loose bullets

Alleno

I have been reloading for years and found something today I cant explain. I reloading several hundered 357 Mag rounds with the hornady xtp and near max doses of H110. I have shot these quite a bit and they work great. Today I carried my handgun while cutting firewood with these rounds loaded. After I was done I was at home wiping down the gun and brushing off the ammo to get all the sawdust off. While doing this I noticed that the bullets on several of my reloads would rotate inside the case. I applied what I thought was a pretty heavy crimp when I worked these up, but now some bullets will rotate inside the cases. Is it possible for a crimp to "let go". I admit I have much more experience loading lead rounds, but I have never had this happen before with either lead or jacketed. Is it safe to assume these would still be safe to fire? Thanks for your thoughts.

Tailgunner1954

It's possible to apply "to much" crimp, and lossen the tension between the bullet and the case.
The crimp is there to prevent bullet movement under recoil, it's case tension that holds the bullet.
IOW, those cases were overcrimped.

dakotashooter2

YEP To much crimp will often push down on the case causing it to expand below the crimpand loosten it's grip on the bullet. Too much can occassionally cause chambering problems.

Alleno

Well I never would have thought of having too much crimp. I will check into that, thank you.

bpost

BTDT.
Back the die off 1/4 turn it will get all better.

Alleno

Thanks for the input, I will take your advice. In my mind since I was using a really slow powder I needed a really heavy crimp, guess I got to much of a good thing.

RCrosby

Long shot, but maybe worth mentionning. I picked up a quantity of hard cast 9mm once that look identical to .357 that I have from the same source. I had some "loose bullets" once, and sure enough, the 9's had found their way into my .357 ammo. Worked decent enough , actually, but they aren't held very tight.

Mobuck

Depending on how many of the "loose" bullets you have, it might be worthwhile to invest in one of the "factory profile" or similar dies that fully size the finished cartridge as the final step in the loadied sequence.