9mm Help With my Dillon XL650
- Thread starter rageous
- Start date
Carbide dies work so much better , easier and without the galling when you hit them with a little spray lube.
Take some Lee Case Lube, dissolve in denatured alcohol , put in a spray bottle ...mist the cases and roll them around , in 60 seconds they are dry and the wax based lube does wonders .
Gary
Take some Lee Case Lube, dissolve in denatured alcohol , put in a spray bottle ...mist the cases and roll them around , in 60 seconds they are dry and the wax based lube does wonders .
Gary
That looks like his resizing die is fouled out. It picked up brass and is scratching everything that goes in it.
I don't know anything about Dillon dies either but those scratches are from the resizing die picking up on the cases. Gauling.
That does come from lack of lubrication in steel dies and carbide dies both.
If your dies are carbide and you are cleaning with wet tumbling and steel pins you definitely need to lube your cases before running them through any kind of resizing dies. There is such a thing as getting them to clean.
Carbide dies will foul out and gauld also. Try cleaning your resizing die with copper cleaner like you would with a rifle barrel. Clean it completely then get some spray lube and spray your cases with it.
By the way, your crimps are way over done. Your bullet seating or crimp die is set too low.
I don't know anything about Dillon dies either but those scratches are from the resizing die picking up on the cases. Gauling.
That does come from lack of lubrication in steel dies and carbide dies both.
If your dies are carbide and you are cleaning with wet tumbling and steel pins you definitely need to lube your cases before running them through any kind of resizing dies. There is such a thing as getting them to clean.
Carbide dies will foul out and gauld also. Try cleaning your resizing die with copper cleaner like you would with a rifle barrel. Clean it completely then get some spray lube and spray your cases with it.
By the way, your crimps are way over done. Your bullet seating or crimp die is set too low.
Get piece of 0000 steel wool that you can jam in the die, wrap around a screw driver bit for power drill. You are basically reaming out the die with the steel wool. Use a big enough piece so that it is tight in the die. You’ll have to figure out the details with whatever you have but it should work. It would also be good to apply some sort cleaner like CLR.
Rageous,
It looks to me like you have a couple of issues. First, if you have a standard SAAMI 9mm throat, the bearing surface of the bullet (the cylindrical part) can only stick out about 0.043" from the case mouth before it starts to contact the throat, and yours appear to be about 3 times that far out of the case, so I would expect them to fail to let the gun close on them.
Many folks are aware of the SAAMI maximum cartridge length, often the only number published in a manual, but not of the minimum cartridge length. For 9mm the range is 1.000 "to 1.169". In Hornady's manual, for example, the 115-grain XTP and HAP bullets are seated to 1.075". The bullet maker can almost always tell you what your bullet should have as a COL.
Second, the crimps look like you jammed the case mouth past the crimp shoulder in the crimping die. You could be jamming the case mouth so hard that the case is expanding into the sides of the sizing die and scratching against it. I don't have any 9mm Dillon dies, so I can't see if it is narrow enough to let that happen or not. The cause may still be at the sizing die, but the crimp has to be fixed or it can be dangerous (see below).
The first thing to do is to see for certain at which station the case picks up the scuff marks. Look at it after sizing to see if the marks are already there. If so, call Dillon, as the die needs to be polished or replaced. I would let them do it if you haven't tried anything like that before. Take advantage of the lifetime warranty. Next, I would reset your seating die to produce the correct COL for your particular bullet. Lastly, you need to back the crimp out until it just closes the flare put on the case by the power drop tube in the Dillon, and not much more. Calipers across the mouth of the case must show it to measure between 0.373" and 0.3800" in diameter. If you crush it down smaller than that, you can fail to headspace on the end of the chamber and the case can slip inside the throat and cause excess pressure because there is no room for it to open up to release the bullet.
It looks to me like you have a couple of issues. First, if you have a standard SAAMI 9mm throat, the bearing surface of the bullet (the cylindrical part) can only stick out about 0.043" from the case mouth before it starts to contact the throat, and yours appear to be about 3 times that far out of the case, so I would expect them to fail to let the gun close on them.
Many folks are aware of the SAAMI maximum cartridge length, often the only number published in a manual, but not of the minimum cartridge length. For 9mm the range is 1.000 "to 1.169". In Hornady's manual, for example, the 115-grain XTP and HAP bullets are seated to 1.075". The bullet maker can almost always tell you what your bullet should have as a COL.
Second, the crimps look like you jammed the case mouth past the crimp shoulder in the crimping die. You could be jamming the case mouth so hard that the case is expanding into the sides of the sizing die and scratching against it. I don't have any 9mm Dillon dies, so I can't see if it is narrow enough to let that happen or not. The cause may still be at the sizing die, but the crimp has to be fixed or it can be dangerous (see below).
The first thing to do is to see for certain at which station the case picks up the scuff marks. Look at it after sizing to see if the marks are already there. If so, call Dillon, as the die needs to be polished or replaced. I would let them do it if you haven't tried anything like that before. Take advantage of the lifetime warranty. Next, I would reset your seating die to produce the correct COL for your particular bullet. Lastly, you need to back the crimp out until it just closes the flare put on the case by the power drop tube in the Dillon, and not much more. Calipers across the mouth of the case must show it to measure between 0.373" and 0.3800" in diameter. If you crush it down smaller than that, you can fail to headspace on the end of the chamber and the case can slip inside the throat and cause excess pressure because there is no room for it to open up to release the bullet.