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Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 376 Location: North ID.

I've loaded up some 1 oz loads into once fired 2.5" RST (cheddite) hulls. When I shot the first box at trap a few days back, I discovered that I had to push the shells into the chamber of my Mdl 12, 16 ga. They ejected fine after firing, but very tight in the loading! I pulled the load from the 16 ga reloaders group. 19.5 gr 7625, SG wad, CCI 209 primer and 1 oz lead.

I went to the Mec website, and it said that the cause of this, is more than likely, and I paraphrase, too much stuff in the hull.

I've tried a few different things, including resetting the crimp starter and final crimp adjustment, without any success.

Any recommendations/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Cameron

Hello

If you have a dial indicator or a micrometer, please measure the diameter of the ammo just in front of the brass and also at the mouth of the ammo,
They should be the same diameter. I would bet the ammo mouth needs a bull nose. This can be done using the press or after loading with a supersizer.

Please tell us those measurements

Thanks
Mike

Member Joined: 27 Jun 2005 Posts: 1545 Location: Michigan

Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 596 Location: 17603

ID,
Almost certainly nose taper on the hull, I've been having a bit of trouble with new Cheddite hulls and the taper crimp on my PW 800, even with 2 3/4" hulls, for feeding in my A5's, VERY critical on the autoloaders that you get a hull that "drops in" to the chamber.
A tweak on the nose with a SuperSizer with a 20ga die/collet does the trick.
Once fired hulls, now with a bit of memory in the plastic, present no problem.
shootingsioux I believe has experimented with altering the crimp die on the MEC's to overcome the problem with the short hulls.
Maybe he'll chime in, or do a search on this board for taper crimp.
Cheers,
R*2

Guest

MEC, Final crimp dies properly adjusted, will put a nice taper on the hull of any length cartridge.

The best way to properly set the final crimp die is to reload several hulls and stop after the hulls are cycled thru the crimp starter.

Back off the plunger 2 turns or so and make sure that the cam adjustment is in the center of its travel. Run a hull thru the final crimp. Now turn the plunger down untill you have a crimp depth of approximately 1/16". No deeper. After you have the depth correct look at the crimp end from the side and look to see if there is a bell mouth. If there is a bell mouth, turn the cam counter clockwise a small amount at a time until the bell mouth is gone.

Over doing either of these adjustments will crush the hull.

All of the above will only work if you start with the proper wad column height.
On a 16 gauge the components should be about 5/16" or so from the end of the hull on a star crimped load.

The crimp starter is also a very important setting in getting a good final crimp.

The other issue is that when you want to reload to a shorter hull on the MEC the hull length needs to be the actual hull length you want plus nothing to -1/16".

Example 2 1/2" hulls need to be 2 1/2" to 2 7/16" if you cut them off longer you will get into trouble, or have to to some weird stuff with the final crimp die to make it work.

Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 376 Location: North ID.

Thanks guys. Excellent advise all!

Looking at the crimped end of the case, they do have a bell mouth! I can visually see that this is the case.

The reloader is an older Mec 600 jr, and I found that I can get, or so it seems, adjusted low enough without a short kit!

I'll go back to the drawing board and follow the advise given here on getting the settings correct.

Thanks again, your advise is appreciated!

Cameron

Yeah, I also found that my 600 would adjust enough to do short hulls, It just takes a little playing to get it right. I now have been loading more full length so I ne.ed to look at getting a short kit for mine, gets to be a pain to keep adjusting, or invest in another loader.