Gary Reeder
I was loading up some 44 Special last night
Thursday, December 11, 2025, 17:16

to take to the shop today. They are selling a ton of 44 Special ammo these days. One of my Dillon presses is set up for 44 Special so that saves me a lot of time and curse words getting one all set up. On the first stroke of the handle the thing locket up. I looked at every thing I could think of that will shut one down. I pulled each die, one at a time. I got a flashlight and looked to see if one of the dies is too close to the shell holder. Looked to see if the sizer die somehow got turned too far down and maybe the decapping rod was too close to the inside of the brass. After about an hour and quite a few words that Jim Taylor wouldn't approve of, I started all over, one die at a time. Finally pulling each die looking for the culprit and the sizer die was the only one that caused problems. I looked up inside the sizer die and noticed there was something up inside that that shouldn't be there. I unscrewed the decapping rod and there it was. a small caliber piece of brass was attached to the deacpping rod. A few ungentlemanly words and a pair of pliers solved the problem. Somehow a piece of 380 brass got inside the 44 Special brass when they were tumbled and the polishing compound wedged between it and the inside of the 44 Special brass. I normally check each piece of brass before I put it in the sizer die but this time I took it for granted.
When I decapped a piece of 44 brass the decapping pin had gone right thru, dead center, a piece of 380 brass and it was stuck about halfway down the decapping pin stopping it from decapping the 44 brass. And it was stuck tight on the decapping pin taking a good bit to wiggle it off the pin. I have had this happen before but not for quite a few years.