Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns What would cause this type of FTF?

Yeah, sure - if you're a quitter.

🤣

99% of my handgun use is hunting revolvers, 100% of which, go bang every time you pull the trigger.

My EDC’s are 1911’s, and coincidently SIG’s, which I have full confidence in.

I’ve followed this thread all the way through and it’s been kind of interesting in several ways, not the least of which is that’s it’s gone 7 pages with a small measure of disagreement but no one has questioned anyone else’s manhood or thrown down a gauntlet to meet at a major airport for a duel.

Anyway, a couple thoughts… if one is into geometric and dimensional tolerance in a professional sense, it is pretty obvious that there are aspects of size and shape that will affect function and that can’t necessarily be measured by the simple expedient of putting a caliper across a part in one or any number of places. Two, there are commercial reloaders that quite successfully process large quantities of diverse brands of brass all in one batch and such reloads work perfectly well in anyone’s pistol…as well as factory new. There’s one such outfit near me and I go over to their facility and buy their product by the thousands with no problems. I suspect the reason their remanufactued stuff works better than a lot of the home reloaders auto pistol stuff sometimes does is their use of a push through resizing die. It would tend to address the causes of much of the GDT issues we sometimes experience.

My final thought that has run through this thread is wondering why anyone would reload .380 ammo. I’ve never been able to bring myself to reload 9mm even. Of course, I know why we do this stuff, I probably reload calibers I don’t shoot 100 rounds of in 20 years…it’s what we do

I've read the entire thread...I had this problem when I first started reloading because I didn't seat my first batch of primers deep enough. (I had no mentor and was learning by doing and reading the manuals...). I just put the primer in and made it 'look right'. Now, many years later, I make sure that they are seated to as far as possible and never had an issue again.

Since you are having issues in multiple platforms...it may be something as simple as sorting the brass by manufacturer.

Anyways, glad that you got through your batch without any badness, Stay safe!

-John

I load .380 because I shoot a F-ton of it. I have three .380 pistols - two Sig P232's and a Browning 1911-380. One of those three are my EDC because they fit me and I've been shooting the Sigs for 20+ years, so very comfortable with them.

Up until loading the V-crown bullets, I had always loaded cast lead 100 gr. RNFP bullets with no issues. Hundreds of them. There's something about the V-crown bullets that makes things different.

I loaded up another 50 rounds yesterday evening and about 20 out of the 50 don't plunk easily into the chamber gauge. I disassembled a couple of those that didn't fit and one of them had a case that was too long and the other one had a case was that was right at the maximum length. I marked with a red marker all the ones that fit snugly in the chamber gauge and will check to see if any of those misfire next time I go to the range.

Hi T!
Hope you're doing well.
Never loaded .380 except for the occasional stray that sneaks into a 9mm batch and never owned a P232, so this is all swag on my part.
Didn't see where you tried "plunking" your loads in the removed barrel itself? Compare factory rounds with your problem batch. I like to see them fall in "plunk" and in some guns, be able to turn them fairly easy as well.
If the gun locks up but still don't fire first time I always go to the primer itself and how its seated. I like to make sure they are seated solid, maybe even a tiny bit of "crush". Gets a little aggravating with mixed brass.
I use a Dillon 1050 for 9mm, it primes on the down stroke with adjustable primer seating depth. Can't "feel" anything as far as primers bottoming out in the pocket. I set it up with some "crush" in some cases and not so much in others. No issues with 9mm. I'm loading GINEX primers right now with the same setup as CCI without a hitch.
Not sure if its the same with .380 but I find some 9mm cases with a stop or ledge inside. I guess its to insure no bullet setback? But if you try to load a longer bullet it bulges the case or mangles the base of lead bullets.
The only real primer seat troubles I've had using progressive presses was a Hornady LNL. Took some modification to get it seating primers consistently.
Hope you get it figured out asap, I detest a gun malfunction getting in the way of my user issues!

Well y'all, I believe I've got the problem fixed.

As I mentioned a couple of posts above, I had a handful of rounds that still didn't play well with the case gauge. I ran all of those through the Lee Bulge Buster and they now plunk in and out of the case gauge with ease. I could definitely feel some resistance on the rounds as they passed through the die and the "bulge" was being ironed out.

