Reloading for the 7.62x38mmR Nagant Revolver, Part 2

(Part 1 can be found here)

My new Lee Classic Cast Breechlock Challenger (that's a mouthful) press arrived yesterday, so I set it up to reform 100 .32-20 cases for the Nagant. I gave the cases a light spray of lube, let it dry, and the reforming went fast. The Challenger  is a heavy-duty press that doesn't flex at all under this sort of light reforming, and it should be useful for a number of future projects. (Makes me wish I'd gotten the cast steel version of their Turret press, too.)

I had decided earlier to reload the Graf 98gr plated DEWC bullets over 3.2gr of Trail Boss. I put a #13 rotor  in my RCBS powder measure, loaded a case, inserted a bullet, put it in the press, and immediately ran into some difficulties. The Graf DEWC (which I suspect is really from Barry's) doesn't have a crimp groove, and the only way to load it is to seat it just below the case mouth, and do a gentle roll crimp. The problem with that is that there's nothing to keep the bullets from moving backwards. Experimenting with crimp and seating I ended up accordioning a number of cases, which presented the problem of how to disassemble them? I ended up using a pipe cutter, discarding the powder, killing the seated primers with oil and discarding the whole mess.

I suspect that Graf chose these bullets as being the closest thing to the factory loaded bullet, which is actually a steel core jacketed bullet, but I haven't found anyone on line who's using them for 7.26x38R loads. I decided to take the advice of The Nagant Man, as he calls himself, and purchased a box of 500 115gr 0.312" flat-nosed cast lead bullets from Midway. These have a crimp groove as well as lube and will be seated over 3.5gr of Trail Boss.

I also decided to order a Lee .32-20 Factory Crimp Die, based on my experience using 4-die sets with a separate crimp on various handgun calibers. It's really much easier to seat a bullet with one die, and crimp it with another. You get less shaving of lead, and I've never accordioned a case using this method.

(On to Part 3)