I just started reloading for the 6.8 using my Hornady Lock N Load and the bullets will not seat to the proper C.O.L. Here is what I'm using:
- New unfired Remington cartridges
- Barnes TSX 100 gr bullets
- 23.9 grains of IMR4198
- Brand new RCBS AR die set
The problem is that the bullet is bottoming out on top of the powder, and will not seat to the proper depth. Furthermore, if I adjust the seater plug further down, the bullet gets stuck in the plug and will pull out of the case on the up stroke!
I thought I was being conserative by using 23.9 grains only, seeing that the load data allows as much as 25.0 grains. What do you guys think? Any ideas as to what's going on? Solutions?
Sounds like the crimp ring in the die is coming in contact with the case mouth and trying to crimp the bullet as it's seating, run a piece of brass into the seating die without a bullet and make sure the case doesn't contact any resistance in the die.
Check your brass and make sure the shoulder isn't buckling, it will expand in OD if it is and will need to be resized.
You can just start over and re-setup your die if that will be easier for you,
1. loosen the seater plug and screw it all the way up
2.then loosen the die and screw it out of the LnL bushing about half way
3. then take a new case of the proper length and run it all the way up with the ram to TDC(top dead center)
4. then screw the die down until you feel light contact with the case mouth(this is the crimp ring in the die)
5. from this point back the die out 1/2 to 1 full turn so the crimp ring is away from the case mouth during seating and lock the die in place at this point
6. from here add a bullet and adjust the seater plug down as needed to get the proper OAL and everything should be fine.
7. Crimp with a separate die in a separate step from the seating step, a Lee FCD works well but I suggest not crimping at all.
ETA: use a slower powder if possible, even though 4198 is not a good choice it should work and it should compress with no problem, you would have to be compressing it severely to stop the bullet from seating deeper which I doubt is the problem with that charge weight.
Did you run the new brass through the sizing die before beginning the reloading process? If you are pulling the bullet back out with the seating stem, you may not have enough neck tension. If you did run them through the sizer, the neck expanding ball may need to be polished down a couple of thousands.
I will start from scratch again by readjusting my seating die and paying closer attention to the crimping. I still have 2 concerns though resulting from 2 factors:
1) I spoke to RCBS about the bullet getting stuck in the stem, and they seem to think that due to varying bullets design (shape), it's not unusual for thabto happen because the shape of the "cup" that pushes the bullet down doesn't match that of the bullet's. They are sending me a new stem with a polished "cup". BTW, Redding seems to agree.
2) I measured with my digital calipers the distance from the tail of the bullet to the cannelure and that came to 0.554", so I am still concerned that the bullet is bottoming out at the powder. Is IMR4198 an unusually dense powder?
And finally what are you guys mostly using for dies and what powder do you recommend? Should I ditch my RCBS and IMR?
The RCBS dies will work fine once adjusted properly, those AR series dies have a taper crimp and if it contacts the neck during seating the bullet will stop dead in it's tracks and the extra force you are applying to try and seat it deeper is what causing the bullets to stick in the seater plug.
Yes ditch the IMR powder, you can use several other powders and be way ahead.
You can actually hear the powder compress. It makes a crunching sound and will compress quite a bit. especially 4198 or similar extruded powders. I have never used 4198 in a 6.8 so I don't know what kind of compressed load you are dealing with. But I know it's not just goint to stop the bullet as you seat. if you don't hear that sound do what EWP said.
As a matter of fact I do hear the powder compress as you mention. So is that in fact part of the problem, or is it a question of re-adjusting the seating die?
I'll wait until I've received the polished part from RCBS and report back.
The polished part will help from making marks on the bullet but readjusting the die so the neck isn't in the crimp ring will allow the bullet to seat easy enough you probably wont need the polished stem.
I read this and had to laugh. I had the same problem. The body of the die was NOT coming in contact with the top of the case but because of the extra pressure needed to seat the bullet on top of a compressed load, the bullet was getting lodged in the bullet seater. I would lift the handle of the press and there would be no bullet in the case! I then proceeded to disassemble the seating die and had to pry the bullet from the bullet seater.
I think the problem is the shape of the RCBS bullet seater and the ogive of the bullet (I am using Noslers 100 gr AB). They simply are not compatible and the bullet gets stuck. I worked around the issue by very slowly lifting the press handle after seating the bullet. The bullet would seem to "pop" out of the bullet seater when I did this. I have now backed off my powder charge so it is not compressing the powder as much and I don't seem to have the problem any more.
