I lucked out yesterday and avoided jamming an oversized bullet in my Redding Competition Seating Die.
The Redding Competition Seating Die is a precision seating die that allows easy seating depth changes, seating depth control, and bullet concentricity. Here is a link to the manufacturers website that show a cut-away illustration: https://redding-reloading.com/product/competition-seating-die-bottleneck/
Here is a photo of one disassembled:
In operation, the case is fully inserted into the sliding cartridge chamber/bullet guide before the cartridge case starts to engage the bullet.
This centers the cartridge case in the sliding sleeve and the sliding sleeve slides up and the case neck hits the bottom of the bullet. The bullet location is controlled by the micrometer adjustment knob.
Yesterday, I was loading some 7mm RM cartridges with the Hornady 7mm 150 gr. CX bullets. This was a new lot of bullets. On the second case, the case neck hit the bottom of the bullet before the case was all the way into the sliding sleeve.
I pulled the cartridge case out and the bullet was left stuck in the seating die.
I took the die apart and found the bullet was stuck in the beginning of the bullet guide. I removed the bullet and found that the bullet measured a full 0.285" in the area between the grooves.
The bullet was too large to fit in the dies bullet guide.
I was very thankful that I was going slow and hadn't jammed the bullet into the bullet guide and damaged the die.
I called Hornady and told them of my experience and they said they had not encountered any previous problems with that lot# but they would replace the bullets I had purchased.
The lot number is: 2240027.
So, I guess the moral of the story is to check your bullets before using and don't force your seating dies.
The Redding Competition Seating Die is a precision seating die that allows easy seating depth changes, seating depth control, and bullet concentricity. Here is a link to the manufacturers website that show a cut-away illustration: https://redding-reloading.com/product/competition-seating-die-bottleneck/
Here is a photo of one disassembled:
In operation, the case is fully inserted into the sliding cartridge chamber/bullet guide before the cartridge case starts to engage the bullet.
This centers the cartridge case in the sliding sleeve and the sliding sleeve slides up and the case neck hits the bottom of the bullet. The bullet location is controlled by the micrometer adjustment knob.
Yesterday, I was loading some 7mm RM cartridges with the Hornady 7mm 150 gr. CX bullets. This was a new lot of bullets. On the second case, the case neck hit the bottom of the bullet before the case was all the way into the sliding sleeve.
I pulled the cartridge case out and the bullet was left stuck in the seating die.
I took the die apart and found the bullet was stuck in the beginning of the bullet guide. I removed the bullet and found that the bullet measured a full 0.285" in the area between the grooves.
The bullet was too large to fit in the dies bullet guide.
I was very thankful that I was going slow and hadn't jammed the bullet into the bullet guide and damaged the die.
I called Hornady and told them of my experience and they said they had not encountered any previous problems with that lot# but they would replace the bullets I had purchased.
The lot number is: 2240027.
So, I guess the moral of the story is to check your bullets before using and don't force your seating dies.
