9mm case sizing

First topic message reminder :

9mm mixed brass
115 Zero JHP
Dillon 650
Dillon carbide dies

Been loading 9mm for a while with no issues.  Occasionally would have some rounds that would not fully chamber in a Ruger PC9 but otherwise no problems in various other 9mm like Shadow 2, Wilson EDC, and others.  Just picked up a SA RO Elite in 9mm and had several that won't fully chamber.  Reading that Dillon sizing/decapping dies are pretty wide at the base which causes problems with tight chambers? Some threads say have the chamber reamed others say use a different die (including a Lee U undersized die?).  Need to do some measuring but wondering what dies people on here are using.

Yes, Lee FCD does resize quite well.  If you want to go a step further, get the Lee "Bulge Buster" kit which uses the FCD and pushes the case all the way through the die.  Very innovative those guys at Lee, and most reasonable to boot.

OK, first, the problem is almost certainly a reloading issue that can be addressed simply be doing a plunk test.

oldsalt444 wrote:Yes, Lee FCD does resize quite well.  If you want to go a step further, get the Lee "Bulge Buster" kit which uses the FCD and pushes the case all the way through the die.  Very innovative those guys at Lee, and most reasonable to boot.

How would that work for a 9mm? It is a tapered case. If I remember correctly it is .380 OD at the case mouth and .390 at the base. Wouldn't pushing it through give you a straight walled .380 case?

+1 to LenV's comment.  Stated dimensions are true and correct, - 9mm is tapered case with .390/.380 OD.  Pictures in prior post are representative of 40S&W / 10mm cartridges, both are straight walled ones, and prone to "smiling", especially when shut out of Glocks. 
AP

I believe that the 9mm final sizing die is NOT used for bulge busting but don't remember which caliber final sizing die is used.
Time to hit the Lee web page!
SUPPOSEDLY.... the lee final sizing die for 9 Makarov would work as a bulge buster die for 9 mm.
I personally don't like or trust bulged brass .
Brass is cheap relative to my firearm or firing arm.

The plunk test is described at the link below, and is where noylj got one of his figures (give credit where it's due).

http://www.shootingtimes.com/reloading/reloading-tips-the-plunk-test/

STEVE SAMELAK wrote:I believe that the 9mm final sizing die is NOT used for bulge busting but don't remember which caliber final sizing die is used.
Time to hit the Lee web page!
SUPPOSEDLY.... the lee final sizing die for 9 Makarov would work as a bulge buster die for 9 mm.
I personally don't like or trust bulged brass .
Brass is cheap relative to my firearm or firing arm.

+1 on 9x18 Mak FCD and not trusting bulged brass from Glocks.  I've seen ruptures happen and the shooter ended up with minor cuts and bleeding. 


Glock Cases: We do not recommend "fixing" cases fired in pistols with unsupported chambers, because there is no way to make them safe once they have bulged as in TOP picture below. The case wall is thinned where it bulges, and resizing the outside of the case back down to the correct diameter does not restore the case back to its original thickness. If this case is fired in a pistol with an unsupported chamber again, and this thinned section of brass happens to line up with the unsupported part of the chamber, there is a high probability that the case will rupture as in the BOTTOM picture below.

The main problem the FCD "addressed" is seating the bullet crooked so the case bulges out at the base of the bullet. You can mark up the bullet and case of  a non-chambering round and do a plunk test to determine the actual problem you have.
The bulge issue is best corrected by eliminating it by ensuring the bullet and seating stem actually FIT (Lee makes very good custom seating stems) and that the case expansion produces a case ID that is 0.001-0.002" smaller than actual bullet diameter.
All the FCD does of iron out the bulge.
The crimp is produces is excellent, but that carbide ring can hurt accuracy.

Could also send the barrel out or purchase a 9mm finish reamer?  Purchased a Tanfoglio last year for fun shooting and due to many people having chambering problems, I had a local gunsmith run a finishing reamer through it.  Probably took about 10 minutes but 0 issues chambering any of my ammo.

noylj, how does the carbide ring hurt accuracy?