If the seater stem can pull the bullet back out of the case you don't have near enough neck tension, the bullet would be very damaged before a seater plug would stick enough to pull it back out of a good case neck. I have had the seater plug stick to a bullet on VERY compressed loads but not even then did it come close to pulling the bullet back out of the case. The OP is not working with a very compressed load or even a slightly compressed load, with the charge weight he's using the bullet is barley touching the powder enough to make a crunch noise and if he seated longer he wouldn't even be touching the powder, no way the powder charge he's using is keeping the bullet from seating below 2.260", maybe if he was using 30+gr's it could stop the bullet short.
I habitually polish the bullet seater plug when I get a new set of dies. I really hate to see marks on my loaded rounds.
Hey Michigan Scott, I'm having same problem and no matter what I do can't seem to keep bullets at same depth and with out the marks. How are you polishing the cup? This is one of those RCBS AR die sets, got it for fathers day, tried to call RCBS but they are not open on Fridays...
I habitually polish the bullet seater plug when I get a new set of dies. I really hate to see marks on my loaded rounds.
Hey Michigan Scott, I'm having same problem and no matter what I do can't seem to keep bullets at same depth and with out the marks. How are you polishing the cup? This is one of those RCBS AR die sets, got it for fathers day, tried to call RCBS but they are not open on Fridays...
I use a cone shaped hone and chuck the stem in a drill and break the sharp edge on the inside of the seating stem. You don't want to open it up too much because the stem should contact the ogive of the bullet and not the tip. Just a small bevel at around 30 degrees usually does it. I've also used finer grits of emery cloth or garnet paper wrapped around a small dowel to do the same thing. If you get multiple marks, roll some fine grit emery cloth or garnet paper into a cone and gently polish the inside of the plug.
There will always be some variance in seating depth if you measure the total overall length because of variance in the bullet tip. If you use a comparator, better grade bullets seated with good technique will seat to less than 0.005" variance if measured off the ogive.
Just be careful that you don't remove material unevenly. You will have more variations that way. If you ever have a type of bullet that you like to load that doesn't work well in it, you can send a bullet off to RCBS and they will custom grind a seater plug for you. I had them do one for me in .308. They didn't charge me a thing for it. I think there is supposed to be a charge though, but they will sometimes just do rally nice things.
That's why I spin the seater stem in a drill and go slow. Even if you do ruin the plug, you can buy a new one from Midway for around $7.
The easiest way to find what part of the plug marks your bullet is to hold a bullet into the plug and spin the plug. Then you know exactly where you need to remove metal. If you are really worried about ruining the plug, polish it a little, grab a new bullet, spin and repeat as needed.
Sometimes we have to make minor modifications to our tools for the best results. I have a .223 die set that the seating stem would contact the tip of a certain match bullet instead of the ogive. I ran a small drill into the plug and removed enough metal that the plug no longer hit the point but contacted the ogive instead. My set of .44 Mag dies had to have the case holder polished down a couple of thousands to give me a satisfactory crimp with a batch of slightly short cases. Sure the manufacturers will help, but you just don't want to take the time to send them back in the middle of a production run.
What I'm getting is the multiple marks and that is gripping the bullet, I tried to use 000 steel wool to polish but it didn't seem to help. Will have to try some fine emery cloth next. Thanks for the info, took a long time to get the few rounds I took to the range to seat where I wanted them to seat. I'll be calling RCBS Monday, they have always been really good to me. Plus when I was living out in Ca. I went for a tour of where they make the dies, that was cool...
Another option for a poor bullet fit on the seater........Use an epoxy to fill the cavity in the seater plug. Coat the bullet with a release agent and use it to mold the epoxy until it dries. The result will be a perfect bullet to seater fit.
+1 on this. I've done this several times for favorite bullets that didn't quite fit the plug. I would buy a couple extra seating plug stems to make the change though, and not mess with the stock unit.
I just called RCBS and they said they could either have me send them some of the bullets I use and they would make a stem for it or they could just send me a polished stem. I said lets try the polished stem first, so they are going to send me one. They also said their stems are made to fit speer bullets, which I didn't know.
I called RCBS again yesterday asking them about the polished seater they were sending me, as I still hadn't received it. The gentleman I spoke with unequivocally stated that no amount of polishing the seater plug will resolve the problem. I then asked him about crimping the case, and whether that had an bearing on the bullet getting unseated, and his answer was that crimping had nothing to do with it either.
His solution was for me to send them 3-4 of my bullets, and they would custom manufacture a seating cup for me. It appears that the isuue afterr all is with the shape of the bullet (specifically the ogive).
I am still debating if I should that, or simply return the RCBS and buy something different. I am reloading Barnes bullets. What die set do you recommend?
