Bullets all over the floor, what happened?

R

rtpzwms

New member
I was loading this morning about 250 rounds done and all of a sudden I've got bullets everywhere. I have the Hornady LNL AP bullet feeder (the poor mans version). That's to say I have the bullet feeder die and the tube version of a feeder. After 250 rounds of perfect feeding it just let loose and dropped most of the bullets on the floor. I have 3 of the dies and they all work well. And it did not drop every bullet. There were at least 4 that did not drop. But 20 or so went all over the place. This is the first time this has happened. So I'm looking for possible causes. I did load some after and it was working normally. No change in bullets all from the same lot. No adjustments made after the drop. So looking for ideas.
 
higgite:

Not a bad idea but had just cleaned them within the week. This was the first 250 since the cleaning.

drain smith:
Good idea I'll take a look.
 
higgite:

Not a bad idea but had just cleaned them within the week. This was the first 250 since the cleaning.

drain smith:
Good idea I'll take a look.
 
Do you mean that several bullets just passed through the feeder die non-stop?

I have same setup. I've had the occasional bullet not feed, i.e., get stuck, but I've never had one fall through. I did discover that you should never leave a tube of bullets on the feeder when not in use because the weight will bend the collects. It happened to me, but the bullets stuck, not fell through.
 
GJSchulze

Yes several bullets pass through without stopping. I went out this morning and cleaned everything and inspected it. I found no cracks or other indications of issues. I did notice that the finish on the collets seems a little ruff and not well polished. I re adjusted everything again and it got worse. It dropped more than one bullet about six times this morning. I took it off and finished what I needed to get done without the benefit of the bullet feeder. I will contact Hornady and see what they have to say. I've been fairly successful with the others but this one seems to have an issue. It is very humid here today and the humidity was rising yesterday. Wondering if that has something to do with this? Its normally very dry here. I guess to be fair I should try the others now...:rolleyes:
 
But 20 or so went all over the place.
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Just a guess but maybe they didn't design it to hold a very tall colum of bullets rather intended it to be used with a short colum and a collator.
 
it's the Hornady feed tube that I'm using. I loaded 350 rounds of 380acp today with the 380/9 bullet feed die and tube and it worked great! After the first couple of rounds it fed one bullet with every case.
 
Just a guess but maybe they didn't design it to hold a very tall colum of bullets rather intended it to be used with a short colum and a collator
Click to expand...

That's what I found, but not so much how many you load. I can fill a tube with 54 9mm 147 gr bullets and never have a problem. I always make sure that the die is filled to the top first so that I don't drop that weight into the die. The problem is that when I left a full tube in the die without relieving the weight by closing the tube off, it bent the collet, but it bent it inward to reduce the diameter, not increase it.

rtpzwms: You said 380, but is that the same die as the 9mm? I can measure my collet and you can compare it to that. Have you measured the bullet diameters? Let me know if you want the measurement.
 
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