I havent run into this until the last couple of days. When i go to seat a hard cast bullet in a .475 case is seems to be out of round because i get uneven lead shavings. Is the neck/ball expander worn down? I havent changed anything else. This set of dies has relaoded about one thousand rounds. The bullets are not out of round but the case mouths are after i resize them. The brass is the same . I mike the expander and its just fine. Any ideas would be greatly apreciated. Thanks Hard Cast

The problem is not in tooling or your bullets. It's the case itself, when the brass slug is drawn. The brass is work hardend from punching of the slug thru the drawing process. And one side of the case maybe harder than the other. When resizing and expanding the mouth the softer brass is worked easyer. You will windup with a case mouth out of round. This is where setting your expanding die to give a very slight flair to the case mouth so the cast bullet base will clear case mouth. Very slight just enough to clear the lead no more or you will work harden the brass and windup with case mouth splits and have to discard the case. Good luck TF

A good trick it to just touch the inside of each case mouth with a chamfering tool, right before each loading (and after you've expanded).

That helps a lot to keep from shaving the bullets. I use one of the adapters so I can run the chamfering tool in a drill press.

You might also check that the case mouths are square to the axis of the case. If one side is shorter than the other, the short side will be flared less.

Just to complicate life futher, if you have or can borrow a ball-end micrometer or the NECO case gauge (other's may make this measurement, but I own the NECO, so I know it does), check the necks for uneven brass thickness. It is common and will also cause uneven expansion. You can solve it by oustside neck turning.

Case brass is annealed at the neck to relieve forming stress, then polished (unless it is military, for which the spec prohibits post-annealing polishing so you can see the heat stain (oxides) on the neck). It will, however, gradually work harden from reloading, and this work hardening will be uneven when the brass is uneven in thickness. You have the option of re-annealing by heating the brass to about 700°F at the neck and quenching it while it is still hot. The caseheads must never get above 400°F, or the brass will be too weak to hold pressure. The usual means of accomplishing these ends is to set the brass into a tray with enough water to cover the heads and maybe half way up the sides, then heat the necks and shoulders with a propane torch, knocking them over into the water as they come up to temperature. A temperature indicating crayon from a welding supply house is used to identify the correct moment. With practice you can tell by the color of the brass.

Thank you all for the information. I called my son up and he ran some virgin brass over last night and the problem went away, but my expanded is .0015 smaller that his, so im gonna buy a new one. Thanks very much for your information, it will no go to waste. Hard Cast