Question is, how did the cases get the bulge? Is it something that I'm doing in my sizing process? Is it just the range pickup brass itself?
I don't know, as this is a new problem to me - maybe it was bound to happen and I just finally came across brass that had the bulges from being fired in a Glock or another pistol with an unsupported chamber.

I will fire all 50 rounds to check for function, but I'm betting I have fixed the issue considering how easily they slipped in and out of the case gauge after ironing out those bulges.

Thanks, gentlemen, for all of your suggestions and for keeping this thread civil and enlightening.

Trigger,

The "bulge" is from rounds being fired from multiple chambers;

Carbide dies can't always size out excessive variances.

A plain steel die sizing cases full length eliminates this in fired brass before the round is loaded, just like full length sizing your 223 ammo.

Please explain the differences between a steel die and a carbide die and why the carbide die doesn't full length size. They aren't the same length?

A steel die returns the case to its nominal unfired size the length of the case and is made with a reamer just like your chamber. Indexing off the shellholder sizes the case full length.

A carbide die is a carbide ring that sizes the case under sized as far down as the ring can contact the case.
Because it is a ring set inside the die it can only index so far down the case. It also should not index off the shell holder or the carbide will break or the retaining ring than holds it may break.
Even if you could index off the shellholder, the ring is set too high to reach the base or pressure ring of the case. Its sizing effect is causing a bulge like squeezing toothpaste to one end of the tube.

This, plus some dies designed for progressive machines sometimes have more bell at the base. Helps with small misalignment in those machines.

I have a selection of size, seat and crimp dies along with different powder through expander funnels for .45acp, there are small differences between makers and even lot/production runs with same maker. I have custom powder through expanders for 9mm and .45acp. Mostly for loading soft lead bullets. The idea is to get the case opened up enough along with bell to keep the case from sizing the soft bullets as they are seated. More stupid bullseye stuff....

Heck, it looks like almost all dies available nowadays are carbide. I'll just use the Bulge Buster that I already have rather than trying to track down another die.

Bear in mind also that by ironing out said bulge you are altering the diameter of the bullet that's inside the case too. That displaced material has to go somewhere, and if the bulge is on one side and not the other it means the bullet is cockeyed so if that's the case by "busting the bulge" you're either shrinking the diameter of the bullet or crushing it mis-shapen, neither of which will do accuracy any good. Best to suss out why they're bulged rather than mashing the bulges.

Could be also that your brass isn't compatible with your bullet in terms of wall thickness and/or where the internal tapering begins, in relation to where the base of the bullet falls internally. Can't speak to .380 brass and bullets though, it's been 40 years since I messed with loading for one. I can speak to this phenomenon regarding .38 Special brass and wadcutter bullets though and am merely wondering if some permutation of the same formula is happening here. I would mic the wall thickness(es) and determine if your bullet bases are intruding into the internal taper.

I load all my .380 on a Dillon 550B using Dillon carbide dies adjusted per Dillon instructions. I recall having some issues in the beginning. I recall making some posts on some forums about it, but I could not locate the posts to see what the problem was. In any event, once I figured it out, I have not had any trouble loading jacketed flat points, Xtreme Penetrators, and Xtreme Defenders that run fine. I have used both CCI and Winchester small pistol primers and mixed brass from a variety of factory ammo and some new Starline brass. I don't do anything special to the cases, and the only adjustments I make to the dies are to the seating die to adjust the COL depending on the bullet I am using. I don't even have a case gauge in .380. I will add that I have only loaded for newer locked breach firearms such as the Glock 42 and the Sig P365-380.

Triggernosis, I hope you get yours figured out.



I like to shoot .380's. The ammo can be hard to find at times and more expensive than loading 9mm, so it is more cost effective to load them, although it will get more expensive when I run out of my last batch of projectiles.

I believe I may have found a "clue". I just noticed a second #4 shell holder on my bench (#4 is used for 380 and .223, which I also load for). The second shell holder will allow the die to come down on the case about 0.002 - 0.003" further based on my measurements.
I'm betting I've gotten those shell holders mixed up and have been using the wrong one to size my .380 brass.
I'm going to run some brass through the newly found one and see if it sizes the cases differently. I'll bet it does.