frustration.....

[SSN Vet]

So I sat down last night to tumble my latest scrounged brass and load up a couple of boxes of .38 special with 148 gr Berry's plated DEWC.

I'm loading 3.8 gr of W231 and seating to ~1.170". This leaves the rounded shoulder of the bullet about .020" +/- proud of the case. I then apply a VERY light roll crimp with the LFCD, which just alightly "wraps" around the begining of the rounded edge of the bullet.

I've loaded up my own once/twice fired Federal cases with this load and it's a fun little target load for my Taurus 689 (.357 mag w/ 6.5" barrel).

I've scored a lot of very nice looking pick up brass recently and I stopped segregating and tracking my brass. I just inspect, load and shoot.

Sooo....

I'm humming along, charges are consistant, OAL is consistant....I'm thinking about timing myself I'm so happy.

Then, at the end of the first box I get a bullet that out of the blue, seats just below the rim.

Hmmm! So much for timing myself....now I'm in trouble shooting mode.

I note that this is the first R-P case in the batch (all Win. & Fed. up to now) and that the case measures the same length as others that loaded fine.

Beutiful shiney brass so I re-size and do it again....with a slow stroke....bullet seats flush to the mouth....I can live with that I guess....go to crimp and the bullet gets pushed down below the rim.

O.K., enough of this monkey business.....pull bullet set aside case and move on.....

the next two cases (also R-P) do the same thing.....and I'm being very slow and deliberate.

corrective actions tried include....

swabing out bullet seating die and LFCD with Q-tip.....a little "sootie" but nothing to get excited about.....bullets seat low .

dig out some more win cases and try those......perfect results as befor.

back to the Rem cases....I notice that after expanding, the case mouth is much looser on the bullet than the Win/Fed. brass was.....bullets either seat low or move when crimping.

Maybe it's a bullet problem and not a case problem.....measure bullets....all spot on at .357".

Well I'm now having a good old time banging away on my kinetic puller!!! :banghead:

After several tries, I got one R-P to seat & crimp properly and gave up on and crunched three others. Finished the box and went to bed.

What on earth is going on????

My only hunch so far is that the R-P range pick up brass, despite coming out of the tumbler looking so nice, may have been reloaded to the point that the the brass had lost it's elasticity and wouldn't re-size properly? Hard to imagine a reloader leaving a 100+ cases that look so nice in the brass bucket though.

Or maybe it was bad brass to start with?

Any ideas for me?

Any comments on Remmington brass?

May have to go back to segregating head stamps?

 

[GCW5]

I've never had trouble with Rem. brass, but have noticed it seems softer then Win. I load on a single stage RCBS JR press, and notice that it takes less effort to expand the Rem. cases.

It maybe that you need to back out your expanding die a bit on the rem. cases to get them to hold the bullet tighter. If you think the cases have been loaded alot, look inside them, cases that have been used alot will be pretty black inside, 0nce fired are almost clean (usually). One other succcestion is to check the wall thickness on the Rem. and see if there is quite a bit of varance, this could tell if something odd is going on.

Hope this helps!

 

[benedict1]

Beutiful shiney brass so I re-size and do it again....with a slow stroke....bullet seats flush to the mouth....I can live with that I guess....go to crimp and the bullet gets pushed down below the rim.

O.K., enough of this monkey business.....pull bullet set aside case and move on.....

the next two cases (also R-P) do the same thing.....and I'm being very slow and deliberate.

corrective actions tried include....

swabing out bullet seating die and LFCD with Q-tip.....a little "sootie" but nothing to get excited about.....bullets seat low .

dig out some more win cases and try those......perfect results as befor.

back to the Rem cases....I notice that after expanding, the case mouth is much looser on the bullet than the Win/Fed. brass was.....bullets either seat low or move when crimping.

Maybe it's a bullet problem and not a case problem.....measure bullets....all spot on at .357".

Well I'm now having a good old time banging away on my kinetic puller!!!

After several tries, I got one R-P to seat & crimp properly and gave up on and crunched three others. Finished the box and went to bed.

What on earth is going on????

My only hunch so far is that the R-P range pick up brass, despite coming out of the tumbler looking so nice, may have been reloaded to the point that the the brass had lost it's elasticity and wouldn't re-size properly? Hard to imagine a reloader leaving a 100+ cases that look so nice in the brass bucket though.