S148 wrote:noylj, how does the carbide ring hurt accuracy?

not noyli, but, I've heard it sometimes can resize the projectile undersize.

I had the same problem with my 9mm RO. Reloads would check OK with a case gauge but flunk the barrel plunk test. My fix was to screw the sizing die down till it touched the shell plate and leave it there. Not had any problems since.

I took the advice about bullet getting seated crooked as another potential problem and bought a Powder Transfer Unit from photoescape.  It doesn't do the "liberty bell" flare like the Dillon and worked much better for me this past weekend.  The bullet seemed to naturally sit square in the shell without any effort compared to before.

Thanks for all the comments/suggestions/assistance.

Still suggest paying attention to sizing.  Otherwise, - thank you!  Glad my PTU worked as supposed to.  I'd be interested to learn how did it affect accuracy.
AP

spyer40 wrote:I took the advice about bullet getting seated crooked as another potential problem and bought a Powder Transfer Unit from photoescape.  It doesn't do the "liberty bell" flare like the Dillon and worked much better for me this past weekend.  The bullet seemed to naturally sit square in the shell without any effort compared to before.

Thanks for all the comments/suggestions/assistance.

that will work. Lee FCD do not correct the problem, they are just an after the damage has occurred crutch.

Having read this thread with interest, I thought I´d add my two cents worth. I have been reloading for well over 35 years in various calibers and never experienced any chambering problems at all until I started to reload 9mmPara for my Walther P88. Over the years I´ve collected very large quantities of range brass from several open ranges in and around where I live. I´d visually inspect and set aside any cases that seemed too far out of whack before reloading and almost never had any feeding or chambering problems in my Sig 210-6, (reloaded using RCBS Carbide dies and presses). Then I purchased a Walther P88 and that´s when the problems began. Then, only about 40% of the reloads would pass the barrel plunk test. What to do? I tried the Lee FCD die but to no avail. Even it could not remove the case bottom bulge that was the cause of the problem in the P88. It seemed that the visual case inspection just wasn´t good enough to weed out those oversized cases which meant that many years of collecting many thousands of cases would turn out to be so much wasted time, not to speak of the frustration I was having not being able to reliably reload for the P88. Then I saw an ad for the Case-Pro 100 and thought I´d give it a try to see if it could help me. I did and it did. The Problem. Solved. No more chambering problems at all. Then I decided to try even the cases that had been rejected earlier because of dimensional disparity and again no problems in the P88. This means that instead of having to reject 20-30% of the cases before resizing (before the C-P100), I can now use just about all (excepting, of course, those that show structional damage, etc.) cases. As both the barrels in the 210 and the P88 have well supported chambers, the risk of a case blow-out, even using in Glock or Swedish M45B machine pistol fired cases does not seem to exist and after many thousands of reloaded rounds fired without a single case failure, or even a hint therof, this seems to be the case. All-in-all, this was, for me anyway, a worthwhile purchase as I now know that I have enough good reusable 9mm brass for years to come.

Excellent Dan Wesson 9mm 1911 almost all have top-of-line barrel fit and trigger.  Mounted red-dot sight on cleaned-off back of slide making a Bullseye CF pistol.  Tight chamber.  About a 97% solution has been use of Lee U die (90313) after deprime and cleaned with SS pins, and then load with Dillon SD.  2 to 3 % do not pass L.E. Wilson rather tight gauge.  Apparently, two or three significant machines exist that may well "refinish" cases to close to new size - at significant cost in equipment and probably arm-effort relative to running through Lee U die with only about 97% success. 
Would be great for someone who has used each of the machines to describe their plus and minus aspects.

+3 on rollsizer for me. Range brass 9 mm was giving me fits.

Wonderful machines exist to bring 9 mm cases back to full resizing.  As I noted in December: "Would be great for someone who has used each of the machines to describe their plus and minus aspects."   
A temporary work-around is using star-line new cases.