Two problems loading .45 ACP
Quote from Reloader on January 16, 2011, 4:57 pmI am fairly new to reloading, and at this point I have only reloaded .223. Last night I converted my machine over to .45, and have been having two pretty significant problems with it.
1) When I calibrated the powder measure, I checked it 5 times (seems to be the standard), to make sure it was consistently giving me 4.2-4.3gr of powder. I did this with a case in station 2 only. When I actually start the process of reloading (cases feeding into each station), my powder will only measure about 2.1gr when I pull it out to check it at station 4, before bullet seating. I've verified that the blue wingnut is sufficiently tight on the failsafe rod. It is indeed sliding the powder bar all the way back when I seat the primer. The cases look to be properly belled to me. What could be causing this level of inconsistency?
2) I initially had a problem with cases not feeding into station 1. The shell plate was lower than the slide that the cases were coming in on, so cases would "jam" as they tried to insert into station 1. The only way I could figure out how to fix it was to loosen the shell plate bolt so that the shell plate would raise up slightly, to meed the slide. This makes the shell plate a lot springier than it was when I was successfully loading .223. Something doesn't seem quite right about this, but I can't determine another way to get the two to line up. The springiness also causes a bit of powder to come out of the cases as they rotate through the stations (but certainly not 2gr worth!).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave
I am fairly new to reloading, and at this point I have only reloaded .223. Last night I converted my machine over to .45, and have been having two pretty significant problems with it.
1) When I calibrated the powder measure, I checked it 5 times (seems to be the standard), to make sure it was consistently giving me 4.2-4.3gr of powder. I did this with a case in station 2 only. When I actually start the process of reloading (cases feeding into each station), my powder will only measure about 2.1gr when I pull it out to check it at station 4, before bullet seating. I've verified that the blue wingnut is sufficiently tight on the failsafe rod. It is indeed sliding the powder bar all the way back when I seat the primer. The cases look to be properly belled to me. What could be causing this level of inconsistency?
2) I initially had a problem with cases not feeding into station 1. The shell plate was lower than the slide that the cases were coming in on, so cases would "jam" as they tried to insert into station 1. The only way I could figure out how to fix it was to loosen the shell plate bolt so that the shell plate would raise up slightly, to meed the slide. This makes the shell plate a lot springier than it was when I was successfully loading .223. Something doesn't seem quite right about this, but I can't determine another way to get the two to line up. The springiness also causes a bit of powder to come out of the cases as they rotate through the stations (but certainly not 2gr worth!).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave
Quote from Reloader on January 17, 2011, 2:03 pmI strongly suggest you phone us when you can be in front of the machine for assistance with this. If the measure works fine operated alone, then possibly one of the other dies is down too far, preventing proper function.
I strongly suggest you phone us when you can be in front of the machine for assistance with this. If the measure works fine operated alone, then possibly one of the other dies is down too far, preventing proper function.