I,m having a problem crushing the shoulders while seating the bullets,they seem very weak. Any suggestions? Sid V.

Are you chamfering the inside of the case mouth?

Also do you brush the inside of the case neck with dry lube/motor mica?

The chamfering alone should allow for the bullet to seat without much force.

The motor mica helps prevent case stretching when the expander ball passes through the neck.

Check to make sure you are not touching the crimp in the die before the bullet is fully seated.

I hope that this helps. 30-30 is very easy to reload.

Bruce

What kind of bullets are you using? Does your brass prep include chamfering the trimmed cases before bullet seating? I've reloaded a lot of .30-30 and never had this kind of issure. I have had a similar problem with 7.62x54r and .303 British, both of which are rimmed cases, but those problems happened during the sizing operation, not bullet seating.

If you are crimping and seating the bullet in a single operation then you are over crimping! Or the case could be contacting the crimp shoulder before the bullet has been seated to the cannelure as Bruce 51 suggested. Otherwise there should never be an issue with shoulder collapse in any caliber rifle cartridge.

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Gunsmithing since 1961

You may be crimping before the bullet is fully seated. If you want to seat and crimp in one step, all of your cases need to be trimmed to the same length. Then set up your die, first to seat the bullet to the correct depth without crimping, then back out the seating pillar a bit and adjust the die to crimp at the full stroke of the hand, then screw down the seater ram to set atop the bullet and lock it in place.
Or seat and crimp in two steps. I.prefer this and use a Lee factory crimp die after seating.

John

Sounds like you are trying to put too much crimp. Make sure all your brass is the same length first off. Then seat the bullets without crimping. Do a final crimp after all the bullets are seated. Much better results seating and crimping in separate steps. And yes, .30-30 brass is rather thin at the mouth.

I always crimp in a separate, follow up step. Never liked the idea of the bullet moving while the crimp is applied.

Amen! 2 steps for me.

I just loaded a bunch of Win cases with Hornady 150 soft nose using Lee dies. I guess the sizing die expands the throat just enough to get the bullets started. And since it is for lever action, the crimp is in the crimping groove of the bullet when set for proper cartridge OAL. I also checked my cases length with a caliper to make sure they did not exceed case max OAL and most were right there, not short. Something with the dies setup going on there probably. Sample check your bullets diameter too perhaps. The Hornady are just a hairs width under .308 according to my instruments, maybe a couple ten thousandths at most. Remember the cases stretch because of resizing.

I use a Lee Factory Crimp die in a separate operation after seating the bullet. I have a Lee Factory Crimp die for every cartridge I reload. No chance of crushing or moving the shoulder.