my 9mm dilemma

Please post a good quality photo of the rounds and measurements such as overall length and case mouth. Otherwise, everyone is just guessing.
 
FWIW I have one gauge many fail, two that they do not fail. They all work in my 9s so I fret less. I carry reloads in my back-up mag, those have to pass the tightest gauge. I have fussed for over a month now and cannot change the results. Range brass, 650, Dillon dies.

I put a col-let? puller on my old single stage. I will never be $ ahead but it is soooo much better than wacking the floor. I just set it up with whatever I am loading at the moment.
 
I put a col-let? puller on my old single stage. I will never be $ ahead but it is soooo much better than wacking the floor.
Click to expand...

If it works...

My experience, over a couple of decades, with the RCBS collet puller was not.. entirely satisfactory. I found that very often, I could not tighten the collet enough, by hand, to keep the bullet from slipping out.

I would have to use a wrench as a cheater bar or wack the collet handle with a hammer to get the collet tight enough to hold the bullet so the press could pull the case off it. And, then, repeat the process in reverse to get the collet to release the bullet.

And it was not possible for me to pull lead bullets with the collet puller without distorting them to a degree they were only good for going back into the casting pot. If the collet works for you, fine. For me, it seldom worked "right".
(and yes it was the same story with different calibers) My own reloads pulled fairly easily. Factory, military, and unknown origin almost never did. So it was tighten by hand, then wack it to make it tighter, and try to pull. Sometimes the wacking didn't get it tight enough, and the bullet still slipped out. Then I would have to wack it to loosen it enough to start over, and wack it more to get it even tighter on the second (or sometimes 3rd) try. :mad:

Then, one day, basically on impulse, because I saw it in the store and the price wasn't all that much, I bought the Lyman "orange hammer". I figured it couldn't work WORSE than the collet puller in my press.

For me, the difference was night and freakin' day!!! It pulled EVERYTHING, most of the time in 3-6 wacks, NONE of the bullets were distorted in any way, including lead ones. The very smallest bullets (.22cal) would sometimes take a few more wacks, because they are the lightest and so have the least inertia.

I was able to pull down 400 rnds of bad milsurp 7.62x51 NATO with less time and effort than it would have taken me using the press mounted collet!

For best results, you have to know how to swing the hammer. It doesn't have to be swung hard, but it does need to be swung fast, and it needs to stop fast. Stopping "fast" means impacting on a hard surface. "Hard" is a relative term, and in the is case means what the hammer thinks is hard, not what you and I do.

Your floor is NOT a hard surface. Wood is not a hard surface. CONCRETE is NOT a hard surface (to the hammer). Very hard to our soft bodies, but they have enough "give" in them so the hammer does not work at peak efficiency.

IRON & steel are hard to the hammer. What I found worked the best for me was wacking the hammer on the top of my wood stove (during the summer, no fire in the stove!!!). Because of my personal experiences, I will recommend the hammer over the collet, every time.

Your experience might be different, might be the complete opposite. If so, fine, go with what works best, for you. For me, I'll take the hammer, though it took me decades to figure out that I ought to try it, when I finally did, I was very pleasantly surprised that it worked better (for me) than I ever imagined it would.
 
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