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Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 2:03 am
by shadowwalker
Sweetcorn wrote:
Al in Mi wrote:
Sweetcorn wrote:The brass resized with the Hornady dies is .002" smaller on the O.D. just below the case mouth than the Lee dies.


I'd say Lee has a problem


Lol, since I bought the Lee dies, it's my problem now.

In all actuality, I'm not sure what I'll do with the Lee dies. I'll most likely send them back to Lee and see if they can do anything about it. I won't be returning them to the store for someone else to buy because they're (honestly) unsafe.


I'm in the same boat as you. After expanding the case mouth, I can seat a bullet by pushing the case and bullet against my bench top. Even after I crimp, I can still push the bullet in deeper by pressing it against my bench top (bench test). Right now, the sizing die is worse less.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:48 am
by Sweetcorn
shadowwalker wrote:
I'm in the same boat as you. After expanding the case mouth, I can seat a bullet by pushing the case and bullet against my bench top. Even after I crimp, I can still push the bullet in deeper by pressing it against my bench top (bench test). Right now, the sizing die is worse less.


I assume you are also using Lee dies.
It is a night and day difference between my Lee dies and my Hornady dies.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:56 am
by Hoot
Some times I feel like I'm shouting into the wind. Brass is elastic. As I've stressed in past posts, if you stretch it a little bit, it will spring back. If you stretch it a lot it wont.

Seating a bullet into a case that hasn't been expanded, plays to its strength. It will relax back toward the bullet, affording a degree of tension upon it before you ever apply the crimp. Conversely, if you stretch it to where it remains stretched, IE expand it, when you crimp it back toward the bullet, its primary tendency will be to relax back away from the bullet, where it started from. This is also why I stress the value of the Hornady die set. Assuming you remove the burr inside the mouth, the alignment sleeve in the seating die will hold the bullet enough in alignment for it to start into the mouth without needing to expand it.

I love my the Lee dies that I have for my bottleneck calibers. They seem to be adequate (not ideal) for them. Certainly cost effective. For the 450b, with its special needs, IMHO the Lee isn't the best choice since its seating die doesn't have an alignment sleeve built in. Given how critical a die set is for the reloading life of a caliber, going as cheap as possible isn't the best route. If you distribute the difference in cost between the Lee and Hornady dies set, over the number of rounds you reload, its worth going the extra dough to have less headaches. My 9 year old Hornady 450b die set has processed over 2500 rounds. Do the math.

All that, having been said. The 450b neck tension is a tough nut to crack, regardless of which die set you use and it always will be. Any place where you can stack the deck in your favor is worth pursuing, even it it costs a little more.

These forum pages are a virtual cornucopia of information, which detail both the successes and failures of members who have subscribed to the "learn as you go" method, myself included. We leave behind a trail of dollar bills down each dead end path we followed, so that we can find our way back out. We submit these efforts here for all to see, mostly so that they can avoid the same pitfalls. That effort is mostly wasted if those words are not read and learned from.

Hoot

Edit: I see that someone else responded while I was constructing this response, so it won't reflect what they said.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 9:14 am
by Sweetcorn
Hoot wrote:Some times I feel like I'm shouting into the wind. Brass is elastic. As I've stressed in past posts, if you stretch it a little bit, it will spring back. If you stretch it a lot it wont.

Seating a bullet into a case that hasn't been expanded, plays to its strength. It will relax back toward the bullet, affording a degree of tension upon it before you ever apply the crimp. Conversely, if you stretch it to where it remains stretched, IE expand it, when you crimp it back toward the bullet, its primary tendency will be to relax back away from the bullet, where it started from. This is also why I stress the value of the Hornady die set. Assuming you remove the burr inside the mouth, the alignment sleeve in the seating die will hold the bullet enough in alignment for it to start into the mouth without needing to expand it.

I love my the Lee dies that I have for my bottleneck calibers. They seem to be adequate (not ideal) for them. Certainly cost effective. For the 450b, with its special needs, IMHO the Lee isn't the best choice since its seating die doesn't have an alignment sleeve built in. Given how critical a die set is for the reloading life of a caliber, going as cheap as possible isn't the best route. If you distribute the difference in cost between the Lee and Hornady dies set, over the number of rounds you reload, its worth going the extra dough to have less headaches. My 9 year old Hornady 450b die set has processed over 2500 rounds. Do the math.

All that, having been said. The 450b neck tension is a tough nut to crack, regardless of which die set you use and it always will be. Any place where you can stack the deck in your favor is worth pursuing, even it it costs a little more.

These forum pages are a virtual cornucopia of information, which detail both the successes and failures of members who have subscribed to the "learn as you go" method, myself included. We leave behind a trail of dollar bills down each dead end path we followed, so that we can find our way back out. We submit these efforts here for all to see, mostly so that they can avoid the same pitfalls. That effort is mostly wasted if those words are not read and learned from.

Hoot

Edit: I see that someone else responded while I was constructing this response, so it won't reflect what they said.



