Do not over think it. A die that you can properly adjust is the starting point. After that you can now adjust that die to set the case shoulder where it needs to be. Simple. Not a saga unless u let it be
Problem resizing 300 WSM brass fires in two Remington 700 rifles
- Thread starter RSA1
- Start date
Do not over think it. A die that you can properly adjust is the starting point. After that you can now adjust that die to set the case shoulder where it needs to be. Simple. Not a saga unless u let it be
Soooo true!! Sheesh, some people are so paranoid that they should just stay in bed all day lest some disaster overtakes them as soon as they set a foot on the floor.
Dave.
There is also a Will Rogers Quote: Some people learn by being told, others learn by reading . . . other just have to pi$$ on an electric fence to learn.
And from W C Fields: “Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ”
Hi All,
Note to b72471, "I always remember that OLD saying; you can lead a horse to water BUT be dam!ed if you can make him drink". Yes, I also know of a saying "...the blind leading the blind". Do I follow your advice, or Dave that says cut 0.005" off the die, or the other suggestion of 0.020". It is only four times more, so is this a case (no pun intended) cutting off more is better, ignore headspace and case head separation?
Dave, I have come to read many of your posts and have found your input to be valuable, and you seemed very experienced. I now find it very disappointing that you become emotional because I am cautious to follow your advice. My dilemma is do I take your word for it, or do I trust published advice, in a reputable source, scrutinised by others, and go with their caution. Please do not feel insulted because I do not want to follow your advice and use it for making ammunition fit in my two friends Remington rifles. I wonder what Remington would advise me to do?
Anyway, I am done with this and will start a new thread reporting the findings of the 3 batches (Winchester plain brass and nickel plated, as well as Federal plain brass) of once fired cases which I have received from 3 different sources. The most obvious FACT found with just measuring these cases is that none of those cases exceed 0.5555" in the web/head area after being once fired, and most are 0.5545" on actually 0.555". This is much smaller than the 0.005" (0.560") to 0.008" (0.563") over size case dimensions of the Winchester ammo fired in the two "identical" Remington rifles.
Kind regards to All,
RSA1
Note to b72471, "I always remember that OLD saying; you can lead a horse to water BUT be dam!ed if you can make him drink". Yes, I also know of a saying "...the blind leading the blind". Do I follow your advice, or Dave that says cut 0.005" off the die, or the other suggestion of 0.020". It is only four times more, so is this a case (no pun intended) cutting off more is better, ignore headspace and case head separation?
Dave, I have come to read many of your posts and have found your input to be valuable, and you seemed very experienced. I now find it very disappointing that you become emotional because I am cautious to follow your advice. My dilemma is do I take your word for it, or do I trust published advice, in a reputable source, scrutinised by others, and go with their caution. Please do not feel insulted because I do not want to follow your advice and use it for making ammunition fit in my two friends Remington rifles. I wonder what Remington would advise me to do?
Anyway, I am done with this and will start a new thread reporting the findings of the 3 batches (Winchester plain brass and nickel plated, as well as Federal plain brass) of once fired cases which I have received from 3 different sources. The most obvious FACT found with just measuring these cases is that none of those cases exceed 0.5555" in the web/head area after being once fired, and most are 0.5545" on actually 0.555". This is much smaller than the 0.005" (0.560") to 0.008" (0.563") over size case dimensions of the Winchester ammo fired in the two "identical" Remington rifles.
Kind regards to All,
RSA1
SouthWest Guy
CGN Regular
- Location
- Leduc County ,AB
Looks like small base dies should help
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
The ridge you see at the web of the case is the solid portion of the case that is not easily expanded or resized. Right now, you are unable to chamber full length resized cartridges because you are unable to bump the shoulder back enough to allow the bolt to close freely. The full length sizing die makes firm contact with the shell holder and can go no further. The options seem to be obvious. You either need to shorten the die or you need to reduce the height of the shell holder. Either option is viable and safe provided you proceed in an intelligent manner.
If you color the neck and shoulder of a case with a permanent marker, it will allow you to easily see the portion of the case which is resized, and you can quickly adjust the die down until it makes contact with the shoulder of the case, then incrementally adjust the sizing die until your cartridge chambers. Once you've got to this point you will have to decide if you will use this ammo in both rifles or if you will attempt to optimally resizing the brass for each rifle. I'd be surprised if the ammo that was resized for the smaller chamber would lead to case head separation in the longer one, but its possible.
I have a number of .30/06 rifles in my house, so I resize to minimum dimensions, so I can use all the ammo in any of the rifles. I seldom encounter case cracking at the web, never mind a case head separation, but now and then it occurs. Occasionally when I load ammo for other people, they come back and say they can't close the bolt on a round, and I warn them that its possible and to check the cycling of their ammo prior top going afield. To fix for this, I use a Redding .308 body die which allows me to bump the shoulder of a loaded round, either .308 or .30/06. If they bring their rifle over, I normally have them on their way in just a few minutes. You could purchase a Redding .300 WSM body die to tweak the ammo for the rifle with the tighter chamber. The problem with FL resizing differently for the same cartridge, which is used in two different rifles, is identifying the loaded ammo for each rifle. Probably the best way is to use a different manufacture of brass for each rifle.