I am still debating if I should that, or simply return the RCBS and buy something different. I am reloading Barnes bullets. What die set do you recommend?
I reload Barnes 95's, Speer TNT's, and Sierra Varminters w/o any seating issues using the Hornady New Dimension 6.8 dies w/ micro-adjust seater. I wonder if you just got a bad set, seems like a lot of people like their RCBS products.
There must be some other issue? So far I have loaded many different bullets for the 6.8 with the RCBS dies without a problem. Even my stem for the 270 Winchester is the same? Never had a problem. Is there a chance you got some odd ball stem with your dies?
Anything is possible I suppose, I bought the die set new. We won't really know unless RCBS makes up a specific stem based on my bullets. As I said before though, I'm not sure I want to go through the trouble and the waiting, especially if another brand has proven to work right out of the box. I am thinking Redding is the way to go, possibly their competition set (although they are way too expensive). What do you guys recommend?
One of the questions the RCBS tech asked was as to whether the stem/cup was leaving a ring around the bullet, and that's an affirmative, and that seemed to "seal the deal" so to speak.
I took my dremel tool with a small round pointed polishing stone that came with the set, used some honing oil and lightly polished it. Works great now, RCBS used to be great, I think they mite be slacking in their QC department. IF I have to call again, I'm going to ask to speak to their Quality Control Manager.
Glad it worked for you. If the stem is ground for Speer bullets, it comes as no surprise that it will mark other brands. Still, in 40 years of handloading, I don't remember pulling a bullet back out with the seating stem. Guess it's possible if the fit is off enough.
IIRC it was the 110gr Barnes TTSX I used to have problems with sticking in the seater die but the neck always had enough tension on the bullet to pull the bullet loose from the seater stem. That seater stem must have some bite on that bullet to pull as hard as my bullet puller to move the bullet back out of the case neck.
Unfortunately RCBS never sent me the polished seating stem they promised me, so I returned the set and instead purchased Redding's most "basic" die set, and the problem is now solved. My bullets do not get stuck in the seating die anymore! It's nothing but Redding dies for me from now on. For as much as I like RCBS' products, I will only buy Redding dies.
EWP: I ordered it as you suggested, and am just waiting for delivery. Even with my limited experience reloading the 6.8, I thought I had things figured out in terms of what dies to use, (especially after I got help from this forum), until I saw your response in another thread when asked about what dies you use to reload the 6.8!!
So here it goes:
1) I am reloading for hunting purposes (Deer in California), so accuracy is important but I'm no bench rest shooter.
2) I have to use Barnes TSX bullets (California Condor area), 85 and 110 grains
3) I am reloading brand new and once fired (so far) Remington cases
4) I use a Hornady Lock N Load progressive
5) I finally have the Redding dies, as discussed prior
What is your recommendation in terms of dies (or combination thereof) to use, in order to obtain good consistent loads, over and over again? Can you think of anything else I might need?
EWP: I ordered it as you suggested, and am just waiting for delivery. Even with my limited experience reloading the 6.8, I thought I had things figured out in terms of what dies to use, (especially after I got help from this forum), until I saw your response in another thread when asked about what dies you use to reload the 6.8!!
So here it goes:
1) I am reloading for hunting purposes (Deer in California), so accuracy is important but I'm no bench rest shooter.
2) I have to use Barnes TSX bullets (California Condor area), 85 and 110 grains
3) I am reloading brand new and once fired (so far) Remington cases
4) I use a Hornady Lock N Load progressive
5) I finally have the Redding dies, as discussed prior
What is your recommendation in terms of dies (or combination thereof) to use, in order to obtain good consistent loads, over and over again? Can you think of anything else I might need?
The Redding two die set you have will be all you need, with the carbide expander button they will provide you with very consistent results time after time. My other suggestion is to make sure you use a good case lube, my preference is Dillon DCL or RCBS Case Slick spray lube and just tumble it off in corn cob after sizing, the good lube will assure you consistent sizing every time so head space will not vary between cases.
The only other thing that is as important as the dies is how you set them up, you should really use a head space gauge like the Hornady head space set to measure your fired brass head space and then adjust the sizing die for only -.004" of sizing, this will ensure good reliable chambering rounds without all the slop associated with over sizing your brass. At the very least you should make sure you are not sizing the shoulder back shorter than new brass which would shorten the case life dramatically and reduce accuracy due to an even sloppier fit.
Ordered the Hornady headspace kit, although I didn't see a bushing listed in the kit for the 6.8. What I did see is a "virgin" bushing that has to be drilled and reamed for calibers that are not included. Does that sound right to you?
As usual EWP, your help is invaluable. Thank you much!
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