Hornady Powder Through Expander damaging .357 brass

I've been using the PTE for the past few days and every once in a while, it damages a .357 Mag case by folding about a 3/16-inch-wide chunk of brass from the mouth of the case right down into the case.

This usually happens in about 1 out of 50 cases, which is frustrating enough, but, today is started to happen to 1 or 2 out of 10 cases. I did not make ANY adjustments to the equipment since the last time I used it a couple of days ago. I did not even take the dies out of the press.

Any idea what is causing this? :banghead:

Have you cleaned your shell holder recently? I've seen this happen when grunge builds up on my Lee holders, particularly on one side. Since the 357 is a long case, the grunge or a speck, or whatever, under the rim can tilt it enough for the PTE to snag the case.

Jim H.

I had exactly the same problem. My solution was a new shellplate:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=446661

Two causes I know of. First, a loose shellplate. Assuming that's not the case, you need to adjust your pawls. I've experienced your problem twice in the past 35K rounds. Both times I had to adjust about 1/8 turn to get the shellplate registering properly.

I had a similar problem with the Lee powder-thru-expander, I checked the mouth of the expander stem it wasn't as slick as it should be.
a few minutes on a buffing wheel corrected the problem.

It does that on my lee classic turret as well, the alignment is very unforgiving with the powder through expander die. I have to be very cautious and deliberate with the movement of the handle to be sure it stops precisely in the correct alignment. When I do it that way it works fine.

Thank you for all of your advice. Having cooled off, I thought about it some more and inspected the press and yesterday's rounds. Here a few observations:

1. Everything was very clean, no crud and no buildup of spilled powder. The plate was tightly bolted.

2. Yesterday, I was using Magnum SP primers for the fist time on this press. About 5% to 10 % were seated high, and most were flush with the case head, and not slightly below flush, like standard SP primers are. Perhaps the high primers contributed to mis-timing of the plate. None of the damaged cases had high primers.

3. About 50% of the primers exhibited a bump in the surface. It looked like they were "bumped out" a little by pressure from inside the primer pocket. NO idea what caused that. The bump is about the size of a flake of gunpowder, but is a bump on the surface, not in indentation, if you know what I mean.

4. The retainer spring appeared to be in good condition, but immediately got caught somewhere and was damaged as I was testing the press this morning. Maybe it was on it's last legs yesterday, and somehow contributed to the malfunction...

5. After replacing the retainer spring, I loaded about 20 rounds of .357 using stanadard instead of magnum primers and no malfunctions or bumps appeared. This is a small sample, but that was all the brass that I had left. I'll be able to run a larger test today after I use up some of this .357 in the afternoon.

I'll call Hornady in the morning to see what they have to say about all this.

....

Adjusting pawls
Just for your info...

I spent quite a long time figureing out how to adjust those darned pawls.

I came to a few conclusions. I should start a new thread but I'm just going to post here.

First of all, the directions in the manual are confusing. I made pictures cuz pictures are easier.

First picture:
http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~snyder/guns/pawl1.gif

What it shows is if you rotate the pawl screw LEFT (counterclockwise), the shell plate will rotate more RIGHT (clockwise).

Next picture:
http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~snyder/guns/pawl2.gif

What it shows is if you rotate the pawl screw RIGHT (clockwise), the shell plate will rotate more LEFT (counterclockwise).

Rule 1:
Left pawl adjusts the shell plate when it comes down. This is the one that causes problems with cases feeding into the shell plate or priming problems (they both rely on the the downstroke of the shell plate).

Rule 2:
Right pawl adjusts the shell plate when it goes up. This is the area that causes problems with cases entering the dies (jamming on the sizing die is the big problem child).

The rest:
Now, another key point to keep in mind about the clicks.. The manual says to listen for clicks as the shell plate is locked into place at the end of the press arm stroke. They don't explain it very well though. When I was first fighting the left pawl (shell plate problems with priming and case feeding), the manual said to listen for 2 clicks. They didn't explain that the clicks are VERY soft and I was mistaking the releasing of the RIGHT pawl being the first click when in reality, the proper click is a very soft one. The clicks are first the sound of the pawl releasing and the second click is the sound of the 2 ball bearings locking the shell plate into proper place.

