Brass that won't hold a bullet?????

U

utahheadgear

New member
I bought some once-fired brass for my .40 S&W the other night at Cabela's. Took it home, resized it, and went to loading. When I went to seat the first bullet it seated way too easily, so I gave it a slight push against the bench and it pushed all the way into the case. No biggie, I thought, just a bad case. The next one did the same thing, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one!! I could literally seat the bullet in all of the cases with my fingers! I thought that maybe my sizing die was out of spec (it's new as well) so I tried another set that I have access to with no better results. I'm now pretty well perplexed, and more than a little upset. The brass all has a Winchester headstamp, and is in what appears to be great condition. The bullets all measure right at .400"+.
Anyone ever have this problem?

Any ideas as to what my problem might be?
 
Once you Fl size, you usually have to flair the case mouth just a tad to accept the bullet. Im guessing to much flair of the case neck and or not enough crimp after seating. I use a taper crimp on my auto pistol loads. Just enough to keep the bullet from being pushed in while feeding or in case of a jam. Just my guess.
 
I thought the same thing, but no amount of increased crimping seemed to hold the bullet? I even seated a bullet in a case that hadn't been belled at all and it did the same thing?
 
You didn't say who's dies you are using, and what your steps in the process are. Have you measured the expander plug to make sure it is not too large?
 
RCBS Carbide dies.

I haven't measured the expander plug, but you can't even feel it hit the brass when you run it up to bell the case mouth. I'd say the expander is only hitting the top .005" of the case, if that.

The bullets seat very easily and can still be pushed into the case with your fingers even if I don't expand the cases at all.

Like I said, I'm pretty well stumped???
 
Just to rule out a few possibilities.
Have you used these bullets before? The bullet may actually be a little to small.

Are you full length sizing the case or are you just expanding them?

How much are you expanding and belling them?

How much heavier have you adjusted the taper crimp?

If you did full length size, was there any resistance as you ran the case into the die?

Without knowing the exact procedure you're using it sounds like you either didn't size them before expanding, or that the bullet isn't quite the proper size.
 
I am full length sizing them, and there was resistance.

I would say I am belling less than the top .005" of the case. In other words almost none. I run a case all the way up, screw the expander down until it touches the top of the case, lower the case, give the expander another quarter turn down, and lock it in. That's it.

I have adjusted the crimp a fair amount, but could give it some more. My understanding however is that the case should hold the bullet on it's own, the crimp is simply to push the case back to the original shape it was before the case mouth was belled.

I have used these bullets before (Rainier 155gr FP) with good results. They measure right at .400"+. I measured a couple of Hornady XTP's that I have and the measurement was the same. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
you have to have one of 3 problems. 1st is that the bullets are a bit undersized. - Try a different bullet make & see if thats it. 2nd - you are running with an oversized expander, easy to fix - just chuck it up and take a bit off. Or #3 the expander is tapered. Try seating a bullet without expanding the case & see if it fits, if not then expand the case just a hair, and work your way down to see where the expanded enlarges to much.
 
oops i forgot the 4th - you have bad brass - by resizing you have squeezed it down, but the expander is made to allow the brass a bit of springback, and if the brass is to soft it won't springback
 
The bullets seats easily, and the case still won't hold the bullet, even if I don't use the expander, so I'm fairly sure that the expander isn't the problem.
I guess it could be the bullets, or the brass.
It is Winchester brass, I would think that it should be decent??
 
leave your set-up the way it was and try DIFFERENT BRASS,,if the other brass holds the bullet then the brass from cabela's is bad,,,if the OTHER brass doesn't hold the bullet either,you can RULE OUT THE BRASS,,try a different bullet that is NOT from the batch you are experiencing the problem with,,and go from there,if you get the same results from all these components THEN you can narrow it down to the dies/expander/bell/crimp or whatever,,but you have eliminated the other components as the problem
Bob
 
Good advise Ohio, thanks.

One question for you though. What would cause the brass to be bad. Winchester brass is Winchester brass, is it not??
 
OK, I took my CARBIDE RCBS 40 S&W T/C dies apart just to get measurements for you. The inside diameter of the carbide at the narrowest section is .417". The Expander die measures .3965", your caliper may say .397". ....

One thing you should know about the 40 S&W is that it could have been fired in a firearm that did not fully support the case head (old style Glocks are like this). This cartridge is usually loaded as MAJOR LOAD ( around 35,000 psi I believe it is), and if so, the case may stretch in the head area and I would not reload any of these cases to full charge. I only load to full charge on cases that I bought new and fired in my Sig 229 as this chamber is fully supporting my case. A standard 1911 in 45 ACP does not support the entire case due to the ramp, but the 45 operates I believe it is a round 17,000 PSI and is not a problem to resize and shoot due to the low operating pressure. So, with all this said, take a case and place it into your barrel just to make sure you have a firearm that fully supports the case. This is totally seperate from the problem you are having and SAMMI is talking about dropping the MAX pressure tables on this round....JOHN
 
I think it's time to call RCBS...

They have an excellent phone line help group and will talk you through it instead of a bunch of guys all over the country just guessing.

They will replace anything defective for your life. Go to the source.
 
What bullets are you using? I would think that the sizer is not doing its job very well. You should feel more than a slight resistence on the brass when is it sized.
 
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