Reply With QuoteI have seen so little stretching or brass flow it is not even a subject of conversation, I had some that were tad shorter, they grew to the chamber size and head space and stop right there.
Dean
Dean, since we are head-spacing on the cartridge case mouth, have you seen any stretching of the brass with the heavier loads? If this was a rimmed case, we would have head-spaced on the rim, but as a rimless and belt-less and no shoulder, case length becomes the standard. I have set the length of new brass in my batch as the standard length for this particular rifle. Whatcha think? Jim
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I have seen so little stretching or brass flow it is not even a subject of conversation, I had some that were tad shorter, they grew to the chamber size and head space and stop right there.
Dean
RUMs are like woman in Stiletto heals, you know they are going to put you in the poor house, but that has never stopped anyone from pursuing them.
I have to f/l size to chamber fired brass. I like the idea using new brass length keep us posted on that.
I am gonna try the an AE die. The crimp has weird effects as you mentioned and I have had some pull off when crimped hard.
Still chasing a rl7 load hopefully this week!
Told my neighbor its my deer rifle for this season :-)
I have been using the 50ae die as well. My Lee 500 S&W dies I couldnt get enough tension as stated. I had good luck using it as well.
Ordered the Lee 50 beowulf 4 die set. Has the factory crimp die which could be beneficial.
I've gone through 100 rounds of the new 375 basic brass doing measurements for length, and there is as much as 8 thousandths difference in some of the brass. I thought I had picked the shortest brass in the first lot to set as my final case length, but I see that I am going to have to work a little more to get everything to a standard length. Good thing setting head-space isn't hard here.. I'll have to mill a new case gage as my standard length is going to be shorter than the gage is... The factory crimp die from the 50 beowolf is the way to go from my experience so far, and the 50 beowolf sizing die brings the neck tension down to where I want it. I guess the 50AE brass is thicker and that makes it not ideal for this thinner brass in setting neck tension. More work to do before I can really get to load development.
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I was using a standard belted mag shell holder instead of ordering the 375 ruger shell holder. No problem except that the loose fit left protruding primers. I fixed that with the RCBS universal hand primer, and it fixed the problem with misfires. Hitting the primer without it being fully seated usually just drove it deeper into the pocket without igniting it. A second strike would always fire it, but that's not what we want. If my shell holder ever gets here I'll see what that does. I'm using a Lee two cavity 440 grain gas check mold and they seem to work really well in this round. Much better bullet retention than with the jacketed bullets. I run them through a Lee 5.01 sizer die to seat the gas checks and size to proper dimension. I'm still only playing with IMR-4895 at this point. I need to wait for warmer weather before I go out with the chrono and press to develop any other loads. Jim
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How much 4895 are you running with 440 grain bullets?
Right now I'm at 70 grains. No pressure signs and primers are still rounded. Pretty good thump, but still low on the load. I had a pocket gopher poke his head out of a hole when I was coming back from the shop with the rifle, I popped him from about three feet away. Could find no sign of the carcass, but after 5 days the hole is still open. I guess that was overkill, but it sure did work.
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I meant to add that the 440 grain bullet actually weighs 465 grains with the alloy i'm using and the gas check. These are fairly hard, water quenched. If just air quenched, they are somewhat softer.
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Question for you guys. Tried loading up a few rounds tonight and having problems with the factory crimp die on the Lee .50 beowulf die set. Trying to set the crimp and the bullet still turns in the case after the crimp. Pushed a bit harder and the case gets rippled. Whats the method or cure for this?
I use a .500 S&W taper crimp. Have the same thing occasionally. Probably not an issue if ya aren't storing indefinitely. But I just pull harder as you did no issue with ripple. Have had crimp pull off a few times n attributed it to crimping to hard?¿?
What brand dies are you using? My Lee 500 S&W would do this as well. Got pissed off, crunched some cases and tried the 50AE and it worked like a champ even though the round is slighty tapered (50AE), but I guess it doesnt matter too much as it basically is only seating and crimping.Originally Posted by farmerben
So basically all you need is a 50AE crimp die, and not the whole set, is this right?
