Henry Rifle Forums

Yesterday while loading Colt 45 with Missouri Bullets coated 255 gr. bullets I had an issue where my powder dump and flare/sizer die on my Dillon 550 got stuck in a case. Liked to never got it to release but did.
Looking at that case revealed a .44 Mag case had got in the mix and was expanded for a .452 bullet!
Glad it stopped there!! You just never know!

can't think of a better time for your die to get stuck .. .. doing so prevented an OOOOOOPS

I'll buy a batch of once-fired 45 Colt from a local range every so often, and every once in a while a 44 Mag case will sneak in, but I can't even get it to go INTO the resizing die, so I always catch it there.
Were you able to get it to resize in the first place?

ESquared wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 6:26 pm

I'll buy a batch of once-fired 45 Colt from a local range every so often, and every once in a while a 44 Mag case will sneak in, but I can't even get it to go INTO the resizing die, so I always catch it there.
Were you able to get it to resize in the first place?

Well being smaller than the .45 Colt sizing die yes the first station was not noticed. BUT when try to expand it to .447 yeah it will get stuck coming out!

I guess I'm lost. Still trying to figure out how you got the smaller diameter (44 mag) case to even fit in the sizing die. That's where my set-up said "No go!"

ESquared wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:16 pm

I guess I'm lost. Still trying to figure out how you got the smaller diameter (44 mag) case to even fit in the sizing die. That's where my set-up said "No go!"

getting a smaller 44 caliber case into a larger 45 caliber sizing die is easy .... trying to get a larger 45 caliber case into a smaller 44 caliber die would require much more effort

Yikes....

JEBar wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 10:52 pm

ESquared wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:16 pm

I guess I'm lost. Still trying to figure out how you got the smaller diameter (44 mag) case to even fit in the sizing die. That's where my set-up said "No go!"

getting a smaller 44 caliber case into a larger 45 caliber sizing die is easy .... trying to get a larger 45 caliber case into a smaller 44 caliber die would require much more effort

At the risk of looking like an even bigger idiot, I wasn't commenting on the smaller case going up into the larger opening in the bottom of the die, but rather the resistance it met when it encountered the die itself.

I had a couple 44 mag cases get through the tumbling process, but they would have taken a huge amount of force to actually get stuck in the sizing die. I caught them because when the mouth of the case hit the bottom of the sizing die, it was like they'd hit a block of wood.

On the Dillon 550 the 2nd station is where the powder die sizes the case for bullet fit/tension,flare and powder dump.
It got about halfway into the die when it stopped and took a great deal of upward handle pressure to get it out.
There were other cases in various stages when this happened...I was rolling along!