Dillon Square Deal B crimp adjustment

[jwc]

Can anyone here point me to directions for checking the crimp adjustment on the Dillon Square Deal B? The support section on their site and the user manual do not appear to address this.

[jericho89]

are you talking the 4th station? What caliber are you loading? Generally crimp is what you desire, most take a factory round and run it through the stations and screw the die down to meet where the factory round is. There is no difference in adjusting the dies on a square b then there is adjusting the dies on any other press.

[jwc]

are you talking the 4th station? What caliber are you loading? Generally crimp is what you desire, most take a factory round and run it through the stations and screw the die down to meet where the factory round is. There is no difference in adjusting the dies on a square b then there is adjusting the dies on any other press.

Yes 4th station, thanks. I am loading 9mm.

This is on a new press. The powder die was set too deep and flaired the case mouths too much. I used to find one round every two hundred rounds I made using Lee dies that would not pass though my case gauge. On this press 10 of every rounds failed case gauge testing. After I adjusted the powder die only four out of every 100 rounds failed case gauge testing but that is quite high so that is why I am asking.

[jericho89]

It is an issue with your number 4 die. With any progressive press you need to set each station before you just start pounding them out. You should take one case that is failing and put it in #4 and adjust your die down 1/8 turn. Put that one case in your go nogo gauge and see what you have. if it fails then put that exact round back into #4 and adjust down again. Repeat until you get that one to pass. Then take another round and just run the one round through the press and test. Once you have the adjustment then you can start doing batches.

As many have stated before when using a progressive press you can make a lot of bad ammo real fast. Always treat them as a single stage press until you get them tuned then let them rip.

[jwc]

Thank you for your suggestion. I will try that.

[jericho89]

Also since you said you already had to adjust the powder funnel, double check the brass right after it comes out of station 2. Make sure it does not have too much flare, should just be enough to not shave the bullet when it is pressed in. Be patient progressives take a little longer to set up but once they do you will see the benefit. That is why they make "quick change kits", it is not that they are quick to change it is that you do not have to spend the time to fine tune everything when you change calibers.

If you were closer I would offer to come over and assist you, but if you were able to do it with other dies then you will have no issues here.

[jwc]

Also since you said you already had to adjust the powder funnel, double check the brass right after it comes out of station 2. Make sure it does not have too much flare, should just be enough to not shave the bullet when it is pressed in. Be patient progressives take a little longer to set up but once they do you will see the benefit. That is why they make "quick change kits", it is not that they are quick to change it is that you do not have to spend the time to fine tune everything when you change calibers.

If you were closer I would offer to come over and assist you, but if you were able to do it with other dies then you will have no issues here.

Thanks. I appreciate the help very much.

I adjusted the crimp die 1/8 of a turn down, then another 1/8th, but I still get about 4 rounds per batch of 100 that do not pass the case gauge test.

Flair on the cases from the powder die is minimal.

The Square Deal B does not come with directions for adjusting dies. I think this is meant to be a "plug and play" unit from Dillon. It works great and I really like the throughput I can achieve. I am just not used to rejecting so many rounds and am surprised I cannot find directions for adjusting the dies.

[jericho89]

Call them and as the experts. They have great customer service

[Revoman]

All good advice above....
Is your die clean? Sometimes gunk gets up inside the die and creates issues. Some bullets have a lot of lube in them, which ends up in the die. A cotton swab works well for cleaning. (Even tho I see that you stated the unit was new, maybe the dies aren't? I clean everything, new or not.)
Also, do you have the correct seater in there, are you loading semi-wadcutters with a round nose seater?
Finally, is the crimp too much? Crimping too much will cause the brass to 'crinkle', or bulge slightly just below the crimp. For 9mm, you probably want to just make the flair go away and allow the neck tension to do it's thing. The crimp on a 9mm is actually a tapered crimp, so you should not see a rounded shoulder at all.

[jwc]

Thank you for the tips. I confirmed the dies are clean and so are the bullets. I use Montana Gold JHP's and am using the correct seater. Perhaps the crimp is too much. I will back off on it and see if that helps. If I could find a written procedure on how to properly adjust the dies that would be helpful. It surprises me Dillon does not supply that.

[bruce381]

over crimping will cause a case "bulge' that maybe your problem get a caliper to measure your crimp.

Also some 9mm brass depending on where it came from maybe "glocked" as in bulged on one side and sometime sizer die are not remove this.

And some time the sizer may not be set low enough to fully size the case leaving a bulge also I do think the Square deal is NOT adjustable for that.

[jwc]

Thanks again for all the advice. Increasing the COAL and reducing crimp has appeared to solve the problem.