The key about that is you want the adjust the pawls so that the 2 distinct clicks merge into one click, that means the pawl is releasing exactly at the same time as the ball bearings are locking into place. If you are thinking that the loud clicking is the proper noise, then you are wrong like I was.

And when adjusting these pawls, you need to move the press arm VERY slowly.

Oh well, I hope these instructions help someone else

I spoke with Hornady today and the support technician suspects a timing problem. Tonight, I have to run another test batch and see if the case tilts to the side as it enteres the powder die. If it does, then it is mis-timed...

Had a bunch of other small annoyances as well, and the technician was very, very patient and knowledgeable and helped me resolve them all.

I'll post the resolution here once I check the timing and Hornady helps me fix it.

Thanks to all who responded and offered me their advice!

BTW the timing that they are speaking of is probably related to my post above yours on how to adjust the pawls.

Hello bobotech, I saw your post and I already saved the instructions in case my test confirms a timing issue. Very helpful illustration, thank you!

The instructions in the manual are overly confusing which is why I made that post up. I have posted that before in Hornady thread.

any slight issue in timing that doesn't show up using regular dies, INSTANTLY appear when using the hornady PTX dies.. Most dies adjust alignment as the case enters the die, by using a cone area to line things up if they are slightly off, the PTX dies have material sticking down that catches the slightly out of alignment case and strike it causing damage to the case, usually end up throwing it out due to excessive damage to the brass.

How does the newer style case activated powder drop work?I was told that the spring is a lot stouter causing it to crush cases.My old on does not have that crushing strength but after 30,000 rounds I had to rebuild it. I was just curious I have thought about upgrading my measure to the new style linkage?The old style has the diagonalspring instead of the short straight one.Did not mean to hijack the thread but was curious since you mentioned crushed cases.
Thanks
roc1

roc1, my cases are damaged by something other than the spring, probably a timing problem in the press.

There is no way that any spring that you'd find on a powder measure could come even close to crushing a case. I have no idea what the old style of Hornady measures was like, so I can't compare the two types, but I can tell you that I'm very happy with the consistent charges that my current-style measure throws.

IMtheNRA I understand the Hornady tech told me that the new style could crush cases because the spring is stout.I am glad to hear it throws good charges mine is great on everything except small charges of Unique. I just ordered the pistol rotor which should fix that.Thanks for the info
roc1

Well, I figured out what was causing the problems. Here is a photo of a primed .357 case approaching the Hornady Powder Through Expander. Notice how the case is slightly tilted.

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q26/Brass_photo/th_029.jpg (http://s132.photobucket.com/albums/q26/Brass_photo/?action=view&current=029.jpg)

Turned out, there is damage in the subplate assembly that looks just like someone had installed a decapping die in the station above it and ran the decapping pin into the subplate. This created a crater with raised edges in the subplate, which in turn caused the primed case to tilt when it entered the powder die. As a result, the PTE damaged the cases that did not self-align in time. Here is the damaged subplate:
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q26/Brass_photo/th_041.jpg (http://s132.photobucket.com/albums/q26/Brass_photo/?action=view&current=041.jpg)

The really scary part is the damage that the crater was doing to the primers while the primed case was raised into the powder die:

http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q26/Brass_photo/th_043.jpg (http://s132.photobucket.com/albums/q26/Brass_photo/?action=view&current=043.jpg)

I saw this damage when I got the press back from Hornady a few weeks ago after its second trip back to fix the high primers problem. During the repairs, they replaced both the frame and the subplate assembly. I did not realize the significance of this damage until I started to troubleshoot the damaged case issue with the Hornady support tech. We thought it was a timing issue until I looked at the cratered area closely. I feel pretty lucky that it did not detonate a primed case while it was fully inserted into the powder die... :what:

The press is on the way to Hornady for its THIRD homecoming visit... :banghead: