olp73 Posted November 19, 2008 Posted November 19, 2008 (edited) Last night I noticed something strange. I tried loading some frontier bullets and after testing the cartridges in the gun. Just cycled them thru testing for right OAL and reliability. After the test I measured them again and found out that the OAL was slightly increased. (like 1,5 tenth of a mm) Is this something I need to be concerned about? I use: Dillon 550b, egw u die the rest is RCBS dies. Oal 1,15’’, crimp .422. Edited November 19, 2008 by olp73
Jman Posted November 19, 2008 Posted November 19, 2008 Your crimp sounds about right. A tad tight for a .401 bullet perhaps. You are using a taper crimp die, right ? Check those same rounds for set back. Push the bullet nose into the edge of your bench with your thumbs. Then measure the OAL. If the bullet does not move back your probably just re-shaping the round slightly while you are chamber checking. Not being a wise ass here but remove the firing pin when you chamber check loads in your gun. Set back is what needs to be avoided at all cost. A slightly longer round the cycles fine should be fine. Jim
olp73 Posted November 19, 2008 Author Posted November 19, 2008 Yes it is a taper crimp die. I planned to save this for another post but…….I have some concerns about the EGW U-die. I know it is enormously popular here at the forum and is considered an easy insurance against setback. But the thing is, to me it seems a little too tight sometimes. This causes a pretty sharp edge on a lot of cases right were the bullet ends. I understand that this prevents setback, but does it need to be this much. Doesn’t this stress the brass a lot? And can it even be dangerous, causing case separation ?
Jman Posted November 19, 2008 Posted November 19, 2008 Yes it is a taper crimp die. I planned to save this for another post but…….I have some concerns about the EGW U-die. I know it is enormously popular here at the forum and is considered an easy insurance against setback. But the thing is, to me it seems a little too tight sometimes. This causes a pretty sharp edge on a lot of cases right were the bullet ends. I understand that this prevents setback, but does it need to be this much. Doesn’t this stress the brass a lot? And can it even be dangerous, causing case separation ? The U die is not a magic die. It's great especially if you shoot a lot of Glocked (bulged) brass. I use it on ALL loads with .400 FMJ bullet diameters. I use a standard Lee sizer on .401 lead and plated bullets with very nice results. No stoppages or crushed cases. The bigger bullet still leaves a nice "waist" keeping it from setting back. Jim
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