[BILLYBOB44]

Good looking loads!

Good job, juice. Once you got all the kinks worked out, your loads look good. I will agree with hunter joe on you needing a caliper to measure your cart, overall length. The overall length is a VERY important spec. in hand loading. I seat all bullets to the spec. listed in the load books, for that particular bullet. All load books that I have read for the 9mm, tell you to NOT seat deeper than specs. for that bullet. Bullets seated too deep will increase the pressure of the load. Some times to an unsafe level. Your loads in pict. look good .I usually keep around various factory loads to set the seater punch on my hand loads. Use your Gold bullet factory load for adjustments for your hand loads. The rule of thumb is=Too long+will not fit magazine--Too short+will have too HI of pressure. Seat bullets in a semi-auto deep enough to not hang in your magazine, and you'll be OK. Keep up the GOOD work

 

[BILLYBOB44]

An ideal tool

Juice, I don't remember if I mentioned or not, but a great little accessory to hand loading is a loaded cart. case gauge. All it is, is a sleeve of metal, that has the exact inside case dimensions of the cal. that you are loading. Put the loaded round in the tool, and the round should go in below flush. If it does, it will fit any gun in that cal. The stainless ones from Dillon are $12.95 each. If you contact Dillon at Dillon Precision: Reloaders, Reloading Equipment, Bullet Reloading, Bullet Reloaders They will send you a Great little catalogue, that has all of their toys listed=neat little book! If/when you get the tool, in 9mm, place a loaded factory round in it, and you will see how all of your handloads should fit in also.

 

[BILLYBOB44]

Head space.

If you over crimp you can cause it to not headspace correctly. Most of your rimed handgun cartridges like the 9mm and 45acp headspace off the casemouth so the proper amount of headspace is critical.

+1 For Tango on case head space. "Rimless" case design is very dependent on amount of crimp for proper head space. As stated before, an overall cartridge case gauge comes in handy for checking this critical spec. Another way (that's more work) to do this is to field strip your weapon, drop in a factory load, and check the clearance to the end of the barrel. With a clean barrel, the cart. will go in, fall out easy. Adjust your taper crimp on your hand loads so that the reloaded cart. will drop in and out just as easy. Use your dial caliper to measure overall length of your loaded cart. also, and adjust per spec. for that exact bullet, out of a quality load book, like Speer,Sierra, Hornady,Lyman, etc. I really like Lyman's 48th Edition Reloading Handbook, as it is full of info. on all loads-jacketed+cast. Check for this book at your local library=You'll probably want to buy one HA

 

[BILLYBOB44]

Yes you can have too tight of crimp

I will do that test with the field stripped bullet for sure but assuming the bullet goes in the barrel just the same as the factory load does is where my question lies...

perhaps either im not understanding what you guys are saying, or you aren't understanding what I am asking because I am asking it wrong but what Im wondering is; is it possible to have not enough flare at the head of the cartridge?

I know now from experience that it is possible to have too much flare so i tightened it quite a bit, but is it possible to have it too tight? or is the rule of thumb that as long as it is big enough for the bullet to seat properly, its ok?

As noted by Tango, you need just enough "Bell" to your primed cases, to start the bullet tip to case, without shaving the bullet when seating. Also,YES you can have too much taper crimp, after seating bullet to case. This will cause the load to go too far into chamber=NOT enough headspace. Back off your crimp die-insert loaded uncrimped round-adjust down crimp die to touch firmly on said round at the top of the press stroke-adjust in crimp die 1/4 turn at a time, until load will drop in+fall out of the chamber of your barrel easy. After you reach this point, tighten down the lock ring and you are good to go. If you stay in reloading game, Juice, you will want to buy those additional tools as mentioned before