter than others. Have you pulled your barrel and done a plunk test there? 

 

And I do agree with the others above, seating them correctly is the key too.

[MemphisMechanic]

Load longer.

 

147 FMJs are looooong projectiles, noticeably moreso than coated ones. The walls on 9mm brass are tapered. The further you shove the bullet back into the brass, the thicker the wall is, and the more difficult it is to prevent thicker-walled brands from deforming. Especially when using brass that has some miles on it.

 

(Generally? Keeping the bullet seated shallower than .250” into the case works well.)

 

If you load to 1.150” you’ll see a large decrease in the number of failed rounds. Yes, you may have to ream the chamber on some guns to accomodate that length.

 

I had a custom carbide reamer made to throat all my Walthers and other short-chambered guns to feed virtually any bullet profile out to 1.160”. I did that because I was running Bayou 150gr SWCs, which are an even worse profile for short chambers.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by MemphisMechanic

[zzt]

You have too much flare on the case from the expander.    Also, as mentioned above, your OAL is too short.  Load longer.  Buy a Mr. Bulletfeeder two step expander/funnel to replace the Dillon unit.  The is no way a bullet can get seated crooked with that. 

[dspring]

19 hours ago, nhyrum said:

.. A touch more flare, and maybe a touch less crimp (too hard a crimp in a seat/crimp station can crimp while the die is also trying to seat the bullet)


 

 

44 minutes ago, zzt said:

You have too much flare on the case from the expander.    Also, as mentioned above, your OAL is too short.  Load longer.  Buy a Mr. Bulletfeeder two step expander/funnel to replace the Dillon unit.  The is no way a bullet can get seated crooked with that. 

 

First of all, thank you all for the replies. That said,

 

I am confused. Flaring too much, too little? My flare works just fine with the coated bullet which in theory are even wider. Can somebody cut the Gordian knot please?

 

There seems to a consensus on 

 

1) bullets are not getting in straight. To that I agree, but please notice that I have even slowed down operations to hold the bullets with my fingers trying to keep them straight. Also I checked and the the seating die is set up correctly with the round end. 

 

 

2) OAL is not enough. Problem is I am using mostly a Gen 5 which is tight tight tight. Very accurate, but not tolerant at all. Will see where I can push it.

 

And yes, I have tried the plunk test as intended, I showed the gauge because it's easier to take a picture of it since I don't need to hold it. 

 

I was hoping of not having to spend money since I do not plan to buy these particular bullets again but if I must... double alpha here I come. But again, double alpha or the Hornady die somebody recommended?

 

Thanks again.

[George16]

Get the Double Alpha MBF funnel as recommended by zzt. I have two of them and they work great.

[bigedp51]

A type "M" expander allows the bullet to start straight into the case. And if the seater plug does not fit the shape of the bullet it can cause the buller to be pushed into the case at a angle.

 

 

 

Redding now makes their expanders the same as the Lyman type "M" expanders.

 

[AHI]

Hears a no money spent solution separate cases by head stamp start with federal cases the internal taper starts lower and the cases are thinner.

You can try this with various head stamps to find others.    Dont use CBC it wont work     wcc will not ether but win may .   find the head stamp that 

works for you.   will add if you are loading 147 gr bullets that short you may .when you go back to coated go to a lighter(shorter) bullet. Your probably damaging

the base of the bullet. but because the coated bullets are softer your swagging them down.

Edited July 6, 2020 by AHI

[dspring]

1 hour ago, AHI said:

Hears a no money spent solution separate cases by head stamp...

 

Fine, fine I will spend the money.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by dspring

[zzt]

33 minutes ago, dspring said:

 

Fine fine I will spend the money.

 

If you want to continue to use 147gr round nosed bullets, have your barrel throated.  That $25 will cure your short OAL problem.  Another $35 for the MBF expander/funnel will do the rest.

[Wolerine19D]

Where can you get the Gen 5 Glocks done for $25?  I hate how short you have to load just for them.  They seem to be even shorter then the CZ's on average.  Why Glock done this is beyond me, the old barrels worked great.  And they went from being able to eat just about anything to being extremely finicky about cartridge length.  Other then that the Gen 5's seem to have some nice upgrades in regards to springs and some other parts. 

[Ken6PPC]

22 hours ago, dspring said:

 

1) bullets are not getting in straight. To that I agree, but please notice that I have even slowed down operations to hold the bullets with my fingers trying to keep them straight. Also I checked and the the seating die is set up correctly with the round end. 

 

 

This may or may not apply to you, but I have found that the harder I try to hold bullets as they enter into the seating die, the more crooked they seat. 

 

I concluded that although I THOUGHT I was holding the bullets and cases straight, I was actually pushing them sideways, making misalignment worse!  

 

I have far fewer misaligned bullets (bulging more on one side of the case than the other) when I just keep my fingers OFF!  YMMV... 

[dansedgli]

Im having this issue too, just started loading 147's. 

 

I have a Mr bulletfeeder expander so dont count on it fixing your issues. 

 

I just went and barrel dropped some into a gen 4 glock barrel. The first one that failed was a CBC case as mentioned above by HesedTech. 

 

I did a bit of googling and the main thing is to load longer, change bullet profile so less is put into the case or sort by headstamp. Avoid CBC, winchester and stepped cases. CBC was mentioned in quite a few threads I found on google. 

 

HesedTech and Memphis are all over it. 