Hoot, Its unfortunate that my thread makes you feel like you've been shouting in the wind and you're efforts have been wasted.

I joined this site and made a post after decades of shooting and reloading because I had a specific 450 BM brass question. I searched around and read every post I could reasonably find that seemed like it might be related to my problem, all to no avail. If my question has been addressed in the past, big deal. It certainly wasn't something that was easily found by a new member. Now it is.

I'll also say that I've had a private message conversation and I've seen a couple people post in this thread that I know have connected some dots from my experience detailed in this thread.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:06 pm
by shadowwalker
Sweetcorn wrote:
shadowwalker wrote:
I'm in the same boat as you. After expanding the case mouth, I can seat a bullet by pushing the case and bullet against my bench top. Even after I crimp, I can still push the bullet in deeper by pressing it against my bench top (bench test). Right now, the sizing die is worse less.


I assume you are also using Lee dies.
It is a night and day difference between my Lee dies and my Hornady dies.


Yes, I'm using the Lee Precision die set.

The reason I bought the Lee die set, was I thought the sizing die had a carbide ring in it...since this is a straight wall cartridge. I hate lubing cases, then size them, then you have to clean the lube off the case before you charge the case with powder. When I start reloading for bulk ammo, I like the cases to be deprimed and cleaned. I use a Dillon 550B and a Redding T-7 Turret press for bulk ammo. For my precision ammo, I use my Forster Co-Ax press.

I'm not gonna write off these Lee dies just yet.

I'm going to buy a Lee sizing die for the 45 ACP or a 45 Long Colt (45LC). Reason being, the Lee full length sizing die for the 45 ACP or LC....has a carbide ring in it....so you don't have to lube the case before you size it. Then I'm going to have the carbide ring re-machined and sized for the 450 bushmaster casing.

I've already machined a new powder threw expander plug for the powder threw die. While I was at it (being machined), it's got the M style that Lyman has in there M style dies. The Lee plug had too much clearance and would rock too much in the die body. This clearance would cause excessive run out (concentricity) when seating a bullet.

Also, the powder threw expander die for the 450 bushmaster does not have hardly any crown on the entrance into the die body. The powder threw expanding die for the 45 acp has a rather nice crown. When running the 450 bushmaster casing up into the powder threw expanding die, you have to guide the casing into the die. Machining a new crown for the 450 bushmaster power threw die....I don't have to guide the casing into the die anymore. Why Lee didn't do this, pretty simple...too save cost since they don't sell allot of these 450 bushmaster die sets. Some reason goes for installing a carbide ring in the sizing die.

As for the bullet seating die. Going to continue using it while I'm working up load data for target shooting (plinking ammo). When I finely put the nail in the coffin for accuracy. I'll be talking with Redding tech about using one of there bullet seating dies for the 450 Bushmaster.

The crimp die....just my opinion. I'd like a longer crimp on the case mouth. Not sure if I'm gonna modify the collect or a shell holder. It's a simple solution and I have so much load data in my head right now...I'm not even gonna do the mod until I have some load data narrowed down.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:18 pm
by Al in Mi
I like the mods you did on the expander.

But the carbide sizer going to be a problem. The 450 isn't really straightwalled, it does have some taper to it.

At some point I had planed on modding a Forster seater die for the 450, just haven't got that far yet.


Image

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 3:37 pm
by MiHunter
After speaking with the OP i was having the same issue. I could push bullets in with my thumb that were only resized and not expanded. It was driving me nuts. I purchased the hornady sizer die and taper crimp and my problems are gone.I emailed lee after seeing this thread. If your lee die part number stamped on the sizing die ends with K8 you may want to email them. Here is the response i got after explaining my issues to a lee rep.

Chris,

Thanks for getting back to me. I am going to send you a replacement 450Bushmaster sizing die body. We had some dies in the K8 run that were not sized correctly.

Thanks,


Peter
Customer Service

Lee Precision, Inc.
4275 Highway U
Hartford, WI 53027
phone: 262-673-3075

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up being a die issu

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:46 pm
by Sweetcorn
I'm glad this thread has helped out a few people with their Lee die issues :D

When I called Lee last week, the guy who answered the phone asked if I called earlier that day about my 450 dies issues, but it wasn't me. He said he had another guy call with the same issues. He transferred me to a tech guy that said he never heard of the issue. At that point i pretty much wrote it off as a loss.

By the way, my die has G8 stamped on it, so their size issues are problematic in more than just one production run.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up a Lee die issue

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 5:58 pm
by MiHunter
Both the guys i spoke to on the phone a couple weeks ago gave me the "you dont know what youre doing" attitude toward me. I wrote these dies off as well. Its unfortunate though. Guess ill stick with redding and hornady.

Re: Hornady brass wall thickness - ended up a Lee die issue

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:21 pm
by MOOSE EARS
I learned my lesson with the first set of Lee dies I bought 20yrs ago...JUNK