Seater Die damaging Projectiles

[tinymike66]

I am using a L.E Wilson micro chamber style seater die.

Lapua 7mm 180 Scenar L projectiles

Any idea why its doing this?

 

[Wiley Coyote]

Had a very similar thing go on with my .223 and RCBS seating die. No guarantees here, but it's a good chance there's slight variation in the cavity of the Seater Plug in your die. The cavity in the plug is just slightly a different profile than the bullet. Odd for a Wilson to be doing it, but ….

My solution was a Forster Die. Soon I'd replaced all my seating dies with Forsters. They're not cheap, but they do a wonderful job for me.

 

[1shot]

That is more common than you would think. A soft jacket coupled with plenty of neck tension and you get a ring around the bullet. Buy, there is and easy fix. Take a bullet of the same caliber and wrap a small piece of fine emery cloth around it. Then chuck the seater stem in a lathe, your cordless drill or twist it by hand. Use the bullet/cloth to break the inside edge of the seating stem. It won't take much to smooth out that sharp corner, but it will solve your problem.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[Joe Wade]

The Die you have comes standard with a regular seating stem for stubby bullets.
You need to buy the Wilson seating stem for VLD bullets. It will contact the bullet much lower and not leave any ring on your bullets. Usually available at Bruno's or Midway.

 

[Jimmy James]

Could be too much neck tension and or you need to chamfer the inside of the neck. Had this happen in 223 with Forster die. Called Forster and thats what they said. Changed out sizer ball to 0.001" larger diameter and the problem went away.

 

[MagnumManiac]

Contact Forster and get a VLD style seater plug.

Cheers.

 

[JohnKielly]

Many years back, I saw a posting of a guy chewing up Amaxes somewhat like that, but in his case, he'd done the crudest inside neck chamfer imaginable & that was dragging on the bullet body and stopping it seating. It chewed it about somewhat.

I think I saved those images. I'll look for them.

 

[tinymike66]

That is more common than you would think. A soft jacket coupled with plenty of neck tension and you get a ring around the bullet. Buy, there is and easy fix. Take a bullet of the same caliber and wrap a small piece of fine emery cloth around it. Then chuck the seater stem in a lathe, your cordless drill or twist it by hand. Use the bullet/cloth to break the inside edge of the seating stem. It won't take much to smooth out that sharp corner, but it will solve your problem.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

I


Thanks. I'll try that. Interesting thing is that it never did that with the Berger hybrids or the first batch of lapua

I'll give the stem a good clean and try your method and go from there.

Thank you

 

[Dusty Stevens]

A longer powder drop tube and a slower fill will stop that.

 

[Boyd L.]

Any idea why its doing this?

Seating resistance/neck tension. Or at least in my case. When I started annealing regularly the seating ring went away.

 

[tinymike66]

Seating resistance/neck tension. Or at least in my case. When I started annealing regularly the seating ring went away.

How often were you annealing ?
I was at 4th reload.

 

[Shaggy357]

The ogive of the seating stem is not the same as the ogive of the bullet. When you order specialty dies, you can normally let them know which bullet you will be using and they will include the correct seating stem to match the bullet. Your bullet likely has a 12+ Ogive and the stem is probably a 10. Contact Wilson and they will probably send you the correct one to match your bullet.

Hope this helps.

 

[Boyd L.]

How often were you annealing ?
I was at 4th reload.

I’m not certain, probably 3 or 4.
I can tell you that I anneal (now) every two loadings for my 6mmBR, 22PPC, et al., and haven’t had this issue since.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Annealing doesnt have a thing in the world to do with that. Thats too much neck tension or a compressed powder charge coupled with the wrong stem in the die. We shoot ppc cases 20 times at over 80k psi and dont anneal them and dont have that problem. Theres millions of people all over that dont anneal cases and dont have this problem