Yep you're spot on...all my brass is a great variety of range pickups, which have (naturally!) been no issue in the last 8 years I've been shooting an M&P; as far as I understand its chamber is not unsupported...and there is no one in my club who shoots a Glock so I can at least rule that out.
• Glock got a bad reputation with their unsupported chambers in Gen 1 guns in 40S&W, not the 9mm.
• Gen 1 guns haven't been made in ~20 years
• There are many, many 9's on the market with unsupported chambers
On top of all that, anyone shooting 9 Major at your club ? Cases fired in Major guns have a bad habit of expanding the head. All it takes is 0.001" of expansion at the head to not fit into any SAAMI chamber. I think you should start by measuring your brass. The head of your brass MUST be 0.391" or smaller.
Not to be snippy, but the cartridge diagram in your loading manual is there for a reason. If your finished cartridge doesn't fall below (smaller than) those dimensions, then you're in trouble. That also includes the taper crimp.
I checked the press; the sizing die appears to be about as far down as it can reasonably be when the shellplate is cammed with it:
You actually don't want the shell plate touching the die, but you need it to come as close as possible. So I use a sheet of paper as a feeler gauge. That will set the clearance at ~0.003". If you can pull the paper out without taring the paper you're OK.
The brass (no matter the headstamp) is not bulged after firing, only when loaded:
You have made the erroneous assumption that irregularities in the brass that will keep it from loading can be seen with the naked eye. That is absolutely NOT true. As stated earlier in this post, a good caliper and a good micrometer are needed.
The 135gr projectiles are hard coated lead, all very uniform at around 0.355".
What happened to lead projectiles being 0.356-0.357" ?
Tried barrel dropping a few, one had no chance with an OAL shorter than one which almost chambered.
The "barrel plunk test" will only prove you have issues. It won't tell you want the issues are.
My thinking was the FCD would simply make all rounds uniform without having to barrel drop every one and pull those which don't chamber.
And really that's what Lee wants you to believe. Buy this die and all your troubles will be over. Nothing can be further from the truth. You still need to learn to adjust the FCD, which requires making several measurements, either on production or test cartridges. Even with my one-piece taper crimp dies... I still put a caliper on rounds during every production run. Modern Quality Control mandates that the guy running the machine bring all the dimensions within spec, and make occasional measurements (checks) to keep everything in spec.
Reloading is part art and part science. If you want to load a different powder or bullet every day, or try different OALs, that's the art part. The sky's the limit, as they say.
Then there's the hard science of numbers. You cannot be flippant about meeting the required dimensions. "Close" simply isn't good enough. In reading your post I'm getting this feeling (maybe incorrectly) that you're very casual about dimensions. That simply won't work. Your case heads must be 0.391" or smaller. Your taper crimps must be 0.380" or smaller (hopefully 0.376 to 0.378").
Have you seen this: Taper Crimp: Everything you need to know
Hope this helps.
First up apologies for dragging this post back from the dead...when I last posted my gun had gone back to the importer to get the mag release button swapped over and a pre-B disconnector installed, and unfortunately its still there, 5 months later and I've not been able to fire a single shot out of it yet. So sorry if you thought I was intentionally ignoring your post, Wobbly...had been hoping to at least try some loads before now.
I have to agree with you that I've never measured OAL before so from that standpoint I have indeed been "casual" about dimensions, then again shooting an M&P I could afford to be - if it fitted in the magazine with many varying lengths, it fired, no questions asked. Over 40,000 rounds later I could apparently afford to be lax. Obviously the Shadow is going to be a very different animal.
(and yes sorry for the typo on .356 lol)
No, nobody shoot 9mm major at my club, nor any other club I know of...anyone wanting to go major uses .38super or .357sig (.40 being illegal here)
Thank you very much for going to the trouble of explaining and throwing up the taper crimp link....understanding your comments on the FCD, I purchased a Lee resizing and decapping die to run the brass through prior to priming etc, bypassing the Square deal resizing die altogether. Measuring the resized brass, all the case heads are .391 or smaller and on loading a few test rounds, you are right the taper crimp comes in at exactly .378".
Now all I need is my gun back to try barrel dropping them
lol
