Double Alpha bullet feeder die question

[packetloss]

Has anyone experienced any issues with Hi-Tek coated bullets, more specifically Missouri hi-tek coated bullets in their bullet feeder die?

What happens is periodically (1 in 10-15) i'll get a bullet that just won't drop through the ball bearings. I've reduced it to 2 ball bearings and it improved some, but they still get stuck sometimes. Not stuck in the sense that the bullets are getting snagged, just that it won't push through the ball bearings. This happens even if I feed the bullets into the die manually (i.e. no spring on top, no spring tension affecting the die). I can even push the die up by hand and the bullet won't drop through until I tap it quite a bit. I never had any double drops.

Since I also had some precision delta jacketed bullets, I started feeding them through by hand (did about 100) and none of them get stuck. Visually, the PD jacketed bullets are totally smooth and 100% uniform. The Missouri bullets however are not 100% uniform on the bottom which is presumably where it makes contact with the ball bearings.

Just curious if anyone else has run into this before and if bullet feeder dies just don't work as well with (some manufacturers) hi-tek coated bullets.

 

[forty_caliber]

I've had zero problems with the .45 die. Eats whatever I put in there. What caliber die are you working with? I guess you could always run the Missouri bullets through a swaging die..

.40

 

[packetloss]

These are 115 grain 9mm rounds.

I've gone through about 500 so far and they all shoot really accurately and I wouldn't have even noticed the slight imperfections if I didn't have the occasional stuck bullet in the die. It seems to be on the very bottom of the bullet where it's a slight boat tail shape, some of them have extra material.

I sorted through some bullets picking out about 15 almost perfect ones and cycled them about 25 times they fed through the die without getting stuck. It took me almost 2 months to get these bullets so perhaps Missouri bullets QC dropped in their attempt to meet demand.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Sounds like very much a bullet issue rather than a die issue.

I can pretty confidently state that if your bullet won't feed through the DAA bullet feeder die, it is not going to feed through any other one on the market