OK guys lighten up. It's nice to have 3 or more intelligent, experienced Jarheads on the forum. We have had different experiences, have read different articles & have different opinions. The object of the forum is to SHARE our knowledge & learn from each other. Semper Fi. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

Aye-aye, Sir!

you can make that 4 Marines in this brawl.

this afternonn, driving home from the range, NPR replayed a story about a Colonel Beck and his experience as a casualty assistance officer.
it was very moving

.477" at the head of the case sounds huge to me. if the chamber pressure is within design limits, the head shouldn't expand at all.

i might need a new press, but just maybe all i need is a new resizer that resizes at .470". if the dies stays above .470", i might be allright.

do the dillon dies have the standard 7/8-14 thread?

sgt preston: don't the small numbers in the middle of the case bother you at all? you are working the brass to resize it so tight after each firing

i have dies from RCBS, C-H, and Lyman. Redding told me in an email that their dies resize to.......465". i dont know how much the brass will spring back after resizing.

randy,
If you look on the drawing that I supplied you will notice where they measured .476" I measured .477". This is a design standard drawing I presume not one from a fired case. A chamber can be a little big or a little small only a few are just right. (sounds like Goldilocks!) At any rate I don't find .477" to be alarming. Reason being it is a fired case. Now if it was a resized case there would be a problem!

At any rate, sorry to detract from your thread by my earlier comments.

The Dillon dies I have are proprietary in size. In other words they only fit my style of press. You can purchase Dillon 7/8 x 14 dies but I have no experience with them.

I doubt it is your press to be honest. If you buy a Dillon may I suggest going to one of the auction sites before jumping into a new one. If you purchase a used one you can send it to them and they will rebuild it for free including shipping back to you. All you have to do is pay for the shipping to them!

The only press that I know of that this doesn't apply to is the Super 1050. Reason being is that it is a commercial press. All of their ones intended for home use are covered by their warranty.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: smith crazy,

Randy I have never before measured all those spots on my brass. My criteria has always been that the rounds feed up the ramp, goes into the chamber & fires. I check that dimensionally & spot check 1 out of 10 with a case gage. I am putting my trust in my Dillon Press & Dillon Dies. I am operating the machine as designed. The brass is designed to "swell" to fit the chamber at ignition. What would be interesting would be for me to meaure 10 pieces of fired brass that I shot just yesterday & to write down those numbers as a comparison to finished rounds I recorded yesterday. I'll try to make time tonight after working today & going to the gym after dinner tonight to make & post those measurements. Randy I also limit my loads to stay near the mid point of the range in an effort to prevent problems with old brass. The rounds are also very comfortable to shoot all day long & all seem to find their way to the bullseye when I'm up to the task. One last thought Randy is that I load & shoot 5000 45ACP rounds per year & have for 4+ years & have never had any gun or ammo issues whatsoever. I think I have had about 3 primers which didn't go off in the last 2 years & other than that every round that I shot went right where I "called it" (thought it would be). I also load similar quantities of 9mm & 38 Specials and have had the same results with them. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

quote:

Originally posted by randy86314:


do the dillon dies have the standard 7/8-14 thread?

The dies for the Square Deal B are proprietary; the other Dillon presses will use your present dies.

I don't think you should worry about the "little number in the middle" but the "big one at the head" when you size brass. As long as the brass fits a standard cartridge gauge, it will expand correctly in a standard chamber.

Basically it sounds like your press is just worn out, and you're not addressing the real problem.

Sgt Preston back again. I took a bike ride tonight instead of going to the gym & am ready to measure & record 10 empty 45ACP cases that I fired yesterday. An earlier post in this thread listed the sizes recorder on 10 range ready rounds. For consistency the 1st reading will be at the base of the shell just above the extractor groove. The 2nd will be midway up the "straight" area of the brass. The 3rd reading will be at the open end. The 4th listing is the manufacturer's headstamp.
Round 1:.475,.475,.480 Winchester
Round 2:.476,.477,.474 PMC
Round 3:.476,.478,.480 RP
Round 4:.475,.477,.476 WCC92
Round 5:.475,.477,.476 FEDERAL
Round 6:.477,.478,.476 CBC
Round 7:.476,.478,.474 RA 60
Round 8:.477,.478,.475 TZZ
Round 9:.472,.476,.472 WW
Round 10:.476,.477,.477 LC
One thing I discovered was how out of round the shells are at the open end. What I listed was the average at the open ends. Some measured .470 x .480 when measured at 90 degrees apart. My take away on this is that my Dillon dies size the center of the brass to about .470. Next the brass is flared open for ease of bullet insertion. When a bullet is inserted I set the crimp die for a .469/.470 diameter which is the diameter I know that feeds & chambers. I told you guys I had a "variety" of well used brass. There were only 50 pieces in my range bag from yesterday & at least 10 different head stamps. They all work if they are in good shape. I inspect them all very closely under a lighted bench magnifying glass after cleaning & before reloading. I throw away anything that looks even a little bit "funky". For the record, I've never had a round that I loaded that didn't feed & chamber "unless the gun was simply dirty". Hope this helps. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

