[MissouriCrowinMass]

I found these casings at the range last week. Two were cracked and all had the primers really catered out. They weren't flat at all, just all mushroomed. I've reloaded for two years. 9mm, 45 ACP, .40 S&W, 7.5x55 and just started .30 carbine. I'm pretty conservative. Never had any funny looking primers. I had a couple of questions?

I never saw the Lee Factory Crimp looks like. I use RCBS Dies with the taper crimp. Are these Lee Factory?

I'm having a hard time with .30 Carbine Reloading. (Love to shoot the Carbine!) I have a set of the older RCBS Dies where the Sizer Die is just that and the Decapper Die bells the casemouth. No matter how hard I try to barely adjust the combo decapper pin & belling unit......I'm getting bad bullet setback. These are Carbide Dies. I use One Shot Lube?

Any advice is appreciated. I don't post much but I've learned alot of this Board. Thanks

[rondog]

I have the Lee FCD in .45acp. It does a taper crimp on the rim to the bullet, which you can adjust, but I "think" the main difference is that it re-sizes the loaded round one more time before that crimp.

[Ridgerunner665]

What was the powder charge, bullet, OAL of those rounds you were shooting in that 45?

A couple of those cases look a little "swelled" to me.

[ReloaderFred]

He found them at the range.

[Ridgerunner665]

Dang...what a night I'm having.

I saw that but after reading the entire post...I was not sure if he fired them or not.

They are the result of an over charge of a very slow powder....or at least that's my best guess without more info.

[moooose102]

the canaluer crimp that is 1/3rd of the way down is from the factory load. i have some shells like that. it is a really nice idea if you were shooting them in a tubular magazine. but i am not so sure why they do it in a pistol magazine that feed straight up. my guess would be for recoil, but there is not THAT much recoil in a 45, at least not imo. anyway, they were probably loaded wat to hot. so after seeing the results of the split cases, the shooter figured all the cases were streached to far to reload any further and just left them for the brass buzzards (of which i am one). that is part of the problem with range pick ups. you never really know what the brass has been subjected to. or how many times they have been loaded. but, free is free, so you cant be too picky. worse case scenario, you throw them in the recycle bucket (which is what i would do with those) and turn them in when you get a bucket full.

[Walkalong]

The primers don't show any significant pressure. It looks like typical failure from old age.

[The Bushmaster]

Or they just split as some factory or reloads do on ocasion...I also see nothing out of the ordinary...

[rcmodel]

Yuppers!
Old brass that has reached the useful limit of it's life by being reloaded one to many times.

The case cannelure is from the original factory load.
It is used in some loadings to help prevent bullet set-back from hitting the feed ramp.
You often see cannelure cases on factory .45 ACP 185 grain Match Wad-cutter loads, and light bullet JHP loads.


MissouriCrowinMass said:
I have a set of the older RCBS Dies No matter how hard I try to barely adjust the combo decapper pin & belling unit......I'm getting bad bullet setback.
These are Carbide Dies.That right there might be your problem.
The .30 Carbine case has .020" taper from head to mouth.

Older carbide dies were generally made with a thin ring of carbide brazed into the steel die body. In order for it to work on the .30 Carbine case, it would either have to be .010" too big to size the mouth, or .010" too small to size the base.

I think the answer to your problem is a new steel sizing die that can properly size the case with the .020" taper left unmolested. That will give you the proper neck tension to hold the bullet against set-back.

[MissouriCrowinMass]

I ended up buying a new RCBS Tapered Die Set. It's the kind that decaps & re-sizes with one die. They work great. No problem with loose bullets. Using 14.2 grains of H110 & small rifle primers I'm getting good groups with my reloads.