Donuts to go UPDATE

[Idgunner]

This has been a learning experience for sure. I assumed that my 223 Lapua cases had developed donuts while I was seating bullets and a good percentage of them seemed to hit a hard spot in the seating stroke. I sent 5 cases to L.E.Wilson and their tech said they did NOT have donuts. I had already ordered their case trimmer and a 22 cal reamer so when it arrived I ran it through about 70 cases. It did not touch one neck on the inside (on fired unsized cases).
After pondering this puzzle, I decided to try two things. First, I put the expander ball back onto the end of the decaping rod in the sizing die. I also ran some of the sized cases through an expander die. Then the bullet seating process when as smooth as butter. Go figure. The good thing is that both groups of cases shot bug holes at the range and that's all that matters in the end.
I appreciate all of the replies to my original thread because I learned something from reading all of them. More input is always good.
So, I imagine that there will be someone here who will chide me for being a doofus. Don't care. I learned something from this and I hope someone else does as well. Besides now I have two great case trimmers with one set for my 223 brass and one set for my 25-06 brass and I no longer have to readjust one to do the other. It also appears that my reloading process has developed very accurate ammo. Oh, I also repurposed an old arrow straightener to make a concentricity gauge and all of my brass now is within 0.001 inch at the neck.

 

[Fullbore92]

Glad to hear it!

 

[Mikecr]

Ok, you told us what you did, but what did you learn?

 

[Idgunner]

Ok, you told us what you did, but what did you learn?

I erroneously decided that the hard spot in the bullet seating process was a donut at the neck/shoulder junction because it would start fairly smooth after the initial push to open the neck to accept the bullet, then it hit a hard spot that required a hard push to get past. The bullets that I use in these cases are Hornady 75g ELDMs. The base of those including the bearing surface of the bullet, sits well below the neck junction when fully seated. So I assumed the flat bearing surface was contacting the constricted neck diameter due to a donut. Afterwards, when I stopped the seating process on one case when that hard spot showed up I removed the shell with the bullet partially seated and made a sharpie mark on the bullet at the neck mouth. Then after I pulled the bullet and held it next to the case it was easy to see that even the tapered base had not reached the neck junction. It was at that point that I had to look at the case mouth.

These cases had been fired and annealed without tumbling, they were then trimmed and chamfered and deburred which left a slight rough edge. It could have also been hardened carbon, not sure about that but someone will chime in, that the bullet was trying to slide through. I also had removed the expander button from my decaping rod on my FL neck sizing die because I was following internet 'wisdom'. So I've done two things that make all of the bullet seating slide in like butter.

One is I reinstalled the expander button to open the necks slightly with the sizing process. Two is I use a toolhead that a good friend gave me for my Lyman brass prep machine. That is a 45cal pistol brass case that has been drilled out to allow an 8x32 screw to pass through. He held that screw in place with two nuts, one inside and one outside the case. Then he stuffed the case with steel wool, the screw sticks out above the case mouth to act as a pilot for the case neck. That tool fits nicely into one of the positions on the Lyman tool. Now after I trim, chamfer and debur the mouth I jam it down into the steel wool in that rotating cup and it polishes the case mouth nice and smooth. Bullets seat like butter.

My case necks are within 0.001 concentricity and bullet seating is nice and smooth. There's still enough neck tension that I don't have to worry about loose bullets getting pushed back into the case mouth and my SD and ES are holding nicely. MV has not been adversely affected. Now I've ordered carbide sizing buttons for my Redding Type S dies and will continue to use them. I've also vowed to tumble my brass after annealing and before reloading with every firing. I had gotten lazy and did not always tumble after annealing this past year. In order to detect a possible donut I've purchased a ball micrometer to help measure the case thickness right down past the neck/shoulder junction if I detect a rough spot in seating pressure then I can use the reamer that I purchased to eliminate that problem.

I hope this answers your question.

 

[fmuguira]

Annealing removes the carbon from within the cartridge neck and can lead to harder seating of the bullet. Utilizing an expander as you re doing can help issue or something myself and lots of friends do after annealing is powder charge case and put a super super tight drop of oil on a Q Tip and spin in case neck… just a trace will make the bullets seat easier and very consistent pressure wise from case to case. (Some guys use the dry lubricating powder, etc but I ve preferred just the Q Tip trick.

Good luck with whatever works best for you.

