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Crimping of 9's

4K views 26 replies 10 participants last post by  noylj 
#1 ·
I recently started reloading on a Dillon RL550B. Apparently I was not resizing correctly and ended up with about 600 rounds ( I know too many before getting acquainted). When I checked with my 9MM gauge they were not in tolerance and were too large at the bottom of the casing. I went and resized on stage one the the de-primer removed. After doing that I found that the bullets were loose in the case. I tried to re-crimp and that do not work. Is it safe to fire these rounds or is there a way I can re-crimp on stage 4 again?
humtex49
 
#2 ·
If you are resizing correctly the bullets will be held tight even without crimping.
Crimping 9mm is no more than removing the bell you made to seat the bullet.

Either you are still sizing incorrectly (or with the wrong die?) or your cases are bad. (Have not seen the latter myself though)

What exactly do you mean with loose in the case? Can you spin the bullets, pull them out of the case or even push them in further in the case? If the latter there is the possibility you are over-crimping.

As for shooting them, it depends on what you mean with loose. If you can push the bullet into the case do not shoot them.

What dies are you using and are you seating/crimping in 1 station or 2?
 
#7 ·
Thanks for the response. Stage 1 resize, Stage 2 powder and create the bell. Stage 3 seating the bullet and Stage 4 is crimping. The bullet cannot be pushed into the case.

What I mean by loose, one can twist the bulled in the case, but it will not come out. Maybe if I reset my stage 4 crimper maybe I can get the bullets tight. There is about a 1000th size different at the base and the top of the case with the top being smaller.

I have since reloaded 200 more 9's and I did not have any problems as I lowered my deprimer and got the resizing all the way to the bottom of the case. They all fit perfect in the 9MM gauge as will as the correct length with the mic gauge.
 
#3 ·
What dies are you using and how are you setting up the sizing die?
Crimping is not what gives bullet tension, sizing is. The crimp on 9mm is basically just to remove the mouth flare.
You say they seemed to large at the case head to fit your gauge. Are you seating and crimping at the same station?
 
#9 ·
Could you pull the bullet from both batches and check the bullet for a visible crimp groove?
Ideally you do not want to see a crimp ring in the bullet after crimping or a very light one, if there is a definite ring you are crimping too much.

Also, a case gauge is not a good tool to check OAL (cartridge length) with, your chamber/throat may be shorter than the gauge and you may wind up with more unusable rounds :)
The best way is the so-called "plunk" test. Take you barrel out of the gun and drop a round in the chamber. You should hear a plunk sound and you should be able to spin the round freely. If it doesn't drop in fully or seems stuck the bullet is touching the rifling and is too long.
You need to do this for every new bullet, different bullets are different shaped and as such have different max OALs.
 
#10 ·
humtex49:

With modern dies the bullet should not be able to be rotated in the case after seating. The crimp die does not hold the bullet in place...case neck tension does.

The sizing die should make the mouth of the case smaller than the diameter of the bullet. If you set up does not do that then it could be:
1) Bad sizing die
2) Cases with too thin walls
3) Wrong powder funnel that bells the case mouth and throat too much

When a 9mm cartridge is reloaded correctly with modern dies and good commercial brass you will see an imprint of the bullet on the case walls.

If the crimp bulged the case you have way too much crimp. The crimp is supposed to be a taper crimp that is barely detectable and one that full removes the belling of the powder funnel.

To be clear about how dies for straight walled cases work, here is how it is supposed to go.
1) Sizing die sizes the case mouth to a size smaller than desired
2) The powder funnel slightly expands the case mouth to the correct size and flares the mouth
3) The seating die has to force the bullet into the case mouth using the flared section as a guide for centering the bullet during seating
4) The crimp die (a upper portion of the seating die or a separate die) pushes the flare out of the case mouth and lays the case mouth edge ever so slightly into the bullet.

The LEE PISTOL Factory Crimp Die(FCD) is nothing more than a regular crimp die with a sizing ring at the mouth that fixes the bulged case body from an incorrectly set up crimping action. If the crimp die is correctly adjusted you never need the FCD.

