I am having some issues with my MEC sizemaster lately. I am having a buckle in the casing about half way down the wad when putting the final crimp on the shotshell. Trying to post a pic of it but don't know how. Any idea on what the problem is?

quote:

Originally posted by tight wad:
I am having some issues with my MEC sizemaster lately. I am having a buckle in the casing about half way down the wad when putting the final crimp on the shotshell. Trying to post a pic of it but don't know how. Any idea on what the problem is?

You have to load the photos on flickr or photobucket. The copy the url and paste it in the drop down window above.

List out the full set of components you are using.

Are you trying to use a shot charge too light for the wad?

just adjusted the tensioner on the final crimp stage and loaded 50 with no problems. It may have came out of adjustment alittle, don't know, will try and see. Will be loading more this week, need to shoot a few now.

I am going to bet it's with the 12 ga AAHS hull. Most all of us had that problem when the AAHS hull first came out. You will wrinkle the hull just above the base wad. It will take some tweeking to your machine but it can be fixed.

You do not say what your load is, some wads are not the best with the AAHS hull. I would start by using about #45 of wad pressure if you are not already. Then you need to use a good amount of pre crimp, enough to nearly close the hull. If you are buckling the hull at the crimp station you need to back off on the cam plate adjustment until it goes away. Then adjust the crimp depth until it's about 1/16" deep or so deep. All this info is in the MEC Owners Manual.

11/8 oz, 71/2 shot, claybuster WAA12 wads, AA hulls and 18.2 gr hodgdens clays powder I will work on the wad pressure, as I had not been going anymore than 30...

these hulls I have are supposed to be 1nce fired.... They look good tho so I don't think it is the hull, I think it has something to do with the wad and crimping pressure..

ok, adjusted the wad pressure to just over 40... did one load and the hull buckled again. The final crimp was barely started when this happened.... any ideas?

Where is the top of your shot column before you attempt to crimp?

Is this it?

quote:

Originally posted by tight wad:
ok, adjusted the wad pressure to just over 40... did one load and the hull buckled again. The final crimp was barely started when this happened.... any ideas?

1. Try crushing the wad some more
2. Using 1/16" less shot as a test.

the shot column allows enough room for the crimp for sure. I will take a few pics and post them in a bit.

for some reason I don't have permission to post photo albums... don't know why I guess. send me a pm with email address and I will send u pics if interested.

Did you back off the adjustment on the cam plate? Suggest you read the MEC manual on making crimp adjustments. It's difficult to put in a post but it appears to me you need to adjusat that setting.

quote:

Originally posted by tight wad:
for some reason I don't have permission to post photo albums... don't know why I guess. send me a pm with email address and I will send u pics if interested.

You have to post your photos at a hosting site such as photobucket. Then paste the link form the photo into the little drop down box above.

quote:

Originally posted by Scout Master 54:
I am going to bet it's with the 12 ga AAHS hull.
----------
Then you need to use a good amount of pre crimp, enough to nearly close the hull.
-------------
Then adjust the crimp depth until it's about 1/16" deep or so deep.

what he said.... Crimp starter down, opening smaller than a pencil eraser. Dutch.

I've been where you are and adjusting wad pressure and crimp helped, but did not totally solve it. Two things that worked for me--leave the load as is except drop only one ounce of shot. You'll have a rather snappy 1 oz load that works pretty good and saves money on shot. The other thing is to change to a ball powder like tite wad or tite group. These take up a lot less volume in the shell. I'd go to Remington exclusively, but I can often pick the AA's up for free.