Seating Dies

Suggestion here. Bell your casing more. So the bullet will sit in some. I use that trick.

CoalCrackerAl said:

Suggestion here. Bell your casing more. So the bullet will sit in some. I use that trick.

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Agreed, use the expanding die. It's what it's there for.

Hot44 said:

Trying to find a .32acp Hornady seating die. bullets seating crooked with what I have now.
Have spent a lot of time looking online around my area.

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Hornady seating die won't help you. Nature of the beast with these small bullets and small cases, and 32 ACP has some unique funny stuff about it. First, there are two different case sizes out there, euro and US, so if you're mixing headstamps, and you have a mix of both, it makes setup a REAL pain. Also sometimes, you need to bell just a hair more...and hold the bullet straight all the way up into the seating die. This is also a round that saves a whole heck of a lotta pain by seating and crimping in separate steps. IMHO, this round is one of the most challenging for the reloader, and is really a labor of love.

Expand you case just a little more so the bullet can be inserted straight up and down before trying to seat the bullet .
Remenber ...bullet IN case straight ... comes OUT seating die straight . The seating die will not straighten out a bullet leaning to one side .
The easiest way to get your case expanded more is with a Lee Universal Neck Expanding (Flaring) Die .
The die will flare from 22 cal to 45 cal with a reversable plug ... this little tool is worth the money ...
anytime you need a little more flare on a case mouth ...this one will do it .
I was having trouble with cast bullets in a 9mm Luger ... The Lee Universal neck expanding tool solved all the problems , the cast bullet needed more flare !. NOE also sells Lyman M-Type expander plugs to work in the Lee Die Body .
If having trouble finding the Lee Universal Die ...NOE had them in stock as of a few days ago .
www.noebulletmoulds.com
Gary

I second the Lee universal expanding die. I have one on each of my Lyman turret press's. And one on my RCBS partner press. Yes i like convenience.

the M type expanding dies will change your life. I also once read a review on seating dies and according to the reviewer both the Redding competition seater and the Forster micrometer seaters actually corrected run out on bullets that had been seated with runout (crooked) previously. I can tell you that since I started using a combination of M style expanders and those seating dies, my reloaded handgun ammo has been much more accurate. I know that from using a handgun benchrest for testing to verify that it wasnt just me being a terrible marksman. I learned this when I started reloading 500 magnum and was disappointed by how lousy my reloads were shooting. Then I was at my bench one day and accidentally knocked a loaded round over and watched it roll across the bench top, the runout was obvious as it rolled, and severe. I was using lee dies at the time, started researching and made the switch based on the info I found and all the sudden my 500 was a tack driver. I saw it on some 223 I Ioaded not long after, same thing; the Redding competition seater fixed it. on a side note the lee carbide sizing die also sized my 500 mag brass smaller than it needed to be and when I switched to the Redding I was amazed by how much easier it was to size them, and they still chambered and neck tention was just fine.

Buy a set of Lee dies or the 32 acp seater. Never had a problem with it…but I do use the powder through die (Classic Turret) which bells them nicely.

In addition to expanding, I have found that a seating die that is machined about .001 over bullet diameter and set up to start the bullet about 1/16 inch into the case, followed by a die set to seat to length, works well to keep bullets straight. The reason is that the bullet and case are well supported in the first die, being pretty far up the die. Once things are going straight the remaining seat goes well. I find Redding seater dies work well for the first die as they are a tight fit to the bullet and case. About anything works for the final seating.

A good expander helps, but the fit of the seating stem is everything. I cheat and use flat point bullets. If you shoot the same bullet a lot, a custom seating stem would be your most effective investment.

I do not know anything about that caliber. In the handgun calibers I load my excessively expensive sleeved seating dies and the M expander sure does a good job. Maybe not the most cost effective solution but it sure does work. I gave up dropping the powder through the die and went to a hand measure just so I could use the M die. I had a little money loose and was going to buy a new press. But I ended up figuring that the dies are where the accuracy is anyway so I dumped the press idea and went with dies,.

If your using the Hornady Seating die with the drop down alignment sleeve, spin the brass as it lowered down. This helps the bullet to align if you did not expand enough.