There is something wrong in your situation based on my understanding of your question details. Fix it before you reload another round. To fix what you have buy the LEE FCD for 9mm and run all you reloads through it without adding anymore crimp. I have a Dillon RL550B that I reload 30 different cartridges through, both pistol and rifle and have never had this problem with known good brand dies (RCBS, Hornady, Forester, Redding).

LDBennett
 
#11 ·
Couple ideas. Did you fuy reload 600 rds then run them round a second time without pulling the bullet's and primer's? I had to have miss read that some how. But, this is clearly to me the reason reloader's should start with a single stage press. Learn to make good ammo before you step it up. With a single stage press you have to handle every case before moving to the next station. Much easier to find an error like this without getting the speed/volume urge going.

I don't know what could have caused your problem and you don't know because it went through to many stations and you got to far along before you found the problem. I did a similar thing when I went to a progressive press and I've been loading since 1968! I still have no idea what I was doing wrong and I'm not digging in any deeper. I got dies for the 9mm to work on my single stage press. Have no idea how many an hour I load with it but, a lot more than I was on the progressive press. Let me suggest what will probably be a miserable way to find out your problem, use your progressive press like single stage if you can. Do one station and remove the case, at every station and inspect it. If you ran the loaded case up through the sizing die without pulling the bullet, I'm not sure what would happen. But you run the case up there and remove it and check it right then, you are gonna get an idea of what's happening. Do the same at every station. Removing a sized case from the sizing die you should not be able to push a bullet into the case. Removing the case at the second station, I believe that primer seat, powder dump and flaring all at the same time. Dump the powder into a scale pan and again try pushing in a bullet. You should only get as far as the bottom of the flare. Leave the powder out and go to the next station, bullet seating. Insert a bullet, no powder, and take the round out again. Right here even without a crimp, you should not be able to turn the bullet by hand. If you can go ahead and go to the fourth station, crimp. If the bullet isn't tight by now, your crimp isn't working. My first guess, and it's just a guess, Would be to check the bullet's for proper dia at the base!


Bullet crimp is important, as I under stand, to keep the pressure up where it should be. Safety wise it may not matter much but accuracy wise it will!

One thing I've found over the years is that every manufacturer of anything always has a bad product get by now and then but not often. Usually the problem of using the tool is not the tool but the operator.
 
#13 ·
You need to do as suggested by Don Fischer. That is cycle one round through every station to see what is happening, not just continue to pump out more bad ammo. Leave primer tube empty and powder measure empty.

There is no reason a beginner can not start on a Dillion RL550B because it can easily be used as a single stage or a turret press until you learn what each stage does and what the precess should look like on the case.The RL550B has no automatic indexing of the table. The case is moved manual to each station with the star wheel on the multi-station case holder.

I suspect the bullet diameter which we have yet to be told.

I suspect the sizing die or flaring powder funnel is wrong (been there done that with the powder funnel!). Whose die set is it? Has it been checked for markings to decide if it really is a 9mm Luger die set?

I do not see how excessive crimping could leave the cartridge with no neck tension with modern dies. They are made to have so much neck tension the bullet prints through the brass with a coke bottle effect. Very old dies use to allow the bullet to rotate and indeed the bullet might be loose in those cases and the crimp held the bullet in but that was dies made at least four decades ago.

Just to be clear the sizing die removes the primer and the primer is automatically seated at that first station with a reverse push of the handle. The second station sizes the throat to the correct size and adds the flare. This station may be the trouble if the powder funnel die is incorrect. What does the nose of the powder funnel die measure? It must be smaller than the bullet diameter. What does the bullet diameter measure?

There are many details missing from the post almost to the point where no real answer to this problem is possible.

LDBennett
 
#14 ·
You need to do as suggested by Don Fischer. That is cycle one round through every station to see what is happening, not just continue to pump out more bad ammo. Leave primer tube empty and powder measure empty.

