Finally reloaded my first 10 rounds and after inspection they are all bad. lol
All are approximately 2.800 COL, but the necks are bad.
What did I do? Something went awry when using the bullet seating die. I’m using the Redding Premium die with the micrometer.
How did you set the die up?
I locked the die down when it barley made contact with press/brass holder. I had the micrometer all the way up and slowly turned it in until I got the correct seating depth.
All the necks did the same thing with the exception of the first round. I seated that round WAY to low, but the neck looks fine. I had the problem once I backed the micrometer all the way up and then slowly lowered it. Hope that made sense.
Odd that it did the first one correctly but then started messing up afterwards.
Probably need to back the die off more. Some dies work great backing off slightly from the shell holder. Others may require a full turn.
If that isn’t the problem, the next thing I’d check is the neck tension. Maybe way too small of a bushing causing extreme neck tension and then hunching the shoulder?
I’d bet $10 that it’s the first problem though.
I’ll back the die off and give it another try. Is the brass I messed up reusable if I run them through a full body resizing die or are they scrape now? I have some lapua brass, but I’m not even going to touch it until I figure this out.
That worked perfectly!
Not sure I understand why though. I slowly lowered the bullet seater until I hit my target COL the first time and yet it smashed the necks in. This time I turned the die 2 full revolutions out. I had made note to that based off a video I watched a week or so ago about setting these Redding dies up, but had forgotten. I essentially raised the die and then lowered the bullet seater to compensate. I would have assumed those two actions offset each other, but apparently not. Regardless…I’m in business.
Should I resize the brass I smashed or throw them away? Leaning towards throwing them away after I pull the bullet.
Chuck those two, crimping the brass that much at that severe of an angle is most likely gonna create a weak spot in the neck you don’t need. Just like folding, unfolding, folding a piece of paper and then tearing it along that line.
Long time ago another discussion, I recommended to someone starting out loading, and even experienced people loading, that when you go to a new caliber, dies, etc., it is good to use empty cases of your least favorite brass, create a dummy round, to set your dies, get your bullet seat right, etc. Once you have the dummy round right, you can label it and put it away as a reference for that rifle chamber, that bullet, case, etc, in the event you ever change your dies or something moves, you have a physical example to go back to and start over. I right the COAL, bullet type, seating depth on the case with a sharpie. Just a thought. Don’t worry about it, we have all done it and learned from it.
I did the same thing with my Redding seating die the first time I used it. If it’s the same as mine, then it happened because its designed to crimp on full contact with the shell holder. If you read the instructions carefully it says that in order to NOT use the crimp you have to back it out one full turn or something like that. Check your instructions. Most likely it is the same. Essentially what happens is on the first try seating the bullet it crimps the bullet to the neck of the brass, then as you adjust the bullet down it doesn’t slide the bullet down the neck of the brass it just pushes the neck and bullet down into the case creating that mushroom effect at the shoulder since that is the weakest link.
You are 100% correct. It does state that in the directions, but I completely missed it. They are not great directions, but it was listed.
Lost my glasses and just replaced them. I only use them for reading, so I wasn’t able to read it real thoroughly. When in doubt…read the directions.
