Concentricity , what seater die should I get ?

that is the way Bryan Litz says to do it. If you have a better way then tell us how you do it

I am the only reloader on any reloading forum that has tension gages. My tension gages do not convert to thousandths, my tension gages are calibrated to pounds,

And now reloadrs have available to them a hydraulic bullet seater. After it was introduced only one reloaders noticed the gage did not read tensions, the hydraulic gage measures in pounds 'and' I was the only reloader that knew that was the only way the hydraulic press could be built and now there are load cells.

For years and years I have suggested/insisted bullet hold is measured in pounds, reloaders insist the bullet is held with tension with no way to measure tension.

Again and one more time; I have tension gages, my tension gages measure in pounds without a conversion to tension.

The first tension gage I worked with measured in thousands of pounds, that one had a face that was close to 24" in diameter, if someone ask; "How much tension do we have on the rig?" His answer came back in tons or in thousands of pounds.

F. Guffey
 
I am the only reloader


you could have stopped right there and saved yourself a lot of typing. Why don't you post a pic of those gages posed next to your datum collecyion

And CW308, me and Guffy have beat this horse carcass before
 
Back to topic, I wonder if the inside neck reaming helps with concentrity. When I do it I always get some shavings. I could see the outside of the neck being concentric and the bullet still off kilter because of a high spot inside the neck. Thoughts, opinions ?
 
I would think a fired case is best to start out with , the outside of the case would be concentric. If you have the equipment to do so then truing from the inside I would think is best . That's way above my pay grade , wish I had the tools an knowledge
 
Hounddawg , I think you’re right and is what I think happened with my test when I partially seated then seated fully . One of the the catridges got worse the deeper it was seated .
 
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Isn't that the reason why if your not neck turning you should use the expander ball when sizing . The imperfections shifts to the outside .
 
you could have stopped right there and saved yourself a lot of typing.

You asked, I did not expect a 'thank you for the time and effort'. There was a speech made many years ago, the most impressive part of the speech in my opinion was the part where he said; "the only candle that guides my path is the light of experience".

I understand, I have to explain the meaning of that one. Collective reloaders have a bad habit of ignoring and or considering logic. I said reloaders have available to them a press that is used to seat bullets. The bullet seating press measures the effort required to seat a bullet in pounds. Back in the beginning I insisted measuring bullet hold and seating effort did not slow me down, The only equipment necessary back then was a bathroom scale. The scale did not measure tensions it measured in pounds and there was no conversion for tensions to pounds.

FGuffy - How do you convert .004" interference fit to tensions?

Again, there is no way to convert interference fit and or crush fit to tensions. And if there were reloaders that had the ability to search archives they would determine this is not the first time I said that.

And I understand what most are afraid of; I said Lyman declared crimping could be a bad habit. Lyman knew seating and crimping at the same time could reduce bullet hold. When Lyman said that no one used neck tension; they understood interference fit and crush fit.

You want pictures?

I understand, I have to explain the meaning of that one. Collective reloaders have a bad habit of ignoring and or considering logic.

And you think pictures are going to fix your problem.

F. Guffey
 
You want pictures?

Where were you? I said I took a picture of my gages and the picture weighed 600 pounds; and no one spilt their coffee. and now I have got to get busy selling them.

F. Guffey
 
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Setting up a collet die is easy, just be patient and take your time

  1. Screw the die down until the die just touches the shell holder. Lower the ram .
  2. Place a case in the shell holder.
  3. Raise the ram feeling for resistance. If you don't feel any lower the ram and use a bullet to test for resistance.
  4. If you can slide a bullet in and out of a case with your fingers the die is too loose. Screw the die down approximately 1/16 of a turn and repeat step 2 until you can no longer slide a bullet into and out of the case with your fingers.
  5. If the ram stops or you feel more than normal resistance lower the ram and make sure the collet is loose and not jammed. Do not force, if you feel resistance lower the ram and back the die off slightly

The bullet test will tell you when the die is adjusted properly.
A collet die does not require a lot of force to operate, it may not feel to you that anything is happening. I prefer full length sizing using bushing dies myself but the Lee collets in conjunction with a occasional full length sizing worked just fine for me for many a load