There is no reason a beginner can not start on a Dillion RL550B because it can easily be used as a single stage or a turret press until you learn what each stage does and what the precess should look like on the case.The RL550B has no automatic indexing of the table. The case is moved manual to each station with the star wheel on the multi-station case holder.

Ammunition Bullet Gun accessory Brass Metal


I suspect the bullet diameter which we have yet to be told.

I suspect the sizing die or flaring powder funnel is wrong (been there done that with the powder funnel!). Whose die set is it? Has it been checked for markings to decide if it really is a 9mm Luger die set?

I do not see how excessive crimping could leave the cartridge with no neck tension with modern dies. They are made to have so much neck tension the bullet prints through the brass with a coke bottle effect. Very old dies use to allow the bullet to rotate and indeed the bullet might be loose in those cases and the crimp held the bullet in but that was dies made at least four decades ago.

Just to be clear the sizing die removes the primer and the primer is automatically seated at that first station with a reverse push of the handle. The second station sizes the throat to the correct size and adds the flare. This station may be the trouble if the powder funnel die is incorrect. What does the nose of the powder funnel die measure? It must be smaller than the bullet diameter. What does the bullet diameter measure?

There are many details missing from the post almost to the point where no real answer to this problem is possible.

LDBennett
I will try and get some close up pictures this evening to be posted. I feel comfortable they are safe to shoot, but I also don't want a round blowing up sin my hand.
 
#16 ·
Picture is pretty blurry so hard to tell. You can out then in and then turn with your finger's. HUH. I just went and ran a 9mm case through a sizing die and measured inside the case mouth. .350. Get a bullet seated in there and you can't turn it with your finger's. You could probably shoot off what you have but you might not get the pressure up enough. Worst thing then might be a bullet stuck in the barrel. Easy to get out.
 
#17 ·
What about the diameter of the powder funnel that sets the size of the case mouth? what is the inside diameter of the case after it is sized and flared? Does the bullet slip in after sizing and flaring? Or does it only go in as far as the flare allows.

Sorry but the picture don't reveal anything. The dimension will be a lot more revealing.

You do have calipers, don't you? You need them to reload.

LDBennett
 
#19 ·
Don Fischer asked if you ran the rounds loaded through the reloading die. If you did that you had inadvertently sized the bullet to a smaller than normal diameter.

I new some one years ago who did that and damaged his guns barrel because the smaller diameter bullet kind of bobbled its way down the bore causing small bulges along the barrels length. Also he had incomplete powder burn because the bullet did not sufficiently seal the bore because of the smaller bullet diameter. His bullets that I looked where .342 in diameter or so if I remember correctly instead of .355.

Pull a couple of the rounds apart and measure the bullets diameter.

I also meet some one who told me of a friend who had some .303 British bullets that are .311 in diameter, and loaded them into some 30-30 Win.(.308) and fired them in Winchester 94. He informed me that his friends reconstructive plastic surgery to his face and hand were coming along nicely.

I'm only telling you this because firearm ammo operates at extremely high pressures, and bad things can happen fast. VERY FAST. 9 mm Luger operates at pressures over 30.000 PSI. Pay very close attention to all the safety warnings.

I have loaded well over 100.000 rounds of ammo in my life and had my own little fopax because I thought I knew it all or not paying attention like loading some 9 mm's in a hurry with small magnum pistol primers instead of regular small pistol primers when the loads where already loaded +P to begin with. They became +P+ and them some. Good thing the gun was an all steel IMI Baby Eagle.

Your doing good by asking on a forum like this.
 
#21 ·
Don Fischer asked if you ran the rounds loaded through the reloading die. If you did that you had inadvertently sized the bullet to a smaller than normal diameter.

I new some one years ago who did that and damaged his guns barrel because the smaller diameter bullet kind of bobbled its way down the bore causing small bulges along the barrels length. Also he had incomplete powder burn because the bullet did not sufficiently seal the bore because of the smaller bullet diameter. His bullets that I looked where .342 in diameter or so if I remember correctly instead of .355.

