Flaring die and Lee PPM

[peterk1234]

I started writing about this in another thread but thought I would start a new one since I seem to have stumbled onto something that cannot be unique to me. Hopefully other newbies may find this helpful.

I was struggling with inconsistent powder throws. They were all over the place. I did the graphite thing, which certainly got things moving much smoother, and allowed me to tighten the drum and still allow for smooth operation. This actually eliminated all leakage. But the grain variations were still all over the place.

Enter the flaring die, the culprit of all my woes. I had the die set to flare the the brass just enough for me to sit the bullet on top. By doing so, the PPM drum was not getting a full rotation. I marked the PPM with a pen. One mark was where the hole should be lined up with the feeder. The other was where it should be set to properly drop the powder into the case. It was not rotating far enough down to expose all the powder to the brass. That is why the tapping of the PPM seemed to help a bit...the powder was getting stuck on a "shelf".

So I started to screw around with the expander itself, not concerning myself with flare. By setting the die deeper, the rotation of the drum improved immediately. Actually it was perfect. My conclusion; previous use of the die was resulting in not enough flare. Now the only issue I had was that my brass was being flared too much. So the next step was to back off the die tiny bits at a time so I could reduce the flare, but not impact the throw. While it seems to flare a bit more than I would have expected, the grain accuracy is excellent.

I searched a bunch of threads and forums to find anyone that has wrestled with this but I really did not find any good references. Lee kind of hints about this because they reference looking at the little black tab that goes up and down in the PPM. They tell you to make sure that it does not touch the casting when the handle is pulled down, but do not really get into what is going on there. More importantly, they don't tell you to watch for the opposite problem...too much gap. Too much gap means that you are not getting enough rotation out of the drum and your throws will be inaccurate.

I think I am still flaring a tad too much, but at this point I am talking about really fine tuning. Pete

 

[daboone]

I'm a fan of the PPM and all the newer "improved" models, the Classic and the newer Deluxe PPM..
The PPM itself can be "leemented" to improve it performance. The best improvement is lapping the drum in the cone with some fine valve grinding compound. It is a tedious task but worth it. Especially if using fine ball powders. I find it is necessary to allow a 2 second count during the dump and fill. Also smooth consistent cycling is important for consistent powder drops. The PPM fails with large extruded/stick powders like IMR 4350 but is fantastic with IMR or H4895 and flakes like Unique and all ball powder (one the lapping is done). As you figured out graphite is also important or running a hopper full of powder thru it will does the same thing for me.

Ranch Dog have some pictures tutorials of several of the Leementing techniques found here: http://www.lee-loader.com/viewforum.php?f=21

 

[mdi]

I usually mention to newer reloaders to flare as much as is needed to get good shootable ammo. Which may apply in this case. (I don't use a powder measure on a press as all mine are used stand alone.). For now forget about case life shortened by "over" flaring. Most brass is cheap and easy to find and unless you are reloading some exotic cartridge where brass is $4.00 each, brass life isn't overly important. Get good ammo now, worry about case life later. The only downside I've found is the case mouth sometimes scrapes the ID of the seating die, but dat don hurt nuttin'...

 

[9mmepiphany]

I think I am still flaring a tad too much, but at this point I am talking about really fine tuning

I've found that flaring/belling the mouth of cases to often be overblown.
How much will it shorten case life?
Does it really matter with handgun cases?

Perhaps it is because I load with a progressive press and I need the bullet to sit securely in the case while it is being transported between stations. I bell the case mouths enough so that the bullets don't tip over...I'm using a Lyman M-die