Problems with hornady

[M27]

I am not sure about pistol dies, I need to check mine but rifle seating dies never touch the point of the bullet, they grab in a circular pattern around the ogive. Look real close at the bullets you seated already for a faint ring toward the nose. You could also mark one before seating with a sharpie and see where the die touches. The base of the bullet might just be exactly where it is supposed to be inside the case.

my RCBS seating die does not touch the point of the projectile, it touches a circle around the top maybe 2mm down.

these bullets are fatter at the point where it meets the die because the metal isnt pushed up to a point causeing it to not enter the die as far. then pushing them to a shorter oal than the rest.

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

1. Call Hornady. They will make it right. Tell them what you told us.

2. Cull out the odd rounds and fire them together for conformity's sake. 0.009" won't make much difference, if any at all, unless you're way over max pressure already. This has been said.

3. Hornady might want the odd bullets back, so be prepared to pull them.

Regards,

Josh

[Whitesmoke]

If you are measuring the OAL just using a set of dial calipers you will never see consistant numbers with any bullets. Even bullets like Sierra Match Kings will be all over the place measuring in that fashion. You need to measure OAL at the ogive...use a set of dial calipers with a stoney point/Hornady overall length gauge.....you will see the true variances that will actually be seen by your barrel.

I thought the same thing as you did when I first measured match bullets and became concerned.

[m98]

If you are measuring the OAL just using a set of dial calipers you will never see consistant numbers with any bullets. Even bullets like Sierra Match Kings will be all over the place measuring in that fashion. You need to measure OAL at the ogive...use a set of dial calipers with a stoney point/Hornady overall length gauge.....you will see the true variances that will actually be seen by your barrel.

I thought the same thing as you did when I first measured match bullets and became concerned.

Nailed it on the spot^^^^. Ogive measurements are consistant. To the tip of bullet, its just going to be close or around where you'd like. I think you'll be fine. I've had winchester and remmy factory ammo vary by as much as .05" and they shot fine.

[M27]

I tried to call hornady on thursday and I called too late in the day and they were closed.

yesterday I went shooting and said "lets see what happens" and took 50 of the 200 rounds

I shot them out of the 1911 in my avatar, which before yesterday I had never had a single jam in. Out of those 50 3 Failed to feed.

so today I called back

I just got off the phone whit hornady and...

I first explained the situation, gave the lot #, and told them my issue.

he pulled the lot # up on his end and said that nothing was flagged on his end

he then recommended that I use the flat seating die rather than the round one.

I then emailed him a link to this page to show him the pictures.

in the end I measured the remaining 150 bullets, 29 of them had the problem and they are going to send me the 29 bullets.

[SixPointEight]

If you didn't mark the specific bullets that were short, you don't know if those caused the jam, or something in your reloading process, or your OAL. Narrow down the problem. When it comes to pistol bullets, .009" variance in OAL is not a big deal. I routinely see that in my .308 loads in fact, but my ogive measurements are all within .001" of each other on those. I don't measure pistol ammo to the ogive, but you aren't experiencing some massive disparity in bullet quality. Go buy a box of the nicest factory ammo you can find and you'll probably still find a .010" spread in seating depth

[M27]

If you didn't mark the specific bullets that were short, you don't know if those caused the jam, or something in your reloading process, or your OAL. Narrow down the problem. When it comes to pistol bullets, .009" variance in OAL is not a big deal. I routinely see that in my .308 loads in fact, but my ogive measurements are all within .001" of each other on those. I don't measure pistol ammo to the ogive, but you aren't experiencing some massive disparity in bullet quality. Go buy a box of the nicest factory ammo you can find and you'll probably still find a .010" spread in seating depth

I know those caused the jams because after they jamed I pulled them out looked at them and could see they were the ones with the nose shape problem as well as when set on the table next to the rest they were the shorter ones.

It is a visible difference. Not just something that you need calipers to see. Look at the first picture. It is shorter and the nose of the bullet is squared off.

As for "Go buy a box of the nicest factory ammo you can find". My cheap berrys plated 185grain HBRN seat within .001" of 1.275. Every time.