Dean
RUMs are like woman in Stiletto heals, you know they are going to put you in the poor house, but that has never stopped anyone from pursuing them.
Using the Lee set. Havent had the crimp pull off. Just seemed too loose that i could spin the bullet. Maybe its not an issue though. Also I do believe that Dean menrioned stuffing cotton ball on top of the powder to hold the bullet up while crimping? I have one that the byllet fell in during the crimp.
I use to use the cotton ball method, now I just fill the case with powder so the bullet can't drop or sink into the case while I am crimping it, powder is a much better holder and I get the coal I want by adjusting the powder level. I kid you not.LOL
Dean
RUMs are like woman in Stiletto heals, you know they are going to put you in the poor house, but that has never stopped anyone from pursuing them.
Still using H335?
335,322, IMR3031, 10X, RL7, H4198, The next powder on my list to try is H110, I would like to find a powder that I could use 70gr of and still get the velocity I want, so I could get at least get 100 rounds from a pound.
Dean
RUMs are like woman in Stiletto heals, you know they are going to put you in the poor house, but that has never stopped anyone from pursuing them.
Update on my progress with this beast. I'm using the 50 Beowolf dies, sizing with the 500 SW die doesn't give me enough neck tension, neither does the 50AE die so I've been using the beowolf die to neck size the cases. If I need to full length size the cases, it will have to be with the 500 SW die and so far I have avoided mutilating it. With my mild load of 70 grains of IMR-4895 and the 465 grain cast bullet, performance has been good so far. I did have to go back and trim all my cases to the smallest length found in the virgin brass, which turned out to be 2.655" in length. I had too much difference in lengths on my cases and the long cases jammed into the rifling, created big jumps in pressure while the shorter cases would have to be struck two or three times with the firing pin to get them to fire. I tore the bolt down and set the pin protrusion to max, trimmed the cases to one length and now all is fine. I machined a die to swage bullets at .502 diameter, the only nose punch I've made to date makes a semi wadcutter type shoulder on the bullet. I have to work the swaging in steps at the pivot point of the old rock chucker as it doesn't have enough mechanical advantage to swage it all in one throw. I guess a hydraulic swaging press is in my future to make these bullets. Running the plated bullets through this die gives better neck retention with the slight increase in diameter, but I'm not sure how well the SWC bullet nose is going to work. Not so well for long range I'm thinking...
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Dean, I would be interested as to see how the h110 works. I also have 300MP and lil gun that I run in my 50ae ar15s as well. 300MP makes fireballs but the lil gun seems to do more with less. I have 8lbs of H110...we talked a little about this when I called you. The 50ae seat/crimp die works for me.
You probably did tell me, but what can I say, they old grey matter she ain't what she use to be, ain't what she use to be, many long years ago.
Dean
RUMs are like woman in Stiletto heals, you know they are going to put you in the poor house, but that has never stopped anyone from pursuing them.
Can you elaborate on the 81 catapult?
Willing to give back for what the sport has done for me!
The issue here is neck tension. What you are neck sizing with isn't bringing the neck diameter down enough to hold the bullet in place. The 500 S&W and the 50AE both have very thick necks and the sizing die is honed to make the bullet tension right for that brass. I had to go to my 50 Beowolf die to get enough tension to grip the bullets. I'm using the beo dies for both neck sizing and crimping. Dean's cotton balls work OK for holding the bullet out there, but you still don't have enough neck tension and that effects the internal ballistics of the powder burn. I am getting much more consistent ignition with the necks sized down with the 50 Beowolf sizing die. Hope this helps you understand what's going on. Jim
Edit, I'm also using bullets bumped up to .502 with a home made swage die.
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I would have to look at my reloading books but regarding the neck tension....... run the brass threw the taper crimp die without a bullet. Run it up far enough that it sizes down the neck for the desired length for which you are going to seat your bullet. After you size it that far into the taper crimp die the neck of the brass should be too small to seat a bullet so now you can run it over the mandrel in the expender die. Pretty sure this is what I did. It should get you plenty of tension on the seated bullet.
BT
Yep that's what I did! Found the thread too. Check post #6
http://www.savageshooters.com/showth...space-on-mouth
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