by Hoot » Sun Mar 18, 2018 2:54 pm
Do you have to screw the die body way down to get the seating stem to engage the bullet. IE Significantly further than you have had to with other bullets? I ask because I recently commented about a situation where if you turn the die upside down, the seating stem can get caught and doesn't drop down all the way into place. Assuming you could get the cartridge up into the body far enough. Under that circumstance, the seating stem would impart a crooked bullet seat. That's really reaching. Also, make sure you have the tapered seating stem in there, not the flat faced one that also comes with the Hornady set. The Hornady seating die does a really good job aligning the bullet before starting to press it in. With it, I've never had to use the expander with any bullet I've used. Even with a crooked start, most bullets will square up the further down into the case they go. FWIW, you never want to use a shallow seated bullet in this caliber, even if you're trying to load it to a longer COL afforded by the bolt actions. I never use less than 1/2 caliber seating dept and preferably closer to 1 caliber. Just throwing some things out there to see what sticks.
Hoot
In Theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In Practice, there is.