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BBI 200gr seating woes


kcobean

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I have been loading BBI 200 gr bullets for a few years and they’ve run fine in my STI Eagle and Brazos Pro 2011’s.  I have a new gun that has a KKM hybrid barrel and about half of my rounds fail to pass the plunk test and about half of the remaining half will plunk “snug”.  The reason, I suspect is that my seating die is not pushing the bullets in straight.  It’s the Dillon seat die and I’ve tried both inserts.  For contrast, I loaded 20 165 gr plated RNHP bullets and every single one plunks perfectly.

 

Anyone using a different seat die and having better luck in a tight chamber with these BBI CFPs?

Edited by kcobean
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It would probably be a lot better for @CHA-LEE to help answer this since it's a .40 and 1911 design.

 

Couple of questions:

What is your COAL?

What is the size of your crimp?

Have you tested your rounds in a case gauge like a Shockbottle Hundo?

Did you do a garage fit of the barrel, or hire a professional gunsmith?

Was the chamber cut to accommodate YOUR ammo?

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14 hours ago, kcobean said:

I have been loading BBI 200 gr bullets for a few years and they’ve run fine in my STI Eagle and Brazos Pro 2011’s.  I have a new gun that has a KKM hybrid barrel and about half of my rounds fail to pass the plunk test and about half of the remaining half will plunk “snug”.  The reason, I suspect is that my seating die is not pushing the bullets in straight.  It’s the Dillon seat die and I’ve tried both inserts.  For contrast, I loaded 20 165 gr plated RNHP bullets and every single one plunks perfectly.

 

Anyone using a different seat die and having better luck in a tight chamber with these BBI CFPs?

Whats the diameter of the barrel in the interior? What's the diameter of the bullet?.. Some barrels are not set up to accept 401 diameter bullets.. 

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3 hours ago, TheChewycookie said:

It would probably be a lot better for @CHA-LEE to help answer this since it's a .40 and 1911 design.

 

Couple of questions:

What is your COAL?

What is the size of your crimp?

Have you tested your rounds in a case gauge like a Shockbottle Hundo?

Did you do a garage fit of the barrel, or hire a professional gunsmith?

Was the chamber cut to accommodate YOUR ammo?


COAL is 1.18-1.185

neck diameter after a mild crimp is to spec (.423)

Yes I cause gauge every single round I fire and as many fail the gauge (an EGW 7-hole) as fail the plunk test.

the barrel is professionally fit and cycles the 165 grain RNHPs without issue.

The chamber was cut to spec but not to my ammo.  
 

A little more info to support my concentricity theory:  for the rounds that fail the gauge, If I force them into the gauge, when I pull them out the coating is shaved off of one side to some varying degree that corresponds to how much effort was required to press the round in, and some rounds drop right into both the gauge and the barrel.  

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1 hour ago, Furrly said:

Whats the diameter of the barrel in the interior? What's the diameter of the bullet?.. Some barrels are not set up to accept 401 diameter bullets.. 

The BBI 200 gr bullets are .401.  I don’t have a solid measurement of the chamber diameter, but given that some of the rounds drop right in and some don’t, it doesn’t appear to be a tolerance issue (other than the chamber being just tight enough that a bullet being even the tiniest bit non concentric or off axis causes it to bind)

 

The 165 gr RNHPs I tested are .400 and have no issues, however I’m not sure if that’s because they’re smaller diameter or because the seating die does what it’s supposed to do on that bullet profile, or a combination of both. 

 

 

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New brass, old brass? Possibly more coating on one side of bullet? On the brass I’ve seen some that are thicker on one side than the other seating the bullet crooked. Usually only on much loaded brass. 

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1 hour ago, Farmer said:

New brass, old brass? Possibly more coating on one side of bullet? On the brass I’ve seen some that are thicker on one side than the other seating the bullet crooked. Usually only on much loaded brass. 

All range pickup used brass with varying headstamps.

Edited by kcobean
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My guess would be uneven coating on the bullets. Should be able to verify by turning one in your caliper jaws. I would think you should also see a bit more of a bulge on one side of the brass too. 

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19 hours ago, kcobean said:

The BBI 200 gr bullets are .401.  I don’t have a solid measurement of the chamber diameter, but given that some of the rounds drop right in and some don’t, it doesn’t appear to be a tolerance issue (other than the chamber being just tight enough that a bullet being even the tiniest bit non concentric or off axis causes it to bind)

 

The 165 gr RNHPs I tested are .400 and have no issues, however I’m not sure if that’s because they’re smaller diameter or because the seating die does what it’s supposed to do on that bullet profile, or a combination of both. 

 

 

I've 401 diameter bullets can be an issue and  fact that they are coated.. BB coating tends to be more thicker then other coated bullets.. Check the oal of the bullets that drop in vs the ones that don't, is there an significant variance.. 

I beting its the 401 diameter bullet. 

GL

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You need to get the rifling throated/reamed deeper to move lands forward. Any competent 1911/2011 gunsmith will have a throating reamer. Don't confuse this with a chamber reamer as that is not what I am talking about.

