Does anyone else find that carbide straightwall dies for rimmed cartridges oversize the crap out of cases?

You end up getting a loaded round where you can see the outline of the bullet. I load for 44mag, 460Smith, 45Colt, 45ACP's, 357sig, 38sp, 40S&W, 9mm, and a few more I probably forgot about.

All the revolver cases seem to show this.

I have started taking starlines advise and only sizing enough case for the bullet to hold

Anyone else doing this? Anyone see a problem partial sizing? I use an deprime die to deprime. So no touble there.

Most "straight wall" cases actually have a bit of taper. Carbide sizers make them a true cylinder, can't be otherwise. That means carbide dies make the whole case the size the mouth should end up after expanding. That's hard on the case body, I used to get body splits before mouth xplits more often than not.

Old steel size dies actually conform to the normal case taper. Unless I'm doing a large number of loads I still reach for my steel dies for that reason, lubing isn't that big a deal to me.

Had an interesting conversation with a guy at starline.

He said the reason its so appearant with hornady 460S&W brass, is its thicker than starline or others, and you need to use hornady dies.

Never hear that before. He did say, if I do alot of neck only sizing (enough to hold the bullet), your going to have to Full length sooner or later or get stuck brass. Espeically with X frame calibers like 454, and 460, etc.

All my straight walled pistol dies are carbide. Yes, I can see where the the base of the bullet is, especially in 9mm. So what? I have never had any kind of problem. I suspect that some of these "problems" might well be due to inconsistent bullet sizing or perhaps the wrong size eg. .356 rather than .355. I think you see it more with the 9mm as that is a tapered case while the others eg. 38 spl are true straight wall. Just my 2 cents.
Peter.

I used to use RCBS carbide in 38 Special, 44 Magnum, 45 Colt and RCBS "custom" .455 Webley.

Never experienced any problem of any sort of "shoulder" around the case head area with them.

quote:

Originally posted by enfieldspares:
I used to use RCBS carbide in 38 Special, 44 Magnum, 45 Colt and RCBS "custom" .455 Webley.

Never experienced any problem of any sort of "shoulder" around the case head area with them.

Lots of folks never experience any problem. I myself load many more pistol cartridges then that.

But I am asking about specific thing I have seen with oversizing and seeing the outline of the webbing. If you have some ideas, I would be glad to hear them.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim C. <><:
Most "straight wall" cases actually have a bit of taper. Carbide sizers make them a true cylinder, can't be otherwise. That means carbide dies make the whole case the size the mouth should end up after expanding. ...

Jim is correct.

Actually, the additional "Stress" on the Bullet holding it inside the Case is a good thing to have, especially on semi-autos where there is no Roll Crimp.

You could punch the Spent Primers out with a Universal Die and then Partial-Resize the Case with your Carbide Die so it only Resizes the Case for the length of the Bullet. Only problem is that has the potential to create Feed Problems.

Or go to Steel Dies like Jim said.

Best of luck to you.

Never really noticed before. Now I have to look at some cases. As far as I remember my .45 ACP is smooth after loading.

Well, I took some measurements and fed em to the tech at hornady. He seems to think its within specs

For a 460S&W, webbing should be 0.478" and all were and are after sizing. In front of the webbing is .471". He said its a tad tight but normal. I guess its just because these 460 cases are so long.

I compared with Starline brass, and got close. The hornady brass is thick at 13.5 to 14 mil, compared to 12.5-13mil on the starline. This could be the reason its more appearant on the hornady.

45 colt brass is .475" at the webbing, and probably reason I don't see any issues with it.

I see a lot more spilt necks on 357,38,44mag,41 then any other trouble.

I use carbide for all my pistol reloading wouldn't even think about going to steel again.

Even if one could proved it worn out cases faster the time savings are a huge plus for me.

I was doing some quick calculations. If I am using a .452" bullet, and my die is squeezing down the outside to .470", and my thickness is around .0135", thats .008"undersized to my bullet.

Does anyone know if .008" is too much? with starline brass, thickness is .0125", so its .006" undersized compared with the bullet.

I mean, I always thought .003" undersized was all that was needed. In fact, that was supposed to be at the high end. Some prefer only .002" of undersized neck tension.

Never put that much thought into pistol rounds. A ragged hole at 50 feet and on 7 or 8 ring at 50 yards. When I have bad shots I know they're trigger control/grip not bullets.

What is the outside dimension of your round at the mouth? You may be getting more case stetch than bullet sizing.

The problem sam is a 460 just isn't a pistol round. Its not just a 45ACP working at low pressure. Its running at rifle pressures. So at that point one needs to consider how hard your working the brass, I think.

I see your point. I crossed threads a little with the 45 acp reference and forgot the higher pressure rounds. I think you have a valid point in working brass for a high pressure round. I was thinking that in a jacketed bullet that the case may be stretching more than the bullet is getting sized. Causing more brass work hardening. As I said I've never thought about neck tension in handguns but it sounds like a good consideration. I've measured rifle necks before and after but not handgun.

As aside your running about 3 times the pressure as .45 ACP and near 2x the 9mm and a little more than a 5.56.