Pull a couple of the rounds apart and measure the bullets diameter.

I also meet some one who told me of a friend who had some .303 British bullets that are .311 in diameter, and loaded them into some 30-30 Win.(.308) and fired them in Winchester 94. He informed me that his friends reconstructive plastic surgery to his face and hand were coming along nicely.

I'm only telling you this because firearm ammo operates at extremely high pressures, and bad things can happen fast. VERY FAST. 9 mm Luger operates at pressures over 30.000 PSI. Pay very close attention to all the safety warnings.

I have loaded well over 100.000 rounds of ammo in my life and had my own little fopax because I thought I knew it all or not paying attention like loading some 9 mm's in a hurry with small magnum pistol primers instead of regular small pistol primers when the loads where already loaded +P to begin with. They became +P+ and them some. Good thing the gun was an all steel IMI Baby Eagle.

Your doing good by asking on a forum like this.
Just to add my 2 cents,

>I recently started reloading on a Dillon RL550B. Apparently I was not resizing correctly and ended up with about 600 rounds ( I know too many before getting acquainted).

50 is too many, without having at least made two inert dummy rounds and verifying that they fit your magazine and feed and chamber. Even then, only load 20-50 and shoot them before loading any more.


When I checked with my 9MM gauge they were not in tolerance and were too large at the bottom of the casing.

Why the gage? Use your barrel. They may have cycled just fine in YOUR barrel.
If your sizing die was just kissing the shell plate/shell holder, the die was properly adjusted. I don't like to "cam over" a carbide die. If you didn't have the sizing die almost touching the shell holder, then your adjustment was off.
Lee and Hornady sizing dies go a bit further down the case than other sizing dies.


I went and resized on stage one [with] the de-primer removed.

OK, now stop and think about something. The sizing die has to make ALL cases small enough in ID that even the thinnest walled cases will be sized small enough to hold the bullet, and you need to expand the case so the case ID is close enough to the bullet ID that you seat the bullet without swaging it down in size or seating it crooked from the case being too tight.
Now, you have a bullet in the case and you are going to swage the case down. This HAS to swage the bullet down in diameter. Thus, you will find that your bullets are now VERY loose and, if you pull the bullets, you will find that they are too small (common to find that a 0.355" bullet is now a 0.350-0.351" bullet). Please pull a few bullets and tell us what the bullet diameter is now.


After doing that I found that the bullets were loose in the case. I tried to re-crimp and that do not work. Is it safe to fire these rounds or is there a way I can re-crimp on stage 4 again?

Taper crimp is NOT to hold the bullet. Case tension holds the bullet. NO, it is not safe to fire those rounds and crimping is not going to help. You have almost certainly ruined the bullets you ran through the sizing die. Pull some and tell us what the diameter is.
If you were to try to crimp enough to hold the bullet, you would have two problems:
1) the case mouth, that the rounds head space to, would be pushed almost all the way into the bullet and your only hope of not jamming the case into the head space "shelf" datum is the extractor holding the round
2) the case, just below the case mouth, would bulge out and you would just be creating a new bulge and the rounds won't chamber
First of all, when reloading, you should ALWAYS try to push the bullet down with finger or thumb pressure right after seating-and any bullets that move, FAIL and need to be removed from the press. The bullet or case or combination of the two may have combined tolerance stack to fail. I find that 9x19 has MORE case variations than any other cartridge and suffers more from cases with walls too thin or stack build-up and really must be checked every time.
I tend to simply throw away any case that doesn't hold the bullet tight and not even want to know the cause. Most of the time I want to solve the problem, but in this case, I just want to get rid of that case and continue on-it is just easier to eliminate the issue.
My caliper shows .365 and .377 on about 6 rounds
 
#20 ·
Just to add my 2 cents,

>I recently started reloading on a Dillon RL550B. Apparently I was not resizing correctly and ended up with about 600 rounds ( I know too many before getting acquainted).

