BHuij
Active Member
I started sizing before seating the gas check because I found that for whatever reason, I was meeting up with a lot of resistance when I tried to size and seat in a single operation. I was ending up with crooked bases, smushed bullets, and weird finning, almost as if my ram was a little bit too small to completely fill up the die behind the bullet. Back then my bullets were around 11 BHN, and I had not yet polished up the inside of my Lee push-through die. I have since polished it up to 600 grit paper and I'm using much harder bullets, so I may want to try removing an extra sizing step from my process to see if that helps. I don't believe that my sizing is screwing up my bullets TBH, but I can't rule it out necessarily.
I am using the Lee collet crimp die to apply just barely enough crimp to remove the case mouth belling I do so I can seat without shaving. Based on the feel of the seating die when pushing bullets in, the gas check, and the hardness of the bullets, I also would guess that I'm not swaging my bullets down in the seating step. But it seems like a good idea to pull a few and double check before/after diameter with the mic.
I have not calibrated my micrometer before, no.
Anyway, good suggestions on things to check. Once I have had a chance to shoot these rounds and take some measurements I'll be sure to report back.
I am using the Lee collet crimp die to apply just barely enough crimp to remove the case mouth belling I do so I can seat without shaving. Based on the feel of the seating die when pushing bullets in, the gas check, and the hardness of the bullets, I also would guess that I'm not swaging my bullets down in the seating step. But it seems like a good idea to pull a few and double check before/after diameter with the mic.
I have not calibrated my micrometer before, no.
Anyway, good suggestions on things to check. Once I have had a chance to shoot these rounds and take some measurements I'll be sure to report back.