Slight case shoulder "crushing" while seating bullets into annealed 223 cases

[Land_Owner]

Using both new (Winchester) and once fired (Remington) brass, with necks chamfered, I experienced some case shoulder crushing and slight bulging when seating flat based Hornady V-Max 55 grain bullets in the RCBS seating die.

The Remington cases were factory annealed, once fired in my M-4, full length sized along with the new Winchester cases, and not all of the Remington cases "crushed", but about 18 did out of say 60, and for no apparent reason.

The slightly "crushed" cases seem to cycle through the M-4 receiver, chamber OK, extract unfired OK, and I preceive teh M-4 to be one stout rifle. 

It is wondered if others have had any similar circumstances?

[drdougrx]

Sheepishly...I've had a few in other calibers.  I'm currently working with 35whalens that I've made by necking up 06 brass, first to 33cal and then to 35 cal.  After loading, I set a crimp with the seater die and get a few rounds with a slightly "crushed" shoulder...not very many really but they chamber and shoot fine in my rem 750 semi....so...I think it's OK so long as they chamber, but I'm not making a habit of it and avoid it at all costs.  My 2 cents.

[mjbgalt]

i had a few do that this month when i was neck sizing (Lee collet) some .22-250's. no idea why, although when i started chamfering the mouths, it stopped happening. maybe they were just not right from winchester to start with?

or not lubed enough? but neck dies don't need lube. hmmm...

[mjbgalt]

my first thought was the die was screwed in too low...did you check that? maybe those were a tiny bit out of spec and the die was just a bit too low and smashed them?

[helotaxi]

Did you trim all the cases prior to loading?  If not, the longer ones may have contacted the crimping portion of the seating die.  I've had this happen to once-fired cases that I didn't trim to uniform length.

[Graybeard]

There are two primary reasons in my experience why cases get crushed in such manner.

Most commonly you have either failed to trim to proper trim to length and let them grow beyond the max length and/or you have your seating die set improperly for the case length.

That really is all one not two problems. Ideally you should never allow cases to grow beyond max case length as it could raise pressures by not allowing smooth bullet release in the chamber. You should then set your seater die so that a max length case will not be crushed at bullet seating. If you do both that problem will not occur.

The other is that you have not properly chamfered the inside of the case neck to smooth the transistion for the flat base bullets. If you do it correctly when deburring and chamfering and have the case of proper length and seating die set correctly you should never crush one. If you do crush one you must determine which situation is the cause.

[mjbgalt]

yup, that's what mine was. i usually load boattails but when i seated these, i had bought a batch of flat based bullets and i skipped the chamfering.

[Land_Owner]

Good points mgbgalt and GB...I took a "handful" of new and annealed cases, checked for length, was "OK" with the mic'd lengths (some a thousandth or two over - certainly not much), but didn't check them all...so it could well have been that some of the once-fired cases were too long, which I suspect over improper chamfering since none of the new cases crimped and all were chamfered equally. 

Touchy little cases those 223's.  There is a lot going on in that tiny little space.  Perhaps it is more critical to "get it right" with small rifle cases as the larger calibers are more "forgiving".

[Siskiyou]

I had that happen twice on my bench last weekend.  I had the Son-in-law and the Great Son-in-law loading on the bench using two different presses.  I had taught the SOL to load about 20-years ago, and he has done little since.  The GSOL had not reloaded before and he had sixty once fired cases from his new -06. 

I had set the SOL up on my second press de-priming his -06 cases and resize some 9MM cases.  The GSOL loading went without a hitch.  I had measured his cases before we started and they were all within specs.  Two cases were set back by the SOL because we (he) had not measure his cases.  That one is on me, because I knew that some of the cases he had brought out of storage had been loaded more than once. 

 He sent me a note saying he has found some more cases, and I sent him a not saying they all need to be gauged, and if needed trimmed. 

I realized that when I have them or somebody else at the bench that a posted check list is in order. 

A little sad to think that I was looking beyond the case trimmer mounted on the end of the bench as I watch the guys work at the presses.

[Graybeard]

Assume every case you have is too long until you measure it and prove it is not. One or two thousands over max is too long. Boat tail bullets do load easier but if the case is prepped properly flat base are no trouble really.

[mjbgalt]

i was wondering if chamfering was a waste of time. yes and no. yes, because i only lost 6 cases out of 100. no, because i lost 6 cases out of 100.

[Land_Owner]

shooting the M-16 tonight, it got real dirty real fast and failed to function A LOT!!!!  Had I been in a fire fight I would have been swinging the rifle versus firing it.

so,back to the proverbial "drawing board" and a white glove disassembly, cleaning, and inspection of components....including rounds.
 
the rifle will be cleaned.  cases will be mic'd.  necks chamfered.  bullets lubed for seating.  Another session at the range will be scheduled. 

frustrating...very frustrating.  this is supposed to be fun and if I do my part, it should be.

[Bigeasy]

Had a similar problem with some 30-30 cases once.  Turned out the neck sizing ball was dragging pretty bad inside the case neck, causing it to slightly push down the case neck and bulge the shoulder.  Lubing the inside of the case necks prior to sizing cured it.  Improper die adjustment and over long cases are also possibilities.

Larry

[Steve P]

Several things can cause this.  Brass too long.  Die seated down to "crimp" when seating the bullet.  Powder bushing in the thru powder die not adjusted right.  etc etc.

You have to start with ONE load at a time.  Load ONE! to fit your gun.  Yes, I mean take the adjusted die out of the press, adjust the next die, etc  etc.  Once you have the dies set to load the perfect round, THEN and only THEN do you start your reloading.  For me, this first "round" is usually a "dummy" that I keep in my die box to use in adjusting my dies as necessary for different guns.  Yes, I have several 30-30s and several .223s etc.  The each have their own dummy round in the die box to help set my dies when it comes time to reload.

If you size all your brass, or seat all your bullets etc without checking them to your gun, you end up with multiple mistakes in a box of your reloads.  Set up once the RIGHT way and you wont have to fix mistakes or tear down ammo.

Steve