Need help, bullet tip dented on seating

View · by **MarkL** on Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:10 pm

I have a Dillon 550b, have the tool head setup for 9mm Luger, loading Precision Delta 115gr fmj RN and seating the bullet to a OAL of 1.150 at least the target goal. I've started to attempt to load these, but at this point production is halted.

With Winchester 115gr RN I just finished last week and shot today, I experienced no issues and random measuring of oal of some that are left are 1.48-1.55.
But with this new bullet I'm observing 1.140-1.145 and the nose of the bullets are dented with a 'half moon' that I believe is from the center hole up in the seating die. Like the seating die is pushing only on the nose of the bullet to seat it and that's traveling to far. I've removed the die and visually checked and it appears normal. I looked at some of the previously made rounds and noticed a few with a slight indentation. Is this the fault of the die? Or the wrong die? Haven't looked yet, but are there different seating dies for the type of bullet you are loading? Roundnose, Flatnose, Hollow Point?

Looking at the bullets I loaded on the .45acp setup with Berry's tmj 230gr, I'm seeing the same type of dents on some.

Anyone seen this before?

NEVER MIND! NooB at the helm!

The Dillon seating dies if you read the instructions, shows how to disassemble to change the reversible bullet mating center. I didn't catch this before and of course it was set to flat nose. So now I have to readjust my OAL again, but no more dents! So just a reminder to other 'noobs', become intimately familiar with the details of your press. Thought I had it down.

Mark

Mark

View · by **Spinner** on Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:24 pm

There is a reversible bullet seat in the Dillon dies. Try flipping it around. You have to pull the clip, slide out a cross pin, flip the seat and reinstall cross pin then put the clip back on the seating die. Readjust for COL.

Spinner

View · by **MarkL** on Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:26 pm

Spinner wrote:There is a reversible bullet seat in the Dillon dies. Try flipping it around. You have to pull the clip, slide out a cross pin, flip the seat and reinstall cross pin then put the clip back on the seating die. Readjust for COL.

Spinner

YEP! Found it going thru the documentation after I made the post. Didn't occur to me it had that feature, even when I pulled the top clevis pin to inspect I didn't catch it.
Should work a little better now! No wonder my bullets were going all over the place!

View · by **Sigfan220** on Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:27 pm

It's 45acp - you are overthinking things. If you don't like dented bullets switch to jacketed or get a different seater die. But honestly it's tough to mess up a 45. Load them and head to the range.

View · by **MarkL** on Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:54 pm

Sigfan220 wrote:It's 45acp - you are overthinking things. If you don't like dented bullets switch to jacketed or get a different seater die. But honestly it's tough to mess up a 45. Load them and head to the range.

Huh? Loading 9mm, Issue solved though, OAL reset, works fine. Yes, I've reloaded a total of 400 rounds so far, so as a noob, I probably will overthink it for awhile, but I don't see the downside until I have gained a lot more experience with it. Just being careful.

View · by **Sigfan220** on Mon Apr 14, 2014 5:34 am

Haha sorry. My point was more that's it's pistol ammo. I read through it pretty quick. Even with rifle little things like this will hardley matter. The base of the billet is many time more critical than the nose. There are some interesting articles on it.

View · by **noylj** on Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:28 am

1) If the bullets are seating straight, things are OK.
2) Get real jacked bullets
3) Seating stems should, in a perfect world, only contact the bullet low on the ogive and shouldn't ever come close to the meplat.
Really, unless you are shooting a handgun at more than 50 yards, bullet imperfections are meaningless, unless there is any damage to the base of the bullet. I have shot very small groups with some very ugly cast bullets--but they all had perfectly filled bases.
Aesthetics is not an important part of shooting and many times, if you set out a bunch of bullets from one box, you will find a startling range in meplat sizes and it makes not difference except you will start to sweat the small variations in COL, again to no significance.

View · by **cobb** on Thu Apr 17, 2014 6:31 am

That's is what can happen when crimping and seating at the same time.
By chance is the die that you are using for seating have a crimping taper in it and screwed in to far and crimping when seating? Or is this truly a Dillon seating die only with no crimp taper?

View · by **MarkL** on Thu Apr 17, 2014 3:56 pm

The bullets are as I stated FMJ. Dillon 550b with separate seating and crimp (taper) dies.
The issue was simply that I didn't pay enough attention to when I set up the seating die that it has a reversible feature for different bullet types and as my luck would have it, it's always going to be the opposite of what I need. Corrected the seating die to seat round nose bullets and no more problems. While you are correct that the dents were small and would not make any significant impact on accuracy, I knew they were there and shouldn't be and would haunt me till the day I die to correct it! 8-)

oh, the bullets going all over the place, that's just me, but prefer to blame it on the bullets, doesn't everyone?