Help Bent Necks on .223's

[hikari]

Good day guys.

Well found some time over the weekend to work on some brass.
I started reloading some .223's Lake city with 68g match hornay bullets and varget powder.

Any how i ran though about 60 rounds and while going though then i got about 10rnds that the neck's seemd bent. Even more so with the bullet in made it realty noticeable

I have use X-die for resizing first thought it was that. Thinking along the lines the its pushing down on the neck to much. Either brass to long or x-die not set right.

Paid closer attention and did some more still same thing.

I also notice when seating the bullet it self seems the tip grab a corner going into the die (I believe the seating die is a RCBS not home at the moment to double check) and pushing it down off center also.

Any how this go me stumped the other day was wondering if anyone ran into this before


My setup is

Hornady Lock and load
1. RCBS lube die
2. X-die
3. Hornady case powder droper
4. Hornady powder cop die
5. RCBS Seater Die

Can take some pics if you like
any suggestion or comments are greatly appreciated

[Beelzy]

Seater plug is the culprit. Even if the bullet is going in crooked the seater
plug should center the bullet as its seated.

[hikari]

I thought about that but then why only a few and not all if it is off?

Any suggestion on how to test/confirm thats is?

[rksimple]

Any suggestion on how to test/confirm thats is?

Start seating the bullet until it just begins to seat maybe the first 1/4 of the way. Rotate the case 180 degrees and finish the process. See what happens.

If you're seeing crooked necks after sizing with no bullet in there, its not the seater plug obviously. Is this what you experienced? I didn't follow that part of your post.

[hikari]

The necks were bent before the bullet goes in.

But very bearly you can hardly tell but once the bullet is in.. it is more noticable.

[rksimple]

The necks were bent before the bullet goes in.

But very bearly you can hardly tell but once the bullet is in.. it is more noticable.

Then it ain't the seater plug.

If you put the case head on a flat surface, does the rest of the case look crooked...or just the neck?

And was this new brass, range pick up, etc.?

[hikari]

This was once shot Lake City.

what i do is roll the case on its side across a flat surface.
And i can see the neck is not straight

[Ninja45]

Pictures of the brass (with and without the bullet) would help in a better analysis of this problem.

[hikari]

Will get some tonight when i get home.
Will post either late tonight or tomarrow morning..

[Beelzy]

You are squashing the cases with the sizing die then, it could be the expander
plug doing it.

Make sure to brush and lube the inside of the case mouths.

[hikari]

Beelzy,

Thats exactly what i was thinking and backout the mandrel some and still was happening

And yha i tired Lub Wax and graphite testing to see if it was a lube prob.

[problemchild]

Your brass is different lengths so the resizer is crushing the longer brass and not the shorter. Trim your brass or check the lengths.

If not that then maybe it was fired through a machinegun that killed the brass?

[hikari]

Yha i checked my brass spend some time preping them so i am sure there are ok.
i would expect 1 or 2 but 10 our of 50 or so some worse then others.

Also have one of the meatel teaster you drop the brass in to see if its to long or short.
After a few went bad i test before a hand full and still had a the prob.

Now get i took the bullest out and dumped the powder and put the brase in the tester and fit fine in there wasn't hard going in or taking out.

This is why its just blowing my mind.

Going to run aother 50rnds next weekend and i am going to triple check every brass going in and comming out.

I was also playing with the idea of maybe the crawl is off on the down stroke just enough to pull sideways comming out of the resizer die. but seating primers and everything else seems fine so don't think its the crawl...

[popeye4]

Here's an article on once-fired brass: http://www.zediker.com/downloads/oncefired.pdf. You might find something of interest there.

I'm not at all familiar with the X-die, but does it require the brass to be trimmed before it's sized? Is your brass out of round after resizing? If so, you have some sort of problem with your sizing die. Are they all consistently out of round? It isn't unheard of to have a defective die, especially right now with the demand (and hence production) at an all time high.

BTW, Lake City .223 isn't thick like the .308.....

[hikari]

Thanks you for the PDF.
That was an awsome read will read it agian later.

that is what gets me its not every round.
I am secound guessing everything now. I am even woundering if its my shell plate.

I upgraded my LNL press not to long ago and now thinking about it i think this is the first big batch i ran though it before might of been a round or two setting it up.

Only realy thing that changed was the base and shell plate.
Woundering now maybe one of the shell holder slots might not hold it corectly

man just secound guessing everything now ....