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15 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

You need to get the rifling throated/reamed deeper to move lands forward. Any competent 1911/2011 gunsmith will have a throating reamer. Don't confuse this with a chamber reamer as that is not what I am talking about.

Can you help me understand your answer?  One round might drop right in with no resistance, the next round off the press might not chamber even with considerable pressure.  Given that, how would this be a chamber depth issue?

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Its not a chamber depth issue. Its a rifling lands depth issue. This is especially true with coated bullets where the physical shape of the bullet nose my vary slightly from one to the next. Its rare for a barrel to have the chamber depth cut wrong. It is common for the rifle lands depth to be cut too shallow. Both of these have to be cut to the correct depth when fitting a new barrel. If whoever fit the barrel cut the chamber depth but skipped the lands depth, then they only did half of the job.

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No disrespect but that doesn’t explain some not gauging in his EGW. Throating would allow them to chamber but it’s not the source of the problem. I think he’s trying to figure out where this all stems from. 

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4 hours ago, kcobean said:

Can you help me understand your answer?  One round might drop right in with no resistance, the next round off the press might not chamber even with considerable pressure.  Given that, how would this be a chamber depth issue?

Do you have access to a drill press or lathe that you could chuck an offending round in and spin it? Or someone that has a bullet concentricity gauge you could use? That will show it real quick. 

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2 hours ago, Farmer said:

No disrespect but that doesn’t explain some not gauging in his EGW. Throating would allow them to chamber but it’s not the source of the problem. I think he’s trying to figure out where this all stems from.

Most case gauges are designed for SAAMI spec cartridges. The COAL of a spec'd 40 is 1.135". He's loading longer so the "throat" of the chamber holes in his gauges also needs to be cut long. Shockbottle makes a gauge specifically made for long 40.

https://benstoegerproshop.com/100-hole-40-s-w-extra-large-long-hundo-chamber-checker-cartridge-case-gauge-by-shockbottle/

This gauge is designed for shooters loading over 1.20" OAL and/or lead and coated lead bullets up to .401" and larger in diameter.
Check your firearm has sufficient barrel leade as excessively seated-out bullets will not be caught and can cause excessive pressure and out-of-battery ignition.

Edited by TheChewycookie
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5 hours ago, TheChewycookie said:

Most case gauges are designed for SAAMI spec cartridges. The COAL of a spec'd 40 is 1.135". He's loading longer so the "throat" of the chamber holes in his gauges also needs to be cut long. Shockbottle makes a gauge specifically made for long 40.

https://benstoegerproshop.com/100-hole-40-s-w-extra-large-long-hundo-chamber-checker-cartridge-case-gauge-by-shockbottle/

This gauge is designed for shooters loading over 1.20" OAL and/or lead and coated lead bullets up to .401" and larger in diameter.
Check your firearm has sufficient barrel leade as excessively seated-out bullets will not be caught and can cause excessive pressure and out-of-battery ignition.

👍 Got it!

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For some reason I had money burning a hole in my pocket and I decided I needed to "upgrade" my 550 dies from Lee to Dillon.
Then started getting the same occasional failures as you with 185 gr old school Moly coated bullets in a Para 16/40.  Most would plunk fine, some would just lock up in gun barely out of battery. Tried every adjustment there was, never made any sense to me what the problem was.
Finally my engineer self came to the surface.
If problem A happens after you Do B.... most likely B is the problem.
Moral of the story is, that dillon seat die is back in my swamp some where, and my 550 has a Lee seating die on it and my ammo all works.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Just to close this out....I actually got a phone call from Mr. Black Bullets himself, Chandler Lefrain, and he walked me through a few things.  

First, the chamber on my new gun is TIGHT.  If you have ever used an EGW case gauge, you know they are precisely to spec and very unforgiving.  My chamber seems to be cut to about the same dimensions as the EGW gauge...perhaps just a tiny bit larger.   Rounds that stick my new gun shut to the point that I have to grip the slide and hit the grip with my hand to get it out of battery will drop right into a Dillon 10/40 gauge with no issue, and those same rounds will also fit the chamber of my Brazos pro with no issues, so the tolerances on the new gun are just less forgiving.  

Second, on Chandler's advice, I moved to a Redding dual-ring carbide resizing die as opposed to the Lee U-die.  

Third, one thing I wasn't doing this time that I've always done before is lubing my cases.  This was causing HUGE issues.  If you're not lubing your brass during reloading you're doing it wrong.  They say you don't have to with carbide dies, but my dies were actually ruining brass if I didn't lube it. I have always used Dillon Case Lube, and once I went back to it, it made a big difference.

Fourth, the competition seating die is awesome and while we had some concern that it wouldn't work with this bullet profile, it seems to be working well

Fifth, I was crimping the cases to spec, but apparently the crimp die and these bullets at this length require some caution.  I think my crimp die was deforming the cases somewhere other than the the case mouth because I backed it off, used a bit less crimp and I saw a dramatic improvement in consistency.  

I loaded 600 rounds last night (and several thousand between when I started this topic and now), and out of the 600 I loaded last night, I had 5 that failed to gauge and 3 of those were nickel cases that split when the bullet was seated.

Huge thanks to Chandler for his hand-holding....you don't see that often.  

 

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  • 3 months later...

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