new to reloading handgun

[seasick]

hello all, new here.
little bit of background i guess, i grew up reloading shotgun shells but never reloaded metallic before.
i wound up picking up the lee pro 1000 kit for 38 special/357 magnum

got it all assembled and mounted, ran 1 shell all the way through, 38 special, as the manual said everything should be pretty much already adjusted. however it wound up depressing the bullet completely into the cartridge.

i am using unique powder, and have the auto-disc on the .47 setting. using 125 grain round nose bullets

now with shot-gun shells i know the powder was compressed somewhat, but when i look at the amount of powder in the cartridge it would appear that if the bullet was at a normal position in the cartridge.

so i guess my question is, is it normal to have quite a bit of empty space in the cartridge, and if so, how do i go about adjusting the seating die properly.

thanks in advance.

 

[.38 Special]

It's normal to have a lot of space left over, especially with faster burning powders in handgun cartridges.

Somebody else will have to help you with the Lee stuff. I already learned my lesson with them. </troll>

 

[lordgroom]

Some powders occupy more or less volume. Unique will not fill the entire case, so yes, empty space is normal in your application. Unscrew the seating die until the bullet is seated slightly below the max OAL of 1.550 for .38 Special. I hope you have dial or digital calipers to measure the OAL. Minimum OAl for that round is listed at 1.440 in Lee's Modern reloading.

The OAL for standard cartridges in a reloading manual such as Lee, Lyman, etc. Both of which I recommend. I also recommend the ABC's of reloading to supplement your questions on this forum.

Sounds like you could also use a kinetic puller to remove the bullet, and powder from your first created case.

I am not familiar with the Auto Disk but I know the powder charge should fall somewhere within the range of 5 to 5.3 grains of Unique.

Good Luck

 

[FieroCDSP]

space is normal. Unless you're loading standard wad-cutter bullets, you shouldn't have the bullet all the way in. If you're using lead bullets, there should be a crimp groove on the bullet somewhere above the lube-ring. Jacketeds have a cannelure that you roll the crimp into. This groove is to prevent bullets from coming out of the case from the stout recoil on a revolver.

Read the directions carefully again. (I find myself doing this occasionally) "Back the seating plug all the way up in the die." This must be done before moving the die body down to the crimp position.
Best way to set up the crimp on the die is to use a known crimped case (factory works well) and put it in the station and raise it to the stop. Tighten the die-body down until you feel firm contact. If the cartridge is the exact same load you're setting it for, you can also adjust the seating stem at this point. This is the easiest way to make identical ammo from a known load.

Now, if you need to set the seating stem, back the die off a bit to avoid crimping as you're setting so you don't shave the bullet. Get your loadable cartridge and put your bullet on it and raise the ram. Twist your seating stem down until you have contact, then lower the ram a bit, twist some more and seat the bullet, checking it until you're just short (longer) of your desired depth, which you want to be where the crimp will roll into the cannelure to hold the bullet tight. Tighten the die down the bit you adjusted out from the desired crimp, and you're there.

 

[RustyFN]

hello all, new here.
little bit of background i guess, i grew up reloading shotgun shells but never reloaded metallic before.
i wound up picking up the lee pro 1000 kit for 38 special/357 magnum

got it all assembled and mounted, ran 1 shell all the way through, 38 special, as the manual said everything should be pretty much already adjusted. however it wound up depressing the bullet completely into the cartridge.

Welcome. You need to back the seating die stem out. What I do is run a finished round into the seating die, then turn the seating stem down until you feel it hit the bullet. That will give you loaded ammo with the same OAL as the one you adjusted to. I make dummy rounds with no powder or primers just for that reason. you need a caliper so you know what your OAL is.

i am using unique powder, and have the auto-disk on the .47 setting. using 125 grain round nose bullets

The disk's don't throw what the chart says they will. you need a scale the verify the charge weight. It's not a good idea to reload without a scale.

now with shot-gun shells i know the powder was compressed somewhat, but when i look at the amount of powder in the cartridge it would appear that if the bullet was at a normal position in the cartridge.

so i guess my question is, is it normal to have quite a bit of empty space in the cartridge, and if so, how do i go about adjusting the seating die properly.

It depends on the powder you are using. Some powders will fill the case more than others. I like to use Titegroup in 9mm. TG is a fast powder and doesn't take much so there is quite a bit of extra room in the case. The plus side of that is I can load a lot more rounds per pound of powder. Get a scale if you don't have one and at least one good manual. Start at the starting load in the manual and work up and you should be fine. I use the Lee classic turret with the pro auto disk and the disk works great but you need a scale to know what the disk is throwing.
Rusty

 

[SASS#23149]

I"m not sure,but i'ts not likeyly that the dies themselves come pre-adjusted as their are so many bullet shapes available,each takes adjusting to its' own profile/length.
Are they Lee dies,? do you have a seperate crimp die,or crimping with the seating die?

