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12-29-2012, 11:13 PM
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Seating depth
Fellas,
So, I was cleaning out my gun closet and trying to organize a mess that has been building for a long time. Probably a couple of years.
I was sorting brass and decided I needed to load some .45 ACP and some .223.
After my cleaning project was done, I headed out to the garage/man cave to do a little reloading. I then took the pillow case off the Dillon and it was allready set up for 45's so I thought I would start there.
I load cast bullets in .45 ACP and that is the only caliber that I have ever loaded cast bullets.
After loading about 400 rounds I got to looking at them and thought that it looked like the bullets were seated too deep. I checked and the seating die was tight so I took the the little hitch pin out and took the die apart. It looked like their was a little lead built up in the die so I got a screw driver and started scraping it out. Holy cow, their was about a half of a bullet worth of lead in there.
Anyway, Do you think their is a problem shooting these with the bullet seated too deep?
I really hope I dont have to pull them because all I have is one of them hammer looking bullet pullers. I can see myself whacking that hammer looking thing on the floor for the next 6 months or more.
What do you think?
Thanks
Wingmaster
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12-29-2012, 11:45 PM
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Did you have signs of too much pressure with the last batch you loaded?
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12-30-2012, 12:05 AM
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No they were fine as far as I know.
Wingmaster
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12-30-2012, 12:09 AM
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How deep is the setback and how hot is your load? A small amount of set back and not at the top end of the load should be ok, provided you don't see any signs of excess pressure.
As you found out, you need to keep the dies clean. It doesn't matter if you are loading lead or copper. You'll want to check your sizer, too, just to start fresh. If some grit gets in there you can start to scratch up cases.
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12-30-2012, 12:11 AM
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If any are left,you could compare the oal to the ones you just did,but if you have any doubts the safe bet is to take em apart.That's a lot of hammering...
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12-30-2012, 12:46 AM
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What bullet and weight, What powder and how much??
What is your OAL??????
It only took you 400 rounds to discover they were to short
Say 400 hammers as penance for not checking.
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12-30-2012, 12:59 AM
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Their is about .045 difference in these and what I thought I was seating them at.
The last batch I assume was slowly getting worse as the lead built up in the die. the few I had left were about .020 longer.
I didn't notice any pressure problems. I don't load these hot. just target and/or plinking loads.
Wingmaster
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12-30-2012, 01:03 AM
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230 grain cast round nose bullets with 4.8 grains of Bullseye.
Yeah I guess thats one bad thing about progressive loaders. When you make a mistake you make a lot of mistakes.
Wingmaster
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12-30-2012, 01:10 AM
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The short ones measure 1.225. I have always seated them to 1.270.
Wingmaster
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12-30-2012, 07:08 AM
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Man I hate seeing/reading threads like these!!!!
A couple of things come to mind every time I do & most of it ain't good.
It's good that you're not using a max load but 4.8g of bullseye pushing a 230g bullet is no powder puff load either. 4.8g= 4.7g to 4.9g with the dillon powder throw.
It doesn't take much setback to spike the pressure, you are looking at around 2,000psi increase for that .045".
If those were 9mm's you'd be buying new grips, extractors & counting to 8 1/2 with your fingers.
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12-30-2012, 08:32 AM
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For what it's worth I ran your numbers thru Quickload using my 1911 for the gun.
I'm no expert in using Quickload, but changing the seating depth to have the OAL drop from 1.270 to 1.225 had an increase of 3173 psi with my settings. It estimated the load to be 18595 psi. So you'd have a little wiggle room. Small increases in seating depth can have big increase in pressure.
Don't want to lecture, but even on a progressive checking the powder and at least a visual inspection of the rounds is a good idea.
Are you sure you're seeing lead build up in the dies? I'd think it was more likely to be bullet lube.
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12-30-2012, 11:52 AM
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Well you have a stout load and too short. I would not shoot them.
Sorry, but as far as checking them, you could have checked them after one round, not 400.
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