Help! My seating die is pulling bullets out of the case.

[DogPatch06]

.224 Sierra 77gr MKs
Lee Turret Press
Lee Bullet Seater Die
3x LC 11 Brass - Neck Sized only with Lee Collet Die

The ram goes up in an attempt to seat the bullet in the die to 2.260 COAL.
The ram comes down and there is light pressure and a 'click' sound.
Then I observe a case with no bullet. They're stuck in that concave cylinder, but can easily be removed with my fingers after I disassemble the die. I put unreasonable amounts of lube in the die but to no avail. I backed the die out in the press, same result. I was loading these a few months ago without any problems. Same bullet lot and same die. What am I missing here?

 

[243winxb]

Less neck tension maybe. http://leeprecision.net/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/List/Index/13/product-support

 

[jo191145]

You should'nt put lube in a standard seater such as Lee makes. I'd clean it out good.

Good chance your collet die is not creating enough neck tension. Check it.
Can you seat a bullet by hand without the die?
Logic says if the seating plug is pulling it out and you can remove it easily from the plug you should be able to insert it just as easily in the case.
Neck tension problem.
Feeling any resistance as you seat the bullet? Less than normal?


Can always polish out the seater plug if neck tension checks out OK.
I would'nt be very happy with a seater plug that grabbed a bullet much.

 

[DogPatch06]

Ah. It was neck tension. Confirmed by Redding FL sizer. Thanks for the help. The world makes sense again.

 

[bouddha]

Also, a 77gr .224 bullet may be too much of a VLD configuration, causing it to enter toop far into the seater plug, thus jamming into it. Some seaters offer a VLD plug to use when loading VLD rounds.

 

[ColWhitecakes]

I have load the 77gr SMKs with good results using my Lee seating die with bras keck sized only in a Lee collet die. I set my die a little differently than the instructions that came with the die, however. When I set the die, I screw it down quite a bit further than instructed to insure that there is still plenty of stroke left in the ram to push up sufficently on the bottom of the collet. It still doesn't take much pressure to size the necks of the case, but since the handle never bottoms out, I am sure to have applied sufficent travel to squeeze the neck tightly against the mandrel. I'm careful not to push down too hard, as that my cause the case to buckle. I say "may" because having never had one do this, I don't know for a fact it would.
What is the diameter of your mandrel compared to the neck ID when you size one? Also, I had a .30-06 die that would grab the bullet a little bit and put a very light ring around the bullet where it made contact in the seating plug. Upon inspection, I found that there was a little raised ring left from the manufacturing process. I chucked the plug up in a drill and used a rolled up "cone" of fine sand paper to polish it out.

 

[DogPatch06]

I'm going to polish out the seater plug. It is leaving a ring around the bullets. Thanks again all.

 

[amlevin]

If you have any lube in the seater plug it will form a vacuum seal around the bullet and with the plug. This can, in many cases, act like a "suction cup" and pull the bullet out with light neck tension. As stated earlier, no lube is required on a seater plug. If it appears to stick, clean it thoroughly of any residues, wet or dry, and make sure it "floats" in the die when you tip it back and forth unless it's a seater plug that's attached to tan adjusting screw like some Micrometer dies.