.45 seating dies and shaving

I current use a Dillon seating die with a plug that seats on the shoulder in my 550B. I bell the case to ~ .480" with a LEE expander die, as it works better than the Dillon, as larger just gets smoothed back to ~.480" in the seating die. I occasionally see lead shavings before I crimp on any bullet I use flat or BB.  I have tried a Redding Competition seating die and seen even more shavings. I called Redding and they say that the Competition Seater is for jacketed only. 

How can I solve this? do I need to use a different seating or expanding die? change my process? There must be a die that aligns the bullet with the case better before pressing it into the case.

Try a PhotoEscape expander/powder funnel.

http://www.photoescapeinc.com/products/45htc-ptu.html

I made my own to solve the issue, but his is fairly similar and should solve it.

DA/SA wrote:Try a PhotoEscape expander/powder funnel.

http://www.photoescapeinc.com/products/45htc-ptu.html

I made my own to solve the issue, but his is fairly similar and should solve it.

THIS!
I use mine for everything from Zero swaged to cast, to Zero 185 JHP. No shaving with a y of these.

mhayford45 wrote:I current use a Dillon seating die with a plug that seats on the shoulder in my 550B. I bell the case to ~ .480" with a LEE expander die, as it works better than the Dillon, as larger just gets smoothed back to ~.480" in the seating die. I occasionally see lead shavings before I crimp on any bullet I use flat or BB.  I have tried a Redding Competition seating die and seen even more shavings. I called Redding and they say that the Competition Seater is for jacketed only. 

How can I solve this? do I need to use a different seating or expanding die? change my process? There must be a die that aligns the bullet with the case better before pressing it into the case.

I bell my cases .012-.015" over case body diameter for lead bullets. That's probably the issue. It only takes a couple thousandths to shave or not shave, in my experience.

I'm curious- what does the Lee do better than the Dillon?

The Dillon expander does not enclose the case inside the die tube. The case meets the expander with no support. The Lee encloses and supports the case before expanding. So, my take on this is that there is less play and potentially less off center belling of the case mouth. When a place a bullet on a Lee expanded case it seems to sit more upright with less tipping.

I have tried to bell the case more as you suggest. However, when I run a belled empty case into the seater it removes the excess bell and I get about .480" of belling. It removes the excess belling before the bullet touches the seat plug.

I am interested in trying the .45 HTC-PTU but not sure I see the value as I use a .45 Colt sizing die to avoid the oversizing that a regular ACP sizing die does. Do either of the recommenders use a Colt?

My 2c... The PhotoEscape PTU or an appropriate Lyman M die recommendations are well trodden and ubiquitous solutions these days to your stated problem. The Lee and 45colt things you are trying are not. The part that typically goes first on 45 target case is the case mouth, so the colt die seems unnecessary and IME the Lee expander over Bells the case (what we need is expanding, not belling). I suspect that's more likely than a 45acp sizing die to (slowly) accelerate your cases to the recycling bin. The PhotoEscape PTU will expand the ID of the case more appropriately to receive the projectile and then you can ease/raise up the expander and ease the work on the brass from unnecessary mouth belling.

SingleActionAndrew wrote: (what we need is expanding, not belling).

^^
That's exactly right!

I am using the .45 Colt sizing die with my own expander/powder funnel with a Dillon XL650 press and have never shaved anything. Also using a Dillon seating die with a shoulder seating insert.

Here is a 20X magnification of a sized and expanded case. Each of those little squares in .0025", so the flare on the case is maybe .002".


This is the same case with a bullet placed on it by hand and it drops in about 1/16" and then the shoulder seating die seats it the rest of the way.


I have yet to split a case, as the case mouth is not constantly being flared and then crimped.

What outside diameter is the 45 Colt sizer taking the brass to?  I believe most 45ACP sizing dies overly size the brass...

.470" on Winchester cases.

Open the inside diameter of the seating die.  Its removing the bell to soon. Dont remove the crimp area. 

Or seat/crimp in 2 operations.  Turn seat stem all the way down.

RCBS 45  Colt . Cowboy die sets are made for lead bullets.  https://www.rcbs.com/dies-and-shell-holders/pistol-dies/cowboy-dies---3-die-carbide-roll-crimp-set/2056.html

I'm a newb and I recently fought this issue and finally found a solution. Here's my $0.02... I removed the seating die from the press and turned the seating stem all the way in,. bottomed out. I then Placed a finished cartridge in the shell holder and ran it all the way into the empty seating location. Start turning the seating die into place (with the seating stem bottomed out) until you feel the seating stem makes contact with the finished cartridge. Back the seating stem off 1ish turns. Screw the die in again until you feel the stem touch the finished cartridge and set the lock ring. Now make a dummy round to your preferred OAL. The seating die is backed all the way out as much as it can be and the stem is as far down as possible. This fixed my issue of the taper inside of the die from removing my flare before the bullet is fully seated and eliminated the shaving issues for me. Hope this helps