Seating Die: This Happened

General RE LEE

General RE LEE

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I was loading a dummy round no primer and no powder to check COAL and magazine compatibility and this happened when I cammed over the press with the Hornady seating die. I was able to extract the bullet. I'm a newbie but I guess I learned use only enough pressure on seating die to seat the bullet?
 

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Your die is not properly adjusted. It is trying to crimp the neck and seat the bullet deeper at the same time. Something has to give and that something is the neck.

For most rifles, especially bolt action, crimping is not needed. Some people want a taper crimp in autoloaders to prevent the violent action of chambering from seating the bullet deeper. I don't ever crimp and have never had a problem.

To adjust your die so it does not crimp, back the die out a turn or two and run a sized and empty case all the way up on the ram. Then turn the die down until it just makes contact with the neck. Turn it back out a half turn or so and lock it down. This will seat bullets without crimping.
 
Howland said:
Your die is not properly adjusted. It is trying to crimp the neck and seat the bullet deeper at the same time. Something has to give and that something is the neck.

For most rifles, especially bolt action, crimping is not needed. Some people want a taper crimp in autoloaders to prevent the violent action of chambering from seating the bullet deeper. I don't ever crimp and have never had a problem.

To adjust your die so it does not crimp, back the die out a turn or two and run a sized and empty case all the way up on the ram. Then turn the die down until it just makes contact with the neck. Turn it back out a half turn or so and lock it down. This will seat bullets without crimping.
Click to expand...

Perfect thank you!
 
Others above are correct...

Unthread your die all the way back out, put your brass in your shell holder and set the bullet in the top of the neck, then raise your ram all the way to the top of it's stroke with your brass and bullet coming through the top of your press.

At that point, thread your die in until you feel it barely touch the bullet and begin to seat it further in the brass, then adjust your seating depth from there.

Thread the body of the die in or out for a course adjustment, and thread the seating stem in or out for fine adjustment.
 
I did the same thing to 223 brass about ten years ago, but it was just barely setting the neck back, just enough to where it wouldn't chamber, but was hard to see. Sized and loaded 50 rounds before I realized what happened. Expensive experience.....10 years later, I made an even stupider mistake, (yesterday)I haven't decided if I'm going to share that one.
 
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