Brass marred

[dzimmerm]

I recently started reloading the 9x18. I shot my first loads and then collected the brass for inspection. I noticed that there is a crinkle in the brass after shooting. It only happened on the brass I reloaded. It did not happen on all the brass but it was on the majority of it. The crinkle was not there until after I had shot it. I am attaching a picture of a shell showing the crinkle.

The crinkle does not extend to the inside of the case. I resized the case while decapping it and the crinkle did not go away.

I will describe my setup in case that is what is causing this.

I purchased a Hornady 3 die set for 9x18. I am using a dillon RL450 press. Position one is the Hornady decapper/sizer die. Position two is the Dillon powder funnel adjusted to not bell the case, just make good contact so no powder spills. Position three is the Hornady case beller. Position four is the Hornady seater crimper.

I am using both 9x18 and cut down 9x19 brass. The mark shown in the picture is on both 9x18 and 9x19.

The mark is not on all of the fired cases, just the majority of them.

I am wondering if I have the seater crimper die adjusted wrong. I did not have any feeding problems in my Makarov while shooting.

I am using Hornady JHP XP bullets with 3.2 grains of Winchester 231 with CCI small pistol primers. The load seemed to be accurate with less kick than the factory ball ammo I also fired.

The primers were not deformed from pressure. The factory loads actually showed some primer deformation but my loads did not.

That leads to another question. I have heard folks talking about flattened primers but I have not seen one picture actually showing what a flattened primer looks like. I am guessing the flattened primer means the mark made by the firing pin is smoothed out by pressure forcing it outward.

As I said, my loads did not show this deformation though I did notice it somewhat on the factory ammo I also shot.

I look forward to your comments, as this is my first time reloading.

dzimmerm

 

[RecoilRob]

Looks to me like your mark is being made during chambering of the round. The Mak was made for round nose ammo and the XTP might be a bit long at the OAL you are loading. If so, the nose is hitting the chamber top while the case is hitting the lower edge and leaving the mark. Seating the projo a bit deeper should help if this is actually what is going on.

The way to check is to fire one, eject the next, fire and eject 'till the magazine is empty. Look at the loaded rounds you ejected. I would expect to find the mark on them.

And, your primer question happens more at the radiused outer edge. The primer pocket as well as the primer have a nice rounded edge. When pressures get out of hand, the primer will flatten out and lose its' radius, sometimes even flowing out into the primer pocket radius and forming a sharp edge larger than the pocket itself. They look like little upside down top hats when you punch them out.

 

[dzimmerm]

Oal

I was measuring them to an OAL of 24 mm. The flat tip of the JHP might cause the OAL to need to be closer to 23.5. I will try doing a comparison of the silhouette of both the JHP and the FMJ and see if there is a noticable projection of the JHP beyond the FMJs outline.

The feeding on the Makarov is so smooth I did not suspect it might have been dinging the cases.

If all it taks is seating the bullet a half a mm more that will be an easy fix.

I will watch out for deformed primers with the shorter seating as I have heard that it could raise pressures.

dzimmerm