 

[seasick]

Thanks for all the pointers, adjusted out the crimping die and all worked well. I know i wound up a hair light on powder but figured better to be safe starting out than sorry. wound up with 4.8 grains. The adjustment was pretty straight-forward all in all.

all thats left is to take the shells to the range and see how they perform.


Now the odd question, how do i adjust the 38 dies to do the 357 mag loads?

 

[rcmodel]

Leave the sizing die as is. It works the same for either caliber.

The expanding die, and seating die needs to be backed out to fit the .135" longer .357.

rcmodel

 

[jfh]

"...Now the odd question, how do i adjust the 38 dies to do the 357 mag loads?"​

You go through the same adjustment process again, on the PTE and S-C dies. RCBS(?) makes a shim you could use to get the body height, then tweak each die from there....

or, you could calculate the "turn up" by the thread pitch / height difference, and that would get you into the ballpark--

However, IMO those solutions are a real PITA. Most Lee press users of the presses that have turrets simply buy a second turret and a second die set. That cost new is probably about $30.00 plus shipping, and it makes sense if you shoot a lot of both calibers.

Jim H.

 

[rcmodel]

on all three dies.

The sizing die does not need to be adjusted.
It is adjusted once, and used the same for either caliber.

rcmodel

 

[jfh]

Oops--I was on automatic pilot on that one. I'll fix it. As you might guess, I haven't readjusted my Lee die sets for 38 / 357 for a cartridge change for some time.

Jim H.

 

[wrangler5]

The 38 Special cartridge was designed for black powder, being developed from the 38 Short Colt and 38 Long Colt cases that go back to 1875. As such, a 38 Special case is way "oversize" for the higher-energy smokeless powder that we all use today. (Black powder cartridges were pretty much fill-'er-up-and-stuff-a-bullet-on-top proposition: it simply was NOT POSSIBLE to put too much black powder in a black powder case.) So you will normally have quite a lot of extra space in a properly charged 38 Special case with MOST of the smokeless powders you're likely to use.

A 38 Special-power load that has its case full of smokeless powder is approximately a 9mm Luger - put those two rounds side by side to see the power difference between black and smokeless powders. (There are a few smokeless powders that are just about as bulky as black powder, but the ones I tried years ago didn't meter very consistently in the powder measures that I used. Of course if you want to draw some attention at your range, can put up with impenetrable smoke with each shot and don't mind completely stripping a perfectly filthy gun to clean it with soap and hot water afterwards, just pack those cases full of black powder and blast away. Do NOT, however, use a regular powder measure to meter black powder.)

Since the 357 Magnum is just a "stretched" 38 Special case (to be sure it couldn't be stuffed into older, weaker 38 Special guns) you might find even MORE empty space in a 357 case, although if you load for full magnum power you may end up with some of the slower burning powders that are themselves somewhat more bulky than fast burners like the perennial 38 Special favorite, Bullseye.

I have been using Lee equipment for decades to load many tens of thousands of rounds in a variety of calibers (including 38/357) and have found them to be a great value for the money. They DO take some fiddling from time to time, but I have yet to wear out any metal part on a Lee press. (Their "cheap plastic parts" are just that - cheap enough that you ought to keep spares on hand of any of the parts that wear. You can do that for a couple of lifetimes and never spend as much as you would for a Dillon, for example.)

RustyFN's advice for setting correct bullet seating depth is correct, BUT you must be aware that it will be "perfect" only if the bullet on your master cartridge is exactly the same shape as the bullets you're reloading with. If the shapes are not identical, you won't get an exact setting on the first try, and even if they are identical the pressure of seating a bullet is different than the pressure of just lowering the seating stem onto one, so you may have to tweak the setting in any event. Personally, I don't even try to get a precise fit the first time - I'll put a factory cartridge in the seating die (with the seating stem backed WAY out) and turn the stem down until it just contacts the bullet, THEN back it off a quarter or a half turn or so. Put a sized, flared empty case (you DO use an EMPTY case while doing your press setup, don't you?) in place and seat one of your bullets. It will almost certainly be too long, so turn the seating stem down a quarter turn and seat it again. Do this until you get to the OAL you want. Then take another case and do it again - sometimes pushing a bullet down in 4 or 5 steps doesn't produce the same result as pushing it down only once - and adjust as necessary.

I'm not familiar with the Pro 1000 (have used a 3-hole Turret and then a 5-hole Loadmaster for ~25 years) but if your press has room to use Lee's Factory Crimp Die I will strongly recommend its use. Makes adjusting the seating die a piece of cake, as you don't have to try to coordinate bullet seating depth and case crimp in the same die. Just set the seater stem to seat the bullet without worrying about any crimp, and let the FCD finish the round up.

 

[Quoheleth]

Check the leeprecision.com website. There are a couple helpful videos there. I brought my dies & press into the house and adjusted them in front of the computer while watching the vids. They're better than the manual!

About the only bullet that should be flush or almost flush with the cartridge mouth would be a full wadcutter, like the 148gr.

Q