Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ask John Barsness Questions About "Seating Bullets Straightly."

This used to be more of a prpblem some years ago. At least one manufacturer (and yours were evidently made by them) used to ream the body of their dies, then ream the neck afterward. Thus they could make .25-06, .270, .30-06, .338-06, .35 Whelen dies cheaper. Same deal with .243 on up on the .308 case, and .264 Win./7mm Rem. Mag, etc.

I had some of those dies, including some real cull .358 Winchesters and "custom" .338-06 dies. But apparently nobody does that anymore, or if they do they do it right. I have been testing full-length sizing dies by running a fired case into them without the expander-ball assembly for many years now, and since around 1990 haven't found any that result in more than .001" runout with a sized case.

But it's something to watch out for when buying used dies.

John,
I really miss your work at Rifle/Handloader magazines. What happened?
Thanks,
C.E. Yost

Glad you like the articles!

It's a long story, but Wolfe and I parted ways last summer on July 30. I'm now writing for several other magazines, some now and then and some on a regular basis. In fact a lot of my articles for the new markets are just appearing now, due to the normal 4-5 month delay between article submission and publication in the magazines business.

The easiest way to find out who I'm writing for now is to log onto my website, www,riflesandrecipes.com.

John,
Are you still doing the elk hunt advertised in Handloader as part of a promotion to get subscriptions? I signed up for a subscription and would love to go on a MT rifle elk hunt.

On another note, polishing the inside of the seater has certainly helped with consistency. I don't seem to have anymore of the big numbers.

No, I'm not going on the elk hunt.

Polishing the expander ball has certainly mostly solved the problem in many of my dies!

John; What is the best way to polish an expander ball?

I don't know about the best way, but what I normally do is take the expander ball/decapping assembly out of the die, then mount it in a 1/2" drill motor. This is easily done by inserting the "rear" of the assembly in the chuck. I mount the drill motor in a bench vise and turn it on, then hold some medium-fine grit emery paper against the expander ball until it looks shinier, and any hard edges are taken off.

I am sure some other folks have methods, and probably better ones.

MD,
I was just going back to this topic and ask you the same question - polished the expander ball. So getting it to look "polished" is good enough? I'd hate to go too far with the emery cloth.
Say, I just started trying this Hornady "ONE SHOT". It doesn't seem to deposit the same "slipperyness" as Imperial Sizing Wax.
Have you had good luck with the spray stuff?

I have an old vid on reloading that David Tubb did for Sierra, where he states that polishing the ball probably won't result in a reduction in its size over .0005" so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

That has been my experience as well. Expander balls ae made of VERY hard stuff, and even a lot of polishing takes off very little material, certainly not enough to matter--or often, to even measure.

bigwhoop,

I haven't used the spray case lubes much. I have used several of the wipe-on types, and generally use IMperial wax, just because it seems to lube better--especially when there's a relatively hard case-forming job to do. And in conventional resizing, a little goes a VERY long way.

How easy is it to get the Imperial wax off the brass? I mean really off, I'm kinda OC about not having anything of that nature anywhere on or in my brass when I go to load it. I use RCBS water soluble lube for that reason, and I expect my brass prep routine would drive an impatient person crazy pretty quick.

I just wipe it off with a rag or microfiber cloth. Piece of cake.

I like it a lot better than the RCBS goo-lube.

Unfortunately I probably wouldn't be satisfied with that level of removal, remember the brass prep OCD. I don't like being able to pinch a finished round and feel it squirm between my fingertips.

The "goo lube" is plenty slick for my purposes, I'm sizing clean brass every time. I also use a Qtip to lube the inside of the case necks to below the junction of the shoulder and the neck. Why? It's the first thing the expander ball touches on the way out of the freshly sized neck. I want all of the lube removed before I load the cases and the water soluble stuff comes right off with a soapy water bath and hot water rinse. This has not been the case with others I've tried.

I have used the RCBS water-soluble gel a lot, and it works OK and comes off easy. But Imperial comes off pretty easily too; I just wipe each case with a piece of clean flannel and they're good to go.

I would imagine, however, that my reloading routines would drive some peopl nuts as well. I load a LOT, so am more into finding out--and doing--what's really important, and skipping the stuff that isn't.

In general, for instance, I try to find ways to totally avoid lubing cases for large-volume shooting, such as prairie dogs.

I'd have to work out a different routine for prarie dog loading, that's for sure!

Muledeer; As you all know I have been trying to make round 30-06 ammo with a basic Redding die set and a T7 press. I found the full length die to have less case runout than the neck sizing die, by a thousands or two, but oddly when bullets are seated they are almost identical in bullet runout. Your bending on bullets to straighten them absolutely works! I had a couple that were .004 and .005 out of round and while looking for a hole to stick the bullet in and try it, I noticed holes in the turret of the T7 press. I found the high side and marked it and stuck it in the hole and applied firm pressure, in two attempts I had .001 runout. Tried the same technique with others and had the same results. I don't know if they will shoot any straighter, but it make me happy as hell. Thanks John for the advise. I also polished the seater neck and it also helped!

I use One Shot then toss the batch in the tumbler for about 30 minutes. Seems to work fine. Am I introducing any problems?

Nope, not unless you're decapping them before throwing them in the tumbler, and using a typical corn-cob or walnut-shell polishing medium. Bits of polishing mix can get in the flash-holes, which means you have to check every case before loading. But if you're just using a liquid cleaner, no biggie.

MD:

I have Model 700 Mtn Rifle in 7x57, to make a long story short the rifle will shoot lights out with Hornady 139 gr flatbases as long as the rounout is .005 or less. Problem was my Redding dies would not seat those bullets consistently enough. So to solve the problem I sorted through many once fired cases, check neck thickness, prepped them an then began seating bullets. Soon as I got one near perfect (about .001-.002") I lowered the ram, removed the seating stem & roughed up the "cup", mixed up a bit of Acraglas, added some to the cup and placed it back in the die. Took the aforementioned dummy round, lubed the tip, raised the ram and then screwed the seating stem back down until it contacted the bullet firmly. Left overnight. Next day lowered the ram, cleaned up any excess with a small file. Now all the reloaded ammo is very consistent. Problemo solved.

Course it only works with this bullet, but then that's not such a bad thing.