44 mag. Case Bulge

[red rick]

I was loading some .44 mag. for the first time today and ran into a problem .

When I was seating & crimping the bullets some of the cases got a bulge in the middle of the case .

I was using new Starline brass with Lee dies .

What might cause this ?

 

[JimKirk]

Over Crimping....

 

[JohnM]

Yeah, trying to crimp way too much with the die adjusted too short.

 

[edfardos]

New/soft/long brass lends itself to this also. Seating too deep? In any event brass is being crushed during crimp, or crimp+seat if you do it in the same step.

 

[JohnM]

New/soft/long brass lends itself to this also.

Get the die adjusted properly and all problems go away.

 

[hvychev77]

No doubt you already have some good feedback here. But, I load 44 mag also and curious as to how you are powder charging? I had an issue like this on my Lee auto disc when loading. 223 once before. The through powder die was too low and buckling my case shoulder. I'm just curious so I can watch for myself going forward.

 

[murf]

if the diameter of the bullet is over .430", it will stick in the lee seating die and crush the case. if that is the case (no pun intended), don't use a lee seating die.

murf

 

[Legionnaire]

Looks like you adjusted the crimp without backing off the seater. The steps I use:

Set seating depth without crimp.
Back off the seater and set the crimp.
Run seater down on top of loaded and crimped case.

You have also crimped a lot harder than I do.

You say this happened with "some" cases. Perhaps they were longer than the rest?

 

[mdi]

Get the die adjusted properly and all problems go away.

Yep, I agree. My Lee dies have been trouble free even seating .433" bullets for my Puma in .44 Magnum. Never any sticking...

 

[red rick]

No doubt you already have some good feedback here. But, I load 44 mag also and curious as to how you are powder charging? I had an issue like this on my Lee auto disc when loading. 223 once before. The through powder die was too low and buckling my case shoulder. I'm just curious so I can watch for myself going forward.

I was weighing my powder from a Redding powder measurer and weighing the charge , then trickling . I was only going to load 6 rounds of different grains to work up a load .

 

[red rick]

if the diameter of the bullet is over .430", it will stick in the lee seating die and crush the case. if that is the case (no pun intended), don't use a lee seating die.

murf

I was loading .431 bullets and a few did get stuck . I had to back out the seating plug and use a wood dowel to knock the bullet back out . I was wandering what was going on with it , but it only happened a couple times not with every ever round .

 

[red rick]

Looks like you adjusted the crimp without backing off the seater. The steps I use:

Set seating depth without crimp.
Back off the seater and set the crimp.
Run seater down on top of loaded and crimped case.

You have also crimped a lot harder than I do.

You say this happened with "some" cases. Perhaps they were longer than the rest?

I tried that but it never seated the bullet deep enough after adjusting the crimp . I will try again . My fingernail is hanging slightly on the case mouth with the crimp I have .

 

[red rick]

Thanks for all the help .

 

[Walkalong]

I tried that but it never seated the bullet deep enough after adjusting the crimp . I will try again . My fingernail is hanging slightly on the case mouth with the crimp I have .

You have to run the seater stem down to touch the bullet, then a bit more to match the pressure it will be under when actually seating.

 

[4895]

Make sure to put a resized, trimmed, deburred case into the shellholder. Run the ram to the top of the stroke and screw in the seater die until it touches the case mouth and then back it up a half turn or so. That should allow you to seat the bullet without crimping and disturbing the brass. Crimp in a separate step.

 

[gamestalker]

Your seating die isn't adjusted properly, and or, your brass isn't trimmed to the same length.

Bottom line, you are over crimping and collapsing the case.

Also, make sure you are crimping into the center of the canelure.

GS

 

[iShoot17]

Mind if we ask your load recipe for the round at hand?

It looks to me, like many others have said, is probably associated with over crimping. What does your crimp measure? It seems you must have a pretty hot load with the amount of crimp you're using.

The above posts should also be taken into consideration. A case that is longer than others with cause the die to increase the crimp which in turn could (in your case, "did") buckle the case.

 

[JohnM]

Be pretty unusual to have enough case length variation on something like a 44 Mag to cause problems of crushing the case when crimping, especially with lead bullets.
Proper position of the crimp groove along with correct crimp in a correctly adjusted die will go a long way to avoiding this.
Best practice is to seat and crimp in 2 separate operations, even using 2 different dies.

 

[Legionnaire]

I won't argue that this may be "best practice," but I have never done so. All my .357s, .44s, and .45s have been seated and crimped in one step having set up my dies as described in post #8. I've never experienced the OP's problem. Agree with you, though, that varying case lengths is probably not the problem.

 

[Legionnaire]

OP, here is a link to a great thread on "how much to crimp." It is archived in the "Reloading Library of Wisdom" thread stickied at the top of the Handloading forum.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=469815

 

[gamestalker]

I agree with Legionaire, if the seating die is properly adjusted, seating and crimping can be accomplished without issues in one single step.

And yes, untrimmed 44 mag. brass can vary enough to cause cases to get buckled. The difference from longest to shortest can be as much as .010"+, which can buckle the brass.

But considering the brass is new, I would think the issue is more of an incorrectly adjusted die, rather than a significant variation in brass length, maybe a bit of both though.

GS

 

[red rick]

Give me your thoughts on these .

 

[ljnowell]

Ignoring the buckle and looking at the crimp you can tell it's WAY over crimped.

 

[ljnowell]

Top picture, on the far right looks pretty good, from what I can see in the picture

 

[VINTAGE-SLOTCARS]

Follow what others have pointed out. Remember to "feel" how the round is seated if there is too much resistance something is wrong.