 

 

[Wolerine19D]

I forgot to mention I seen this early on in reloading as well from time to time.  What helped me was switching from the Lee/Hornady expanders I had to a RCBS one which I believe is similar to the M Die/Redding one.  It doesn't put as much flare on the cases but goes deeper into the case and allows the bullet to sit much straighter. 

But what probably helped more then that was just using the thinner cases like Federal.  If you weigh cases out the Federals are around 54-59 grains if I remember right, and most others are in the 60-64gr range.  I recently got a bunch of nickel brass and noticed that most of the Speer was in the 61-63 range but quite a bit of it was in the 55-58 range like the Federal.  Not sure what's up with that but I guess we will see. 

[IHAVEGAS]

On 7/6/2020 at 6:49 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

147 FMJs are looooong projectiles, noticeably moreso than coated ones. The walls on 9mm brass are tapered. The further you shove the bullet back into the brass, the thicker the wall is, and the more difficult it is to prevent thicker-walled brands from deforming. Especially when using brass that has some miles on it.

 

Just finished loading some 160 grain 0.358 sns bullets in 9mm Winchester brass. Used the Lee FCD and these very long bullets were loaded to 1.12 oal.  https://www.snscasting.com/38-357-160-grain-round-nose-red-coated-1000ct/   No worries, they case gauge in a Hundo gauge aok (except the occasional reject) and work in a tight chambered Ruger GP100 wheel gun. 

 

Looking at the 9mm saami drawings I do not see specs for internal taper of brass thickness, but it seems like, with the Winchester brass at least, any tapered thickness increase is offset by the increase in outside diameter from nose to base. 

 

For what it is worth. 

 

[dspring]

53 minutes ago, Wolerine19D said:

Where can you get the Gen 5 Glocks done for $25?  I hate how short you have to load just for them.  They seem to be even shorter then the CZ's on average.  Why Glock done this is beyond me, the old barrels worked great.  And they went from being able to eat just about anything to being extremely finicky about cartridge length.  Other then that the Gen 5's seem to have some nice upgrades in regards to springs and some other parts. 

 

I am entirely with you on that one. Love the Gen 5's guns but struggle with how tight the new barrels are. They are tighter though, and I feel a smidge more accurate so there is that to say.

[Wolerine19D]

1 hour ago, dspring said:

 

I am entirely with you on that one. Love the Gen 5's guns but struggle with how tight the new barrels are. They are tighter though, and I feel a smidge more accurate so there is that to say.

I had thought about seeing how hard it would be to get the barrel throated but figured it would be more then it was worth.  If it can truly be done for about $25 as mentioned above it would be a worthwhile upgrade in my opinion.  That said if you have the G19 or G19X or G45 you can use a Gen 4 barrel in them which you can often pick up for $60-80 used. 

 

I believe the Gen 2-3 barrel will work as well but would probably stick with the Gen 4 to be safe since it has the same type of recoil spring. 

 

The grip texture on the Gen 4-5's is very nice over the smoother 1-3, and getting rid of the finger grooves on the front was also very nice.  I do not like the cutout at the bottom of the grip on the shorter G19 which is the same on Gen 2s as well but doesn't bother me on G17's and I believe the latest ones are solid in this area now.  The ambi safety doesn't matter much to me if anything I'd take it off but the improved trigger spring and takedown spring as well as the upgraded safety plunger are all great upgrades. 

 

Everyone always complains that the Glock doesn't upgrade enough with it's models and that they are all about the same. To me that is a good thing since I don't see much room for improvement.  When they get to messing with their "improvements" you end up with things like the short throat that causes issues, or MIM parts and junk extractors.  I don't shoot well enough to tell the difference, all of my barrels shoot better then I can.  I would much rather have the added reliability of being able to feed whatever round was in the mag. 

 

If Glock would just listen to customers a little better we would have had the Gen 5 design 20+ years ago.  But they don't seem to listen very well, and still send out the older style ejectors in the Gen 3 and 4 Glocks instead of upgrading them all with the Gen 5's.  And the constant Extractor issues since they switched to MIM parts is also very frustrating.  Brass to face and erratic extraction is very common on the 9mm guns made after about 08-09.  An Apex extractor and the Gen 5 ejector seems to cure 99.9% of the issues, but it shouldn't be an issue to start with. 

[MemphisMechanic]

3 hours ago, IHAVEGAS said:

 

Just finished loading some 160 grain 0.358 sns bullets in 9mm Winchester brass. Used the Lee FCD and these very long bullets were loaded to 1.12 oal.  https://www.snscasting.com/38-357-160-grain-round-nose-red-coated-1000ct/   No worries, they case gauge in a Hundo gauge aok (except the occasional reject) and work in a tight chambered Ruger GP100 wheel gun. 

 

Looking at the 9mm saami drawings I do not see specs for internal taper of brass thickness, but it seems like, with the Winchester brass at least, any tapered thickness increase is offset by the increase in outside diameter from nose to base. 

 

For what it is worth. 

 

Winchester makes some pretty good brass. I don’t sort mine by headstamp and tend to collect a hodgepodge of less spectacular stuff, which has been loaded half a dozen times. Potentially for an Open gun at least once. I don’t pay for brass, so I don’t mind when a few of them fail to gauge out of a thousand... but I work to keep that number low.
 

This is the most likely reason I’ve noticed this trend which many others haven’t, but I can assure you that loading long does help a little bit.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by MemphisMechanic