45-70 reloading problem

[tloehrke]

Can anyone tell my why this is happening to my 45-70 handloads? They have been reloaded once before. Length is correct, flare is good, seating depth is the same. only difference is they were annealed this time and not last time. Should I stop annealing straight wall cases? I am new to the 45-70 but not new to reloading.

 

[XTR]

You are over sizing the cases. Black powder shooters almost never resize at all.

if you see a bulge showing the position of the bullet the cases are over sized.

Annealing did soften the brass and allow it to collapse but if you look at your case you will see that the case bulges to show the bullet it shouldn’t be that much you probably need to run an expander into the case and open them up. There are lots of expander sizes for the 4570.

 

[AJC]

Fortunecookie45lc did a video about sizing 45/70 cases you may find interesting and helpful. He talked about full length resizing but only partially entering the die. I have not annealed any straight wall cases, and unless your splitting necks you may be better off not.

 

[Uncle Ed]

It helps the seat and crimp in separate operations, this prevents the crimp bulge.

I would also recommend using the Lyman type "M" expander for straighter inline seating.

Below the majority of the time the case only needs to expanded to step "B" and not onto the step "C" flair depending on bullet diameter and coatings. The Lyman type "M" expander reduces the amount the case mouth is expanded and reduces cracked case mouths.

 

[2506]

Looks like you are trying to seat the bullet and crimp in one stroke. You need to do this in two operations. Screw your seating die up until NO CRIMP will be done. Then set your seating stem to seat where you want the bullet. Then move the seating stem back out of the way and screw the die down until it puts the crimp that you want on the round.

 

[Tommie]

As previously stated, this looks like seating and crimping happening in the same operation. Is this the situation?

 

[tloehrke]

Yes, I was seating and crimping in one operation. Just wondering why it worked on the first reload but not on this one.

 

[joshb]

That case might be a little longer than the first?

 

[mac86951]

That case might be a little longer than the first?

Agreed trim length (or case length) is critical to your process defined above for seating and crimping in one step

 

[Gun Smith]

It appears you are using powder coated lead bullets? If so, those may be a little oversize possibly? That, combined with oversizing the brass, and seating/crimping in one operation may be the cause, as well as inconsistent overall case length.

 

[Leo Smith]

Too much pressure seating..

 

[Rsadams]

Crimp in a separate step...

 

[tloehrke]

Thank you everyone for your responses! I appreciate all the help! Cases had all been trimmed to the same length, I checked the bullet diameters and only found one that was .0015 bigger, and it was not one of the ones that I had seated. I seperated the seating and crimping process and all is good now. Just curious why it all went fine the first time around?