I was working on loading up some test rounds to take to the range with me for my .222. I have never relaoded for it until now but have had the components to do so. Anyhow I have 100 hornady 50gr sp that were givin to me and 100 52 gr speer hp that I wanted to test out and 500 55gr nosler Belistic tips. I wanted to start with hornady and get them shot up for now and then try out the hp's. When attempting to seat the bullet on the hornadys I didnt get the die set right for the dummy round and caved the shoulder of the brass in. I did this to 2 brass and switched to the hp's thinking it may be an issue with the bullets (I had to tumble them as they were pretty dirty when I got them). I finally discovered what the H3ll I was going wrong ( I am a F*cking idiot sometimes). I then went ahead and made up a dummy round using the hp's but when I tried to run it through the gun to be sure it would feed I discovered it would not and in the process I shoved the bullet into the brass. Ha ha ha! I adjusted the die to then crimp and put together a dummy round for all 3 bullet types. All seem to fit the chamber just fine but the hp's will not feed. I was not anticipating this as I have a bolt action and figured they would work fine. I would offer them to my father in law for his .223 but he has the same issue I have but his is an auto. Anyone have any suggestions other then giving the bullets to someone who could use them?

work out why!!! the 52grn hp speers are deadly medicine .what is going wrong for them not to feed? my zastava feeds everything I shove in it. are they too long still??? My BIG BRO used these in a bruno fox in .222 no dramas.

Check out the actual bullet length as well as the seating depth of those hollow-points. A hollow-point of any given weight will be longer than a spire-point because of the cavity. Don't rely on using the same seating-stem adjustment for all three bullet types. The ogive of each is very likely to be different and your seating stem could well be allowing one or more to be seated farther out as a result. This could explain the lack of feeding. Just a couple ideas to check into. Good luck.

I will check into the seating depth. I am playing with the seating deapth for my gun and the hallow points just wont clear the feeding ramp. It is possible that I do have the bullet seated to far forward. When setting the seating deapth and trying to find what will feed in my gun I found that I can seat the bullet at least .040 over SAAMI. Should I try this or should I go with a shorter round?

Well, if it won't feed it isn't going to be much use...

Ditto what SSL said. If it was me I'd just pick a seating depth that will work in the magazine and feed OK and then start playing with powder charges to find an accurate load. After finding a good charge weight then you can try playing with seating depth to see if you can tweak it any better. I've shot the Speer 52 grain JHPs in .22 Hornet, .223 and .220 Swift without problems.

The magazine is able to hold a round that is longer then what the gun is able to chamber actually. The only one of the 3 rounds it won't feed is the hallow point otherwise the others feed fine at the depth I have the bullets set to. Maybe I should set the bullet depth for the Hallow points at SAAMI specifications and see if they will feed. I would then have to adjust the die specifically for that bullet but I can handle that if they work good.

Are you adjusting the seater die to get the same OAL on all three bullets? What is that OAL you are using?

If you leave the seater at the same setting the bullets will not be the same OAL and I will bet not even the same jump to the lands although that measurement would be closer to the same using the bullets you mention.

The seating stem does not push on the top of a bullet. It is hollow and beveled and contacts at some point along the profile of the bullet between the ogive and the tip. Hollow points are notoriously hard to control the ogive to tip dimension when manufacturing. In high dollar match bullets you can find up to 0.010" variation which will show up in th OAL while the ogiv edistance stays the same or varies less than .001".

do not give up on 52 hps yet - but if you do send them here...

I know that the OAL on the hollow point and the sp is right around 2.170 which is about .030 over SAAMI. The BT is more then that but I am not sure exactly how much more. The BT is a longer bullet and heavier. I know the OAL is going to be different so I should set my die differently for each type of bullet but I was just messing around with some dummies.

A short squatty bullet seated to the same OAL as a slender pointy one may engage the rifing sooner than you want it too.

TLO - we have all made mistakes in learning how to reload. All successful reloaders are always students of the art. It sounds like you may have forgotten to chamfer the outside of the mouth and it may be hanging up when you are chambering the round. Like DD said you will want to adjust for all the different bullets that you are using. Best of luck.

Actually what is happening is the hollow point tip is catching on the ramp kind of like the front of the bullet is not getting high enough in order to clear the ramp enough to chamber.

Here's an idea for those of you that don't want to keep re-adjusting your dies for different bullets or guns.
Works with sizing and seating dies.

www.sinclairintl.com/....it-7-8-14-

tlo7mm wrote:

Actually what is happening is the hollow point tip is catching on the ramp kind of like the front of the bullet is not getting high enough in order to clear the ramp enough to chamber.

Maybe you could smooth out the rough edge on the point?

C221- good find!

Thats cool, I might consider getting those in the future but for now I am just going to adjust my die and I think I may just set up my test loads at SAAMI specs and then mess with changing the seating depth when I get a recipe that works to my liking.

I would suggest trying them seated deeper. that way the tip may clear the ramp if the body gets past the lips of the magazine. or something like that.