Hi fellas,
I have a question. I am reloading some of Mr. Stantons .44 cal. 250 grain WFNGC using Redding Series A reloading dies. Whenever the seating die inner portion toughes the bullet nose I'm getting a ring all the way around the bullet. It seems like the bullet is riding on the outer portion of the die as oppossed to the flat recessed inner portion. While the ring does not appear to touch the lands it clearly is not correct. Now I thought it might be a function of the wide meplat of that bullet so I tried a Hornady 300 grain JHP XTP with the same results. Any Ideas? Thanks in advance.

v/r Dave

David
I had the same problem loading some of my own cast bullets. What I did as drill out the cup portion of the loading die so that the bullet's shoulder is what is in contact with the seating stem.
Seems to me this gives a more precise seating.
Jim

Call or email Redding. They may well have a different seating stem that will work better. I have had the same problem and they fixed it, no charge.

MikeG has stated in the past on similar posts that he uses a dab of epoxy to fill the cavity to eliminate the problem. Suppose you could even fill the cup with a silicon or rubber caulking and get the same results.

MikeG has stated in the past on similar posts that he uses a dab of epoxy to fill the cavity to eliminate the problem. Suppose you could even fill the cup with a silicon or rubber caulking and get the same results.

I've used epoxy putty to change the contour of lubrisizer top punches and it works fairly well. I think it would be a little trickier with a seating die. It needs to stay concentric and you sure don't want to glue the works together.

Be sure to put some release agent on the bullet if you go the epoxy route! :eek:

I've also just ground the outer lip off the seater plug, if it was flat-bottomed to begin with. That won't work too well on a round nosed seater unless you can do it in a lathe.

Hope that helps.

My Hornady die set came with two seating plugs, one of which is for flat nosed bullets (WC, SWC, FN, etc.) I'm sure Redding can send you one for your die.

Andy

If you are seating and crimping in the same operation you may want to try seating all your bullets first and then back your seater plug out. Then you can re-adjust your die and crimp them in a seperate operation. I think your seater plug is still pushing on the nose of the bullet as the die starts to crimp the case. I do think another seat plug would solve the problem though.

Dew has a good point. You can save yourself the trouble of adjusting the locking ring putting a washer under it when you seat the bullets, then remove it for crimping. That way you only have to adjust the seating stem. I use the 7/8" x 1/32" machinery bushings suggested by the profession reloader who got me started.

If you have some lapping compound you can fit the seater to the bullet. Chuck a bullet in a drill or drill press, put the lapping compound in the seater's nose cavity, and lap it out. Run slow and don't over do it.

Bye
Jack

Don't worry about it. That "ring" mark does no harm.

You can easily reduce the mark it leaves by chucking the seater stem in a drill and polishing the sharp edge of the mouth of the cup with fine sandpaper and steel wool.

Thanks for all the good advice! As it turns out Redding does have a remedy. I called them this morning and explained my problem to a real human. He said that particular seating plug is designed for a SWC and I'm using a bullet with a wider meplat. They have a plug that is made for a wad cutter and they would send it out directly, no charge. You can't beat that for good customer service.


v/r Dave