By Duane Thomas
At our reloading machine’s case-flaring station, we need to expand the case mouth to accept the bullet considerably more with plated bullets than we would with jacketed or hard cast lead. It would be impossible to overstate the importance of this.
Of course, with harder and/or jacketed bullets we don’t really like to flare the case mouth very much, because that can weaken the case mouth, and eventually, after multiple loadings, it’ll split during the loading process. With jacketed bullets or hard cast lead, we can get away with having little case flare – up to about .010” larger at the case mouth. With plated, we can’t. With little case flare it’s quite possible for an under-flared case mouth to cut through the plating. We’ll actually get a “smear” of plating where it’s been cut through and pushed back along the side of the bullet. This will show right above the case mouth. Not only does this lead to horrible accuracy, it can actually cause the bullet to be so oversized the cartridge won’t even chamber.
Thick-plating i.e. double-plating bullets helps some (see my article on choosing the right plated bullets), but still plated bullets require serious attention to the amount of case flare in order to prevent ruining bullets during seating.
For those not used to loading plated bullets, the amount of case flare required with them might seem a bit extreme. But for plated bullets it’s absolutely necessary. Be careful, we don’t want to overdo it to the point it’s difficult to fit casings into the machine’s other dies after flaring or drive the “opened up” portion so far down into the casing we’ve comprised resizing, because resizing, and crimping, are both necessary to prevent bullet setback when actually firing the gun. There is a very definite “it’s enough, it’s not too much” point we want to reach here, usually flaring .015” to .020” larger is sufficient.
My advice, as you’re adjusting the case flare die while setting up your machine to load plated bullets, start by loading a few test rounds. Then carefully examine those rounds. What you’re looking for is that telltale area of pushed-up plating, around the case mouth, that says the case mouth has cut into and scraped away the plating as the bullet was being forced into the casing. There is a very definite, not enough/too much/just right amount of case flare you’re looking for. You’ll know it when you get it, bullets will seat smoothly, and on which there will be no pushed-up plating around the case mouth. Everything will be as it should be.