50 is too many, without having at least made two inert dummy rounds and verifying that they fit your magazine and feed and chamber. Even then, only load 20-50 and shoot them before loading any more.


When I checked with my 9MM gauge they were not in tolerance and were too large at the bottom of the casing.

Why the gage? Use your barrel. They may have cycled just fine in YOUR barrel.
If your sizing die was just kissing the shell plate/shell holder, the die was properly adjusted. I don't like to "cam over" a carbide die. If you didn't have the sizing die almost touching the shell holder, then your adjustment was off.
Lee and Hornady sizing dies go a bit further down the case than other sizing dies.


I went and resized on stage one [with] the de-primer removed.

OK, now stop and think about something. The sizing die has to make ALL cases small enough in ID that even the thinnest walled cases will be sized small enough to hold the bullet, and you need to expand the case so the case ID is close enough to the bullet ID that you seat the bullet without swaging it down in size or seating it crooked from the case being too tight.
Now, you have a bullet in the case and you are going to swage the case down. This HAS to swage the bullet down in diameter. Thus, you will find that your bullets are now VERY loose and, if you pull the bullets, you will find that they are too small (common to find that a 0.355" bullet is now a 0.350-0.351" bullet). Please pull a few bullets and tell us what the bullet diameter is now.


After doing that I found that the bullets were loose in the case. I tried to re-crimp and that do not work. Is it safe to fire these rounds or is there a way I can re-crimp on stage 4 again?

Taper crimp is NOT to hold the bullet. Case tension holds the bullet. NO, it is not safe to fire those rounds and crimping is not going to help. You have almost certainly ruined the bullets you ran through the sizing die. Pull some and tell us what the diameter is.
If you were to try to crimp enough to hold the bullet, you would have two problems:
1) the case mouth, that the rounds head space to, would be pushed almost all the way into the bullet and your only hope of not jamming the case into the head space "shelf" datum is the extractor holding the round
2) the case, just below the case mouth, would bulge out and you would just be creating a new bulge and the rounds won't chamber
First of all, when reloading, you should ALWAYS try to push the bullet down with finger or thumb pressure right after seating-and any bullets that move, FAIL and need to be removed from the press. The bullet or case or combination of the two may have combined tolerance stack to fail. I find that 9x19 has MORE case variations than any other cartridge and suffers more from cases with walls too thin or stack build-up and really must be checked every time.
I tend to simply throw away any case that doesn't hold the bullet tight and not even want to know the cause. Most of the time I want to solve the problem, but in this case, I just want to get rid of that case and continue on-it is just easier to eliminate the issue.
 
#22 ·
Hunterex49;
Your measuring the case diameter instead of the bullets diameter. Place the caliper jaws resting on the case mouths edge so the measurement is of the bullet.

noylj;
Where did you come up with 9 mm bullets diameters of .350-.351 ? Are you referring to the Copper plated plinking bullets ? I have seen some of these bullets of that make up and they are crap to me because of the great variation in diameter, but I have never seen any with that much under size diameters.

Most modern center fire firearm barrels bore diameter are .0005-.001 smaller than the bullet diameter. The only exception to that is with muzzle loading fire arms that will have a under size bullet, but will have a deep cupped base that will expand when the black powder is ignited causing the bullet base to expand and seal the bullet to the bore.

Copper jacketed bullets for the 9 mm x 19 mm Parabellum/Luger, and .357 SIG, are nominally .355. I checked my Sierra, Nosler, Speer, and Hornady books and they all list .355 for all the 9 mm bullets offered.
 
