What's causing this?

[Roachclass]

It happened once and didn't do it again so I thought weird. Rocked on for a few more loading sessions and it did it again, so I cleaned the dies even though they are brand new. I was just reloading and it's done it once for every 5 I load. Hornady custom grade dies and this is brass I formed from some Remington 223. I've loaded quite a bit of ammo and never seen this. Maybe something with the roll crimp feature? Idk...

[savage308]

seating die is too far down. raise the die and then you can adjust the seating stem back down to get the O.A.L. you want.

[rebel]

Agreed, your crimp looks heavy to and with the die to far down it may be crimping before the bullet is fully seated which deforms the shoulder.

[Roachclass]

Agree. It was the roll crimp part of the die getting into it too much. I backed it off 1/2 of a turn where it for sure disengaged the crimp and ran the rest of them fine. First time using this particular type of Hornady dies or messing with crimps. It is a very fine adjustment between crimp and crap. Like a 1/16th of a turn. Not even sure I need to worry about a crimp, the neck tension is very tight. The expander ball is .305

[Sig220]

I normally don't crimp and rely on neck tension to hold "em. Of course I sanded the expander ball slightly.

And when I do crimp it is only using a separate Lee "factory crimp" die and its very light...just rolling the top edge inward.

[rlandry6]

If you are seating and crimping in one operation, stop doing that and do separate steps. In fact, you could get away with not using any crimp at all.

[Smurky]

The only time I crimp is when I flare the case for lead and/flat base bullets or if there isn’t enough neck tension to hold the bullet (seldom an issue). I use the Lee factory crimp die and only enough to get the case mouth back to the original diameter.

[Roachclass]

I normally don't crimp and rely on neck tension to hold "em. Of course I sanded the expander ball slightly.

What did you sand it down too?

[Sig220]

.302 according to my old dial calipers. It still flares at the very top.... but I adjust the expander to keep it tight except for cast and I have to open the case mouths up to keep from shaving 'em. These days, shooting cast is few and far between for me. I mostly stay with supers but in the future.....who knows. There is a box of Sierra 240gr that keeps hiding in my cabinet.

[Roachclass]

I may sand and polish mine up a little bit then, maybe to .304? Really don't want to expand brass back out for any reason. I'm about to take my first trip into the subsonic realm. Making a midway order this week for some more gold dots and they have some Berry's plated 220gr for .22¢ a piece. Figured they would be something cool to play around with. Pretty sure I've settled on a super load with the speer and I was loading up one more to try with some FMJ when I started crushing em. I'm excited to try the subs tho. Haven't had subsonic anything to shoot since I got the suppressors.