.44 Case wrinkle

[Miata Mike]

I loaded some .44 magnum tonight with AA#9 and Nosler 300 grain bullets. My dummy load went well back when I seated it.

I filled case with the powder and seated 1st bullet when I had a slight wrinkle. Flared a sliver more, filled the 2nd case and seated another. Slight wrinkle again. Figured case had the slight score marks in the middle of the case where the wrinkle happened.

I chose 5 more cases without the "score" crimp marks on the case and seated the rest without issue. Never had this problem before, but also never seated a bullet so deep like this one was designed.

I am 99% sure I will pull the 2 bullets, but was wondering if anyone has ever shot something like this and still has all their fingers and a functional rifle?

 

[WestKentucky]

If it passes the plunk test I would think it should be fine. It would fire form back to normal. If it doesn't pass the plunk then I would tear it down and full length size it make a call on it from there.

 

[Blue68f100]

I would recheck you seater/crimp die. It looks like you tried to crimp (die body) before the bullet was fully seated. Back off the seating die. Set your OAL, The setup the crip by backing off the seating stem till you have the crimp set. Once set run the seating stem back down to the bullet. You should be good.

 

[Walkalong]

Exactly. Back off of the crimp, and make double sure the case mouth is rolling into the deepest part of the cannelure.

 

[dagger dog]

I've shot some with wrinkles in my Ruger 45 Colt, it did not iron them out completely, and they were +P loads.

 

[rcmodel]

I agree.

Crimp.
Too much, too soon!

Back off the seating die, and re-adjust the seating stem to seat slightly deeper on the bullet crimp cannulure.

That will give the case mouth somewhere to go before the seating die crimps it into nowhere to go.

You also need to measure the sized case lengths.

Long ones will buckle when crimped.
Short ones will get very little crimp at the same die setting.

rc

 

[Miata Mike]

I didn't have any more of the primed brass with no groove to measure, but the 16 or so of the grooved W-W brass all measured like 1.282 to 1.284. A lame attempt to measure my dummy load looks .010 shorter.

No doubt I set the die to a shorter trimmed case like many have guessed already. I have like 16 primed cases to use up that must not have been trimmed.

I know all the rest of my cases are trimmed as I did them during a marathon trimming session last month. ;-)

Thanks to all that replied!

 

[Maj Dad]

Mike, this highlights one of the advantages of seating and crimping in two different steps/dies. You have already found out that the brass needs to be pretty much the same length, but seating and crimping separately saves time loading and time in the confessional recounting how many times you used inappropriate oaths...
Cheers,
George J.

 

[Miata Mike]

It's a long story George how these got by me, but it comes down to not paying close attention to details.

I bought some used brass from a guy saying he was selling it for a buddy dying from cancer. I gave them a quick look and home it went. I set them aside and when I came into some more .44 brass, I decided to tumble it all together.

After everything was tumbled it came time to resize, and that's when I saw some of the cases were primed. I thought I must have primed some brass and forgot about it. It all got sorted out and set aside. The big clue something was different was the primed cases had belled mouths, (something I would never do since I don't own a single stage press).

I religiously trim all revolver cases that crimp on a cannelure with a Lee trimmer.

16 more cases that measure very close is all I have to burn up before I am back to "normal".

I have about 15 cases with walnut in the flash hole that I will probably end up depriming.

 

[Walkalong]

I used to trim all my revolver brass on a hand trimmer (RCBS & Forster) which worked great but was a bit tedious. I recently switched to this Lyman set and do it under power on my hobby lathe. I'll never go back to trimming any kind of quantity on the hand trimmers. My first project will be to make a trimmer pilot for .458 Win Mag.

Trimming revolver brass makes crimps so much more consistent when using brass that varies a lot in length, and of course, careful adjustment of the die/s.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=6354182&postcount=7

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=7699828&postcount=14

 

[fguffey]

I filled case with the powder and seated 1st bullet when

Right there is your problem. I make transfers, I transfer the dimensions of the chamber to the seating die. When it comes to off the lands I want to know 'by how much', I am the fan of the running start, I want my bullets to hit the rifling 'a running'.

I suggest a reloader adjust the seating die to crimp first then after adjusting the die to crimp adjust the seating plug down to the bullet, your seating plug and die are not adjusted to finish at the same time. Your crimp is crimping first then the seating plug starts to crush the case because the bullet is crimped to the case.

F. Guffey

 

[fiftybmg]

If it fits in the chamber, it'll fire ok.