#23 ·
Umm, if you are arguing with what I wrote, I think I was talking about those folks who use the sizing die to resize a loaded round (or, even in some case, to taper crimp a round). If you size the case, the bullet is also sized down. Is that your point of apparent contention?
Other than that, 9x19 SAAMI drawing shows the bore diameter to be 0.346-0.350", with a groove diameter of 0.355-0.359".
Bullets for factory loads are 0.3525-0.3555", with no reference to lead bullets. Reloaders, particularly using lead bullets, exceed that all the time. It has been very common in the US for about 80 years to use 0.356-0.357" jacketed bullets, often with better accuracy than seen with 0.355" bullets. Remember, as a reloader, you are NOT loading for ALL guns, just YOUR guns.
For comparison,
.357 Rem Mag specifies a 0.356-0.359" lead bullet and a 0.355-0.358" jacketed bullet. The Bore is 0.346-0.350" and the groove diameter if 0.355-0.358" (tighter than 9x19).
.38 Spl specifies a lead bullet of 0.356-0.359" and a 0.355-0.358" jacketed bullet, with bore of 0.346-0.350" and groove diameter of 0.355-0.359".
And.
.38 Super specifies a 0.350-0.356" bullet, with not reference to lead bullets, with a bore of 0.346-0.350" and groove diameter of 0.355-0.359".

SAAMI drawing 9x19 .38 Super .38 Special .357 Rem Mag
Bore 0.346-0.350 0.346-0.350 0.346-0.350 0.346-0.350
Groove 0.355-0.359 0.355-0.359 0.355-0.359 0.355-0.358
Bullet:
Jacketed 0.3525-0.3555 0.350-0.356 0.355-0.358 0.355-0.358
Lead N/S N/S 0.350-0.359 0.356-0.359
 
#24 ·
noylj;

Original, I was referring to running a loaded bullet through the sizing die. As you will agree that with the extra case diameter, it would under size the bullets inadvertently.

As far as using a .357 diameter bullet in a 9 mm, if that is what your suggesting. Every thing I have ever read says that is a no no. I suppose that if one were to have barrel with a larger then normal bore/groove diameter, they mite be able to get away with a .357 bullets. My concern is that the 9 mm is a high pressure cartridge to begin with. Carosafe the barrels bore if one is unsure.

My own experience with loading for a 9 mm was with a IMI Baby Eagle(First version, 1990s era.) and a Glock 26(First Gen). Both have a Polygonal rifled bore, and to be honest, I do not know the bores diameter on ether of these two guns. As a side note. I was using the Hornady .355, 124-147 gr, XTP bullets for them, and with both, I was loading to +P. Although the Glock would produce that ugly bulge on the side of the case. Both shot quit well.
 
#25 ·
If you look at the numbers I printed, if 0.357" has any problems in 9x19, they would have the same problems in .38 Super, .38 Spl, and .357 Mag.
Sorry, but, as I said, historically 0.357" jacketed have been used since the 9x19 came to America.
Back then, you often needed 0.360" cast lead to handle the many European barrels with 0.358-0.359" grooves. However, back then, about the only folks who slugged barrels were those that cast their own, yet almost any one shooting 9x19 used 0.357" jacketed bullets.
I have been doing it since about 1975 and never had an issue. Same load data, same load work-up, generally better accuracy. This works in my CZs, EAAs, S&Ws, P08s, P38s, P35s, and 1911s in 9x19. Two have 0.355" groove and one has a 0.3555" bore. I have not measured the others, as they have never shown any leading using my standard 0.357-0.358" lead bullets.
Worked out well during the bullet crisis, as a store that was out of 0.355" bullets often still had 0.356" and 0.357" bullets that I was happy to buy and use--without any problems.
You don't have to try it, but there is a lot of history for using them.
PS: 9x19 is a medium-pressure round, but that has no bearing on the issue, as you work-up the load from start.
 
#26 ·
noylj;

Thanx for that info, although I'll probably will never own another 9 mm hand gun again. The only reason I had thous two, was that I perchesed them really cheap. No they were not hot. I knew the individuals. I bought them if for any other reason then mere curiosity, and from two friends who needed the cash, then sold them not long there after. I'm a .45 ACP fan if anything.

All that info you posted. Where did you get it from ?

P.S. Your right as far as the 9 mm being a medium pressure round. Got that one wrong. 9 mm. (28 K-34 K PSI) compared to the .45 ACP. (18.5 K- 20 K PSI)
 
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