Very interesting Sarge!

Can you read the headstamps on all of your brass?
I have some that are so damaged that they can't be read anymore. Those are getting weeded out and are in the "recycle bin!"

Just so you don't feel your firearms are odd because of the "out of roundness" you found while measuring, mine are the same way.

One thing of interest would be to measure the "wall" thickness of all of the different cases. I think you will be surprised. To do that as accurately as possible you will have to use your calipers.

Do you have any Fiocchi brass? I have tried to switch to it exclusively. It is thicker than most but I find it is harder on the head than most too. It keeps it from being beat to death with usage.

Just thought I'd ask!

Skip, I didn't measure the wall thickness & unfortunately have already dumped the brass into the "45ACP to be cleaned bucket" which is loaded. I'm also not sure I can get an accurate wall thickness reading with my dial calipers. I would normally (at work) use special micrometers with about a .125 dia rod on one end which would go inside the brass. But one night I'll measure some wall thicknesses & post what I find. I believe I can still read the headstamps because I am shooting "lower power" rounds than you do = 5.0 gr Win 231 / 200 gr Berry's copper plated SWC with an OAL of 1.250. Just enough to consistently cycle the gun for 400-500 rounds. I also have about 3000 pieces of 45ACP brass = at most, each piece of brass gets shot less than 2 times per 12 months. I don't see much Fiocci brass around here. Also the range where I shoot sells reloaded rounds to shooters. As part of their deal with their reloader, all floor brass is shipped back to him. No one is allowed to pick up range brass. I use a bench mounted brass catcher to collect my brass. www.cm-machine.com Preston

No, Randy, I'm not talking about all my 45 acp brass. I'm talking about brass used in IPSC competition that has had so many major loads shot through it that the battering of the case head against the receiver has smeared the headstamp so much it's unreadable. That would take what? maybe 50 or 60 reloads of that case. After that much use/abuse, that case won't resize enough to enter the chamber of the revolvers (Cimarron Model P and Ruger Blackhawk). Brass not that beat up, enters easily.

Fwiw, I remember reading in Dillon's literature that their die resizes the mouth of the case more than most dies. I recall that they did that for reliability. That info might be on Dillon's site.

i appreciate your contributions to my question, but we have digressed from my original question requesting the resized case diameters achieved by others' 45ACP resizer dies. i don't intend to buy a dillon press; any looseness of my machine does't affect the resized diameter of the cases. using my newly discovered resizer die, i can get much longer case life, even though it might take an extra step.

Sargent Preston I agree with you about the Glock fired cases. I have sold my Glock 23 do to this fact. While I have not had any problems with the Glock fired 45 cases I have had nothing but problems with Glock fired 40s. My RCBS and my Dillon dies will not resize the bulge in these cases. I have a bag of about 500 right now that I am getting ready to fix. Now when I say won't resize them I mean they will not fit into my case cage, however most of them will drop into my M&P 40 barrel. I talked to Lee reloading on this and ended up buying one of their undercut dies to resize the Glock 40 cases. The die is undercut by .001". It takes the bulge out of all the Glock fired cases and they all drop right in the case gage. The Lee tech. told me to make sure I fire them in a fully supported barrel beacause the weak spot caused by the Glock barrel is still there. I know from trying to resize more than a couple of thousand of these 40 caliber cases just where the bulge is as the all stop about the same depth into my case gage. When looking at the M&P barrel it provides deeper support than the Glock barrel and I feel this bulged weak spot is actually well supported in my barrel. I have shot 1000s of these resized cases through my M&P with out a single problem. The Lee tech also told me that the difference in the case resized with the undercut die would not cause any pressure issues with my low to mid range loads I shoot out of my 40. With the price of brsss I think this die is one of the best investments I have made. I suppose I could shoot them without resizing them to fit my case gage but I want to make sure that I have no cycling problems and as I said with several thousands of these rounds fired I have not had any problem. By the way I was standing next to a guy at the range who was shooting Glock reloaded cases in his Model 23 like I had when he had one of these cases rupture. It did not hurt him but it scared him so bad he uses nothing but factory stuff in his Glock now. I sold mine.