@ CW308 - all I know is that I rarely if ever get more than .0015 runout since I quit using a expander button. That may may not have anything to do with the inside neck reaming. As long as I am getting low SD's and low runout I see no reason to change
 
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Well, strictly speaking, you can, in fact, calculate tensile stress around the neck from a combination of the change in cross-sectional area of the neck due to the measured expansion of the neck OD over the bullet and the change in neck wall thickness it causes using the modulus of elasticity (16,000,000 psi for 70:30 cartridge brass) and Poisson's ratio (0.375 for 70:30 brass). Once you have that, you can work backward through the hoop stress calculation to find the pressure applied inward against the neck. When you multiply that times the contact area between the neck and bullet and by the static coefficient of friction between gilding metal and cartridge brass, the area will have canceled out and you would have bullet pull in pounds.

However, that is all in theory and not of much practical value because of all the places it can go wrong. Your case alloy probably isn't exactly 70:30 brass. Your bullet maker may use a slightly different gilding metal alloy than average. Your coefficient of friction probably won't match perfectly from case-to-case due to neck lube or the presence of carbon or how smooth the surface is. SS pin cleaning might fix the coefficient of friction variation, but even so, that number would only be good for a while, as brass and gilding metal tend to begin to stick together over time.

So, bottom line, yes, tension in psi can be calculated and bullet pull calculated from the result, but why the dickens would you bother when measuring bullet pull directly would be so much easier and gets around the alloy and other variables?


cw308 said:
What I'm getting from your post , you run a case up into the die , raise the stem and expander untill you feel contact with the bottom of the case neck . Correct? ...

That will be too snug. The brass can't really turn the corner as quickly as that would demand, so it would just jam on the upstroke. The idea is just to have the bottom of the neck engage the expander before the case mouth leaves the die. This is to get the neck started straight over the expander and without sideways pull. The position of the expander can be determined by turning the stem up until it contacts the brass at the neck/shoulder junction, as you described, and then turning it back down from that point by a distance equal to about 2/3 to 3/4 of the length of the case neck. The proportions of necks are so variable I can't give you an exact amount. With some of the WSM cases, it might not work at all. But basically, the closer you can get the expander to the neck portion of the die without feeling it start to increase your resizing or withdrawing effort, the better alignment with the expander should be imposed by it.

I can see situations in which the above may not work well due to poor die and press alignment or uneven drag on the expander due to uneven lubricity or neck wall thickness pushing the expander to the side and letting it shift alignment after the neck mouth clears the die. You'll have to experiment a bit to get the most out of it.


Hounddawg,

If he pushed the die until it popped the aluminum plug, I think the problem he had was the mandrel being a little wide. Lee makes them only about 0.001"-0.002" under bullet OD, and if you get one on the larger size of the tolerance range or a bullet on the narrower side, and especially if your brass needs annealing to take the spring out of the neck, you can end up needing a narrower mandrel than the die came with. A number of users report having to reduce them 0.001".
 
So, bottom line, yes, tension in psi can be calculated but why the dickens would you bother when measuring bullet pull would be so much easier?

Why bother? Reloaders have purchased the Hydraulic seating press with the pressure gage, some posted the results in real time on the Internet. Not a problem for me but with all of their efforts for precision they found as much as 30 pounds of difference when measuring the effort required to seat bullets in cases that were believed to be sized with the greatest care.

why the dickens would you bother when measuring bullet pull would be so much easier?[/

This is about the infatuation reloaders have with tensions and thinking they can measure tensions. I have strain gages, tension gages and deflection gages. It can not be any easier to measure the amount of effort required to seat a bullet than to measure the effort in pounds.

I remember the member that spent time at the Aberdeen test facility; he had bullet hold that he claimed to be measured ay 600 pounds, after that we went into the cold weld time period.

Pulling and seating? To understand that these members require a picture, and then there is that something that is missing. They can not say OIC, or 'I understand now' or 'I have never looked at it that way'.

When using a bath room scale there is no difference between pulling and or pushing. I understand, they have to get 47 firings out of each case; not me! because I am not the one with the problem; I am the fan of bullet hold, I want all the bullet hold I can get.

To push a bullet out of the case drill the primer pocket/flash hole out to a diameter that will accommodate a dowel/cleaning rod then turn the case upside down and support the case at the shoulder. After turning the case over and supporting the case at the shoulder push the bullet out and at the same time read the scale.