Are you using a Lee bullet seating die ?

 

[Drail]

I think that a large part of your problem is pushing long 300 gr. slugs past the case cannelure. Those cases were not designed for a bullet that long.

 

[fguffey]

I think that a large part of your problem is pushing long 300 gr. slugs past the case cannelure. Those cases were not designed for a bullet that long.

If that was true the case would crush/collapse before the crimp portion of the die contacted the mouth of the case.

I suggest adjusting the die to crimp first then adjust the seating plug down to the bullet. When a crimp is not desired adjust the die down to the mouth of the case 'THEN!' back the die off to prevent crimping.

F. Guffey

 

[Miata Mike]

Are you using a Lee bullet seating die ?

Yes.

 

[fiftybmg]

Yes.

The Lee bullet seater does not support the case walls when seating.

It holds the the case just over quarter inch past the case mouth, then there is a gap, and it holds base near the rim.

This is why they had to come up with the factory crimp die, to iron out the wrinkles caused by the seating die.

I use a Redding seater, and I seat and crimp in one operation without any problems at all, even crimping a 44 magnum case at 44 special length did not buckle the brass. [ honest mistake at the time ]

I replaced all my Lee sets with Hornady, Redding and RCBS, and I do not own a single factory crimp die for handgun calibers.

 

[Walkalong]

The Lee seater can be adjusted to seat and crimp a bullet with a quality cannelure in one step without buckling the case, assuming the cases are of reasonably uniform length. While I am not a fan, the FCD was not brought out to fix buckled cases from poor set up, nor will it "iron out" that problem. It may make it "fit", but it won't fix it, or return it to smooth.

 

[fiftybmg]

Whether Lee produced the FCD as a workaround or not, only Lee can say for sure.

The Lee seating die has unsupported walls. I know that Redding, Hornady and RCBS dies support the case in the seating die along it's entire length.

When the case is wrinkled, it is visible, but on shorter pistol brass, the deformity is not visible, and the round will not chamber. These are fixed by the FCD, and the occurence warrants running every round through a FCD when using a Lee bullet seater for pistol.

This is not to say Lee dies are no good, they work very well and when setup properly there is no difference in ammo quality produced than from other brands.

 

[fguffey]

The Lee seating die has unsupported walls. I know that Redding, Hornady and RCBS dies support the case in the seating die along it's entire length.

If that were true 'we all' would be using the seating die to size cases.

Manufactures have started making profile dies, it is a way. sort of, to fix all the mistakes made when sizing, AND for chambers that are said to be 'not generous. If the seating die supported the case the bullet could not expand the case and my bullets would not make my cases look like they swallowed a bullet.

I have a 45 ACP that loves new factory, over the counter ammo, to make my reloads look like factor, new over the counter ammo I use a carbide full length sizer die to remove the appearance of a case being upset by the bullet.

I have friends that informed me I do not know how to load for the 45 ACP, so they make arrangements for me to meet them at the range to use their reloads, sure enough, their ammo will not work. The last time I left the range with their ammo, ran the cases through the full length sizer die and returned. Their ammo flew through my 45 ACP. So before the profile die I was using the full length sizer die as a profile die, I was matching my reload profile with new/factory ammo profile.

F. Guffey

 

[Miata Mike]

Thanks for the replies. My problem was setting the seater with a shorter case.

 

[Hanshi]

This same "wrinkle" has lately been happening to about a third of my .380 brass; but it is occurring in the expanding (cast bullets) die. If it were ALL the cases I might understand; but only about 1 in 3?? I have some 300 cases previously processed and no "wrinkles" on any of them. Is this a virus going around? :banghead:

 

[rcmodel]

No, its probably a ring inside the case put there to prevent bullet setback during feeding.
Federal has been doing it lately on .380, and possibly other brands as well.
Look inside the case for a ring, or step where the case gets smaller.

If your expander goes in past it, it will cause your problem.

rc

 

[Miata Mike]

I shot up the 5 good ones with 2 bullseyes for the first 2 shots at 50 yards. Shot the 2 wrinkled ones and left that brass in the scrap brass bucket. Looked like it fire formed ok, but why chance it.

I reset the seating die and reloaded the last of my primed brass that wasn't trimmed by me. This should never be an issue to me again.

Thanks again for the replies. Hopefully end of thread.

 

[Walkalong]

Hopefully end of thread.

That's easy. Glad you got it figured out.