Shaving Brass

I'm loading .380 and all is going well until I get to the crimp function of the bullet seat and feed die. I turned die in until it touched case holder....backed it out 3 full turns as per instructions. Put sized and flared case with powder in shell holder, adjusted bullet seat until I had desired OAL...backed out seat and raised ram back up, turned a quarter turn in for crimp, readjust bullet seat until it just touches top of bullet.. double check O A L... is good. Start finishing bullets. Out of 50 I have two that were shaved. What am I missing?

Bula said:

Looks like that brass is driving way too far into the die body section that applies crimp. Back out the die, and raise seater stem all the way (just to be safe). Place belled case on the ram, raise ram to full extension, then lower die body to just contact belled case. Taper crimp is set from that point on, by lowering the die body until desired crimp is attained. You can adjust OAL from that point by lowering the seating stem as needed. What kind of press and dies are you running? I think its odd that you only saw this on 2 rounds of 50 loaded, any chance these went into the press unsized?

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The dies are Lee 3 piece ..90625 ...press is a RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme... 2 rounds were shaved, several were scratched. All were sized and belled. I'm thinking my bell might have been a little large. I ordered a separate crimping die for my 9MM and I do that as a separate process...I think I'm going to do the same on the .380.

PWC said:

Make sure the brass is fully seated in the shell holder the shell holder is fully seated back...if not the case will be crooked with the die hole.
seat and crimp in separate steps.

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I just went and checked that it was fully seated and it is. I combined the two steps on the .380's as I don't have a separate crimping die...it's officially on order.

jmorris said:

If 48 of 50 were perfect, your problem is not a die setting issue, it’s either a component or process problem.

From this point forth, pay attention to how everything feels and see if you can tell the difference when the problem occurs vs when it does not.

Are you using mixed brass? Are the two “fails” the same head stamp as the 48 “good” rounds!

I don’t know if it’s the angle or that the camera focused on the towel instead of the rounds you were trying to take a photo of but the ogive doesn’t look the same between the two to me.

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I recall as I was raising the ram there was a bit of a catch on some of the rounds...IE: scratched cases as mentioned above. I thought it was the bell catching as it entered the die but there is no evidence of that. All the brass is once fired with the same head stamp. (GFL) Bullets are 95 grain FMJ ball ammo from RMR Bullets who seems to be a reputable supplier. To be honest, it was the only supplier I could find for .380 in this current crisis we are experiencing. I think the "Ogive" looks fine to me..then again I'm no expert and I don't have any equipment to measure it precisely...I'll try to get a better shot of the rounds.

Here's a clearer shot of the rounds.

Well....I had ordered a crimp die earlier this evening. Cancelled it for now. I am going to run another batch of 50 in the next couple of days and use the suggestions offered here. Will let everyone know how it goes. Thanks for the input.