Littledragon, the first "modern" handgun that I owned was a Glock 34. It was Glocks "practical / tacital" 9mm "target pistol". It had a 5" long barrel & adjuxstable sights. The pistol functioned perfectly but I never did learn to shoot it well. When I decided to reload, I was cautioned not to reload for Glocks because of the KABOOM factor. I'm not easily convinced. I googled "Glock Kaboom" and found out there were "issues" with Glocks. Glocks were designed to be military guns & as such they had to function 100% of the time. Mr Glock owned a plastic manufacturing plant & had never been involved in the design or manufacturing of guns. One of the ways to make guns function in a muddy or sandy enviroment is to open up the tolerances & make them "loose". The Glock chamber to brass fit is said to be loose. Another way to keep manufacturing costs low is to do away with highly machined & polished lands & grooves in the barrell. Glock chose to use hexagon shaped rather than round barrels which means that a round bullet simply doesn't fit into the corners of the hexagon. Finally the barrel is said to be more unsupported than other manufactures. Still another factor is that people claim that Glocks can fire "out of battery" that is before they are "locked up". Anyway, I read enough to believe that reloading for a Glock did not seem to be a good thing for me. Since I also didn't shoot the Glock very well, I sold it. Futher reading talked about bulged brass in the unsupported chamber area. I'm a simple old man who doesn't like problems. So I just chose NOT to pick up Glock fired brass because there was plenty of other brass available. Preston

I respect the opinions of those that differ in this area. I have to tell the truth though. I have reloaded many Glock cases. 40 S&W, 9mm and 45ACP. I have noticed no difference in how the finished product turns out. I have to say too that my rounds usually turn out to be in the "target" designation though.

Like I have stated before, I have had a KB and it wasn't in a Glock. It wasn't because of a case that was fired in a Glock previously. The issue is "full house" or "high pressure" versions of the rounds in question.

Yes, there have been KBs in a number of Glocks using factory ammo. Just the other day I was reading about that. It surprised everyone involved. They knew it "could" happen with hand loads but considered factory ammo produced to SAAMI standards to be outside suspicion.

I understand what Sgt Preston is saying. I also know that with everything man builds there are tolerances. Take this component at the upper end of "good" criteria (larger than normal chamber but still in tolerances) and couple that with a factory round at the top of it's "good" criteria (loaded for normal pressures but going into the +P area) and you could have problems. Here is one item to consider too. The vast number of Glocks out there today and still there are extremely few occurrences of the dreaded KB in them.

I know quite a few hand loaders/competitors that hand load for the Glock. Some even with the 40 S&W. One I am thinking of can spank me every time we step to the line! He has never had a problem that I know of. Again, he loads to "target" levels for it.

You just have to know your equipment.

Let me put it like this. I'm not going to load up anything that is like "THE LOAD" and shoot them out of something with an unsupported chamber. It's just not going to happen because I know what can.

p.s. I forgot to mention that I too have not shot the Glock well. I just got rid of one that had a 3.5LB connector, high visibility sights and an all steel guide rod. Now, from that "test" I could surmise that Glocks don't shoot well. Then you hand one to my youngest son and he puts them all in one hole @ 25yrds and you have to admit that "It ain't the gun!"

While I never had a KB while I owned my Glock I mentioned the guy next to me at the range that had one. I also had the same thing happen to a friend of mine who was reloading for a Kimber. Once again he was not hurt but it scared him enough to sell his gun. The thing is it can happen and adding the chance of hitting one of these bad cases with a hot load makes me not want to do it even more. Like I said I have shot thousnds of them now out of my M&P 40 with no problems once I get them resized to fit in my case gage. Also I sold my 23 because I do not like the Glock trigger.