Need a little help. My 45s won't chamber in the new gun.

[918v]

Maybe Top Brass is thicker?

 

[918v]

Maybe you have a .454" expander plug in your die? It's been known to happen.

 

[Smaug]

Thanks for all your help guys.

Sometimes, it is hard to follow through so much on other folks' problems. I really appreciate it, and I hope I can repay it to someone here some time.

 

[LiveLife]

Well, guys, it's done.

What I did was to seat the bullet with zero crimp, then back out the seater plug and increase the crimp little by little until they fit.

This worked for about 85 out of 100 of them. All the ones that it didn't work on, I set aside.

I noticed that all 12 of those that didn't fit were Top Brass brass. I tightened up the crimp a bit more for those, and all of them fit except 3. I wasn't comfortable with crimping them any tighter, so I'll just write those off.

Great! So, it turned out to be variations in case wall thickness as your problem? Component variations will throw a wrench in our reloading process from time to time as manufacturing lot-to-lot may/will vary from time to time.

Recently, I kept pulling my hair out on verified once-fired PMC 45 cases that would not chamber fully. The resized cases dropped into the chamber fine. After much ranting in my reloading room, it turned out to be PMC brass (yes, new verified once-fired) that was much softer than others and the case wall was bulging from bullet seating pressure (no other head stamp case had this issue including other older PMC cases, so it was clearly a PMC lot issue with softer brass).

 

[ZeSpectre]

Component variations will throw a wrench in our reloading process from time to time

Heh, I'm going to have that engraved in my workbench because brother have I ever run into that a time or two!

 

[moxie]

I've occasionally had to toss PMC brass that wouldn't behave.

Regarding the FCD, best to move it from the misc. drawer to "file 13." If you look around the net, that thing is the cause of more problems than any other single item. Just following the basics solves virtually all the problems one can encounter in reloading.

 

[jcwit]

Regarding the FCD, best to move it from the misc. drawer to "file 13." If you look around the net, that thing is the cause of more problems than any other single item. Just following the basics solves virtually all the problems one can encounter in reloading.

Neh, some nut will buy it at the estate sale when I'm gone.

 

[rfwobbly]

To tell the truth, I'm a bit nervous about these rounds. I've never crimped rounds this tight before.

As I see it you have 2 problems....

• Getting 100% of your ammo to run now.
I am not a Para expert by far, but I own enough handguns to know that manufacturers often times use a "tight" chamber to pick up extra accuracy. Your Para GI Expert sounds like it could be in that league. Or it could simply be brand new and not had enough ammo put through the chamber yet to get things polished up and running.

Either way, your barrel needs to be your guide a far as reloading these rounds. It doesn't matter what anyone, including me, says here. Your barrel is the one that you ultimately have to make happy. So let your barrel tell you when enough is "enough". What you think or I think about the physical dimensions required to make a cartridge chamber is immaterial.

You should start at the same place with each new bullet. That is, you should make up about 10 "test cartridges" with no powder and no primer. First find a workable OAL by seating the bullets deeper and deeper until proper clearance is achieved. Then progressively add more crimp until the test cartridge will drop into and out of the gun's barrel (removed from the pistol) using only its own weight.

OAL and crimp are generally the only 2 physical dimensions keeping the cartridge from fitting neatly into the chamber. The numbers 918 gave you above are great, but your barrel may be tighter. So let your barrel guide you.

And please realize that we are talking about dimensional changes 1/3 the diameter of a human hair. So we're talking about ULTRA fine adjustments which take finesse and EXTREME care to achieve and hold.


• Getting back to that setting next month.
If you have a progressive press that holds all the dies in a "tool head" then the dies stay in adjustment, even when they are not in the machine... not a problem. But if you have some sort of single-stage press that requires you to remove each die from the press, then finding that same position for each reloading session is going to be a royal headache.

May I suggest you replace your current Lee lock rings with ones from Hornady. You can buy these in sets Click Here.

The ring's pinching action holds the ring to the die body so that it cannot move. That way, when the die is screwed into the press it will stop in the same position each time. This will give you repeatable cartridge dimensions each and every time.

Hope this helps.

 

[Smaug]

rfwobbly: Thanks for the tips. I'll keep them in mind. I've got a Lee Challenger Breech Lock press coming, with a bunch of breech lock inserts. I think that once I get these set, I'll be good to go, since the dies will never be coming out of the breech lock rings again.

Lee offers both lock nut designs and one similar to the Hornady one you pictured. I went with the simple lock nut ones, figuring I could save the money since they will stay in the breech lock rings. For now, I'm all set as long as I don't use that one brand of brass.

I had been using only my barrel/chamber as a gauge. It might explain the confusion caused earlier.