 

[fmuguira]

Light drop…. Btw you can lube 8-10 cases before needing another drop. I typically dab a towel with the Q Tip after putting oil on to remove any excessive. A "trace" does the job

 

[Idgunner]

Light drop…. Btw you can lube 8-10 cases before needing another drop. I typically dab a towel with the Q Tip after putting oil on to remove any excessive. A "trace" does the job

Thanks for the tip

 

[lyle2231]

I erroneously decided that the hard spot in the bullet seating process was a donut at the neck/shoulder junction because it would start fairly smooth after the initial push to open the neck to accept the bullet, then it hit a hard spot that required a hard push to get past. The bullets that I use in these cases are Hornady 75g ELDMs. The base of those including the bearing surface of the bullet, sits well below the neck junction when fully seated. So I assumed the flat bearing surface was contacting the constricted neck diameter due to a donut. Afterwards, when I stopped the seating process on one case when that hard spot showed up I removed the shell with the bullet partially seated and made a sharpie mark on the bullet at the neck mouth. Then after I pulled the bullet and held it next to the case it was easy to see that even the tapered base had not reached the neck junction. It was at that point that I had to look at the case mouth.

These cases had been fired and annealed without tumbling, they were then trimmed and chamfered and deburred which left a slight rough edge. It could have also been hardened carbon, not sure about that but someone will chime in, that the bullet was trying to slide through. I also had removed the expander button from my decaping rod on my FL neck sizing die because I was following internet 'wisdom'. So I've done two things that make all of the bullet seating slide in like butter.

One is I reinstalled the expander button to open the necks slightly with the sizing process. Two is I use a toolhead that a good friend gave me for my Lyman brass prep machine. That is a 45cal pistol brass case that has been drilled out to allow an 8x32 screw to pass through. He held that screw in place with two nuts, one inside and one outside the case. Then he stuffed the case with steel wool, the screw sticks out above the case mouth to act as a pilot for the case neck. That tool fits nicely into one of the positions on the Lyman tool. Now after I trim, chamfer and debur the mouth I jam it down into the steel wool in that rotating cup and it polishes the case mouth nice and smooth. Bullets seat like butter.

My case necks are within 0.001 concentricity and bullet seating is nice and smooth. There's still enough neck tension that I don't have to worry about loose bullets getting pushed back into the case mouth and my SD and ES are holding nicely. MV has not been adversely affected. Now I've ordered carbide sizing buttons for my Redding Type S dies and will continue to use them. I've also vowed to tumble my brass after annealing and before reloading with every firing. I had gotten lazy and did not always tumble after annealing this past year. In order to detect a possible donut I've purchased a ball micrometer to help measure the case thickness right down past the neck/shoulder junction if I detect a rough spot in seating pressure then I can use the reamer that I purchased to eliminate that problem.

I hope this answers your question.

So you were seating @ mag length?

 

[Idgunner]

So you were seating @ mag length?

Pretty close

 

[crashlanding]

Very detailed write up, thanks for the info

 

[lyle2231]

Pretty close

Just thinking out loud here…. In my experience a .223 case with 25 grains of powder or thereabouts using a long (75gr) bullet I could feel the granules crunch. So I'm wondering if that is what you were experiencing?

 

[Idgunner]

Just thinking out loud here…. In my experience a .223 case with 25 grains of powder or thereabouts using a long (75gr) bullet I could feel the granules crunch. So I'm wondering if that is what you were experiencing?

Nope. As I noted in my last explanation I stopped seating a bullet when the push got hard and marked the bullet at the case mouth with a sharpie so that I could tell how far into the neck the bullet was when it hit the hard spot. I pulled the bullet and held it next to the case mouth so see how deep it was. Surprisingly the base of the bullet was no where near the neck shoulder junction and still a ways away from the powder.
I too have felt powder crunch with some powders and long bullets but this is not the case. Thanks,

 

[lyle2231]

Nope. As I noted in my last explanation I stopped seating a bullet when the push got hard and marked the bullet at the case mouth with a sharpie so that I could tell how far into the neck the bullet was when it hit the hard spot. I pulled the bullet and held it next to the case mouth so see how deep it was. Surprisingly the base of the bullet was no where near the neck shoulder junction and still a ways away from the powder.
I too have felt powder crunch with some powders and long bullets but this is not the case. Thanks,

Yes sir, you're welcome