Or maybe it was bad brass to start with?

Any ideas for me?

Any comments on Remmington brass?

May have to go back to segregating head stamps?

How long are the R-P cases? If they are a litte longer then the bullet is going to take a dive with the bullet seating die.

I doubt whether brass elasticity is an issue with brass that looks that good--the cases will split when they lose elasticity before they would cause a tension problem to hold the bullet.

 

[Steve C]

Remington brass is a bit thinner or maybe a bit more ductile than Winchester or Federal brass. IMO Starline is the thickest of the various common brass. Remington is definitely easier to size and bullet seating also requires less effort. I personally like Remington brass for loading lead bullets as I don’t get any lead shaving with them, however they do provide less bullet hold than brass from the other companies mentioned. With revolvers where I can crimp in a crimping groove or with semi auto loads where I use a Lee Factory Taper Crimp die the crimp makes up for any lack of grip on the bullet.

If it really bothers you that the bullet is a bit deeper in the Remington cases you’ll need to segregate them but if it was me I’d take them to the range and see how they shoot before going to that much trouble.

 

[SSN Vet]

I'm measured the case length and if I recall correctly it was ~1.150".

I didn't pay close attention to the exact # because it was within a couple thousandths of the Win brass.

I'll measure wall thickness and re-measure case length tonight.

Some of the case interiors had a light powdery.....white/lime green... film on the insides. It would rub off with a Q-tip. I didn't bother with it. Don't know if that is a clue to case age or not.

 

[ReloaderFred]

Remington brass in .38 special is slighter thinner than Winchester, Federal, Speer or PMC. This means the inside diameter isn't being reduced as much as the other brass, and if the stem on the expander die is anywhere near the maximum, then you're not getting enough bullet tension to keep the bullet from moving. It may also mean that your sizing die is at the maximum tolerance and isn't reducing the R-P cases enough to provide bullet tension. See if a bullet will start into the case before it's run into the expander die.

Segregate the R-P brass from the rest and when you have some time, experiment with your die settings and see if you can isolate the problem. If the bullet won't start into a sized case before expanding, I would first back out the expander stem so that it just expands the brass enough to allow the bullet to start into the case mouth and see if this solves your problem. If not, then measure the inside diameter of the various brands of brass after sizing, and before they are expanded. This will tell you if the problem lies in the sizing die. Unless you have a micrometer that measure to .0001", you'll have a hard time measuring wall thickness, but measuring the inside diameter should be a little easier.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[DWARREN123]

I seem to have trouble with Rem brass to the point I don't use them anymore.

 

[kart racer]

I have run into problems with remington brass loading 9mm,but in 45 acp haven't noticed much difference.I'm about to give up on remington in 9mm.

 

[Walkalong]

Remington used to be thinner than others in .45 ACP too when I first started reloading. My old RCBS die sized everything except Remington enough to hold the bullet. I called RCBS and they sent me a really tight sizer die, but it bottlenecked everything. I just avoided the Rem brass and used my original die. I have since purchased a Redding sizer and it was in between two RCBS dies in size and works great.

 

[Zippy06]

I ran into a guy a couple weeks ago.
He used, different color Sharpies, on his reloads. I saw this picking up brass.
So I tried to give them back. He said they are for the range.
He said someone told him (a long time ago), that you can only reload brass, 5 times. On number 6, he left those, for the range.
Maybe, you ran into a guy, that only loads them 10 times.
I shot them, till they crack. Or the primers fall out.
It's hard to keep track.

 

[GCW5]

I'd have trouble keeping enough brass around if they only lasted for 5 loads, I've got some 45 ACP thats up in the 20's.

SSN Vet, It dosn't sound like they're too old to me, I think ReloaderFred is right on with his assement. Let us know if it helps.

 

[Doug b]

I quit loading Rem. pistol brass a long time ago. Bought some rem .45 Auto Rim casings once, loaded fine the first time,second resize I could seat a jacketed bullet without expanding and pull it with my fingers.

 

[SSN Vet]

Thanks for all the imput.

I'll put Fed's theory to the test and report back.

Off to the races....