And yes a case neck that has been annealed will skew the results when the reloader goes for neck tension, he can not screw the results up if he is going for pounds. Correction: I can't screw it up but I am not the one that makes this stuff up.

F. Guffey
 
As UncleNick pointed out if you know the elasticity of the metal it is just a matter of math. For the ultimate precision we used micrometers to measure thread stretch to ensure bolts were properly torqued on certain pieces of gear.

Much easier just to take two measurements with a set of calipers and use 1st grade math. If it works for world class shooters like Litz, Boyer and Holland it is good enough for my shooting

late edit - only real test is at the shooting bench. If Your method is working for you then have at it. If it is not try changing something out or trying something different. I am pretty much at peace with my reloading and my gear now my reloads work and my gear is adequate. What I need now more shooting bench experience to learn how to properly shoot them
 
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Unclenick
Thank you for getting back . I understand exactly what your saying , I will give it a try . Always willing to try something new . I have the stem and expander hight as if the pin was installed , my runout is good . I do remember when using the Redding bushing dies the ball was in the higher position then the standard die . Thanks again.

Chris
 
I am the only reloader on any reloading forum that has tension gages. My tension gages do not convert to thousandths, my tension gages are calibrated to pounds,


tensin gauge.jpg


This is my tension gauge. It measure in pounds and is NIST tracable with certs.

You are not even close to being the only reloader on any forum that uses strain/tension gauges.


But I don't know if I remember how to upload a pic on these forums.
I'll have to see when I post this.

Well it's sideways but it is here.
 
What does tension anything have to do with what seating die I get and the runout they give ? Same old memember at his same old tricks . Trolling the other members in order to get a negative response . The ignorance it takes to even think one is the only one of anything speaks to mind set not conducive to reasonable conversation with others . He’s currently on at least three different threads here at TFL not speaking about anything in the OP derailing them as he always does . Has Guffey even recommended a seater die or suggested how to use the concentricity gauge in this thread ? Everyone else has and it is appreciated and I thank you all for your help .

I had hoped to do some testing of all the different seater dies and post the results in this thread . Not sure we'll ever get there , guess the troll wins again .

Troll
In Internet slang, a troll (/troʊl, trɒl/) is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers
 
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well personally I think it is time to put the trolls under the bridge and hit the ignore button. At least that is what I intend to do
 
But I don't know if I remember how to upload a pic on these forums.
I'll have to see when I post this.

Well it's sideways but it is here.

Thank you for your effort, there is no way to get away from the 'it measures in pounds', thing. Back before the Internet reloading presses were tested, it is believed the 'C' press did not hold up but that did not apply to all of the 'C' type presses; some of the smaller 'C' presses were modified with a bar that made it an 'O' press.

And then they measured flex and deviation, some of the large presses with the column in the center did not hold up. All of the readings from the different gages read in pounds and or deviation, the deviation was measured in thousandths; the readings were useless until the strain was know and the strain was measured in pounds.

And then there was the press that received the worst rating. I was at the NAPPA Flea Market when I found a dealer selling restaurant supplies. One piece of equipment he identified as a 'juicer'. I knew what it was so I asked him how it worked. I finally convinced him it was a reloading press and it was not a good one. I purchased it for $10.00. The best way to describe it as it went through its paces was to say it looked like a spider doing push ups.

RCBS reinvented the 'column through the middle press', at first there were rave reviews and then suddenly? I can only guess they sold out.

F. Guffey
 
Much easier just to take two measurements with a set of calipers and use 1st grade math. If it works for world class shooters like Litz, Boyer and Holland it is good enough for my shooting

I do not have a different standard for different members.

COW308 declared he had .004" neck tension; if there is any truth to what you say and this stuff is first grade math we are back to what I said years and years ago, COW308 can have crush fit or he can have interference fit but he can not convert tensions to pounds.

Much easier just to take two measurements with a set of calipers and use 1st grade math

So how does a 1st grade student convert .004" crush fit to tensions when the only gage available to him measures in pounds?

F. Guffey
 
And now we are back to bullet hold, I am the fan of bullet hold, I want all of the bullet hold I can get and I did not invent and or discover bullet hold. Lyman did say crimping can be a bad habit.

F. Guffey
 
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