Provided the resized brass chambers easily in the rifle, so should the loaded round. But sometimes, particularly if you're chasing the lead, the ogive of the bullet is too far forward to allow the cartridge to fully chamber and difficulty in closing the bolt is experienced. Seating the bullet a bit deeper into the case neck resolves the problem.
If you color the neck and shoulder of a case with a permanent marker, it will allow you to easily see the portion of the case which is resized, and you can quickly adjust the die down until it makes contact with the shoulder of the case, then incrementally adjust the sizing die until your cartridge chambers. Once you've got to this point you will have to decide if you will use this ammo in both rifles or if you will attempt to optimally resizing the brass for each rifle. I'd be surprised if the ammo that was resized for the smaller chamber would lead to case head separation in the longer one, but its possible.
I have a number of .30/06 rifles in my house, so I resize to minimum dimensions, so I can use all the ammo in any of the rifles. I seldom encounter case cracking at the web, never mind a case head separation, but now and then it occurs. Occasionally when I load ammo for other people, they come back and say they can't close the bolt on a round, and I warn them that its possible and to check the cycling of their ammo prior top going afield. To fix for this, I use a Redding .308 body die which allows me to bump the shoulder of a loaded round, either .308 or .30/06. If they bring their rifle over, I normally have them on their way in just a few minutes. You could purchase a Redding .300 WSM body die to tweak the ammo for the rifle with the tighter chamber. The problem with FL resizing differently for the same cartridge, which is used in two different rifles, is identifying the loaded ammo for each rifle. Probably the best way is to use a different manufacture of brass for each rifle.
Provided the resized brass chambers easily in the rifle, so should the loaded round. But sometimes, particularly if you're chasing the lead, the ogive of the bullet is too far forward to allow the cartridge to fully chamber and difficulty in closing the bolt is experienced. Seating the bullet a bit deeper into the case neck resolves the problem.
RSA1 I apologize if I came across as a bit perturbed by your reluctance to follow sound advice from more than one experienced reloader. It seems we are going in circles here....a bit frustrating.
You'll note that Boomer has now reinforced what we were trying to say, and he is another reloader with a lot of experience.
I'm relatively certain that Remington would be in our camp on this matter as well. It is not the diameter at the base that is your problem.
Regards, Dave.
Hi Guys,
Thank you all for the input.
Nothing I tried worked, so in desperation I polished 0.002" inch off my Lee shellholder, and 0.002" off the Lee FL die. And guess what? The resized cases now chamber in the one rifle which I have been able to try it in.
This proves that some of the earliest advice given above (and thank you to all) to trim 0.005", was the correct advice. I am very cautious, and tried to get it going with only 0.004", and it worked. Sorry for frustrating those of you that have tried this before, and tried to help me, but it is not my rifle involved, and I did not want to damage a friend's rifle, or worse, have a case head separation with their reloads.
Keep up the good work (Dave and a few others, some very obvious Sunrxx excluded)!
Regards,
RSA1
Thank you all for the input.
Nothing I tried worked, so in desperation I polished 0.002" inch off my Lee shellholder, and 0.002" off the Lee FL die. And guess what? The resized cases now chamber in the one rifle which I have been able to try it in.
This proves that some of the earliest advice given above (and thank you to all) to trim 0.005", was the correct advice. I am very cautious, and tried to get it going with only 0.004", and it worked. Sorry for frustrating those of you that have tried this before, and tried to help me, but it is not my rifle involved, and I did not want to damage a friend's rifle, or worse, have a case head separation with their reloads.
Keep up the good work (Dave and a few others, some very obvious Sunrxx excluded)!
Regards,
RSA1
- Location
- Banana Republik of Kebekistan
I like and use Redding stuff so in support of earlier (and excellent) suggestions, here is what I would try before shaving off a few thousands from your sizing die:
Straight from the Redding catalogue. My guess is that the other guys are doing them too.
"COMPETITION SHELLHOLDER SETS
Makes every die a custom die!
Now you can control headspace. The new Redding Competition Shellholders are packaged in five piece sets in .002” increments (+.002”, +.004”. +.006”, +.008” and +.010”). Each shellholder has a distinct black oxide finish and is clearly marked to indicate the amount it will decrease case-to-chamber headspace. You can now easily adjust the shoulder bump to customize cases to your specific chamber"
Straight from the Redding catalogue. My guess is that the other guys are doing them too.
"COMPETITION SHELLHOLDER SETS
Makes every die a custom die!
Now you can control headspace. The new Redding Competition Shellholders are packaged in five piece sets in .002” increments (+.002”, +.004”. +.006”, +.008” and +.010”). Each shellholder has a distinct black oxide finish and is clearly marked to indicate the amount it will decrease case-to-chamber headspace. You can now easily adjust the shoulder bump to customize cases to your specific chamber"
I have been following this thread and I note there is something that could affect the cases not going in a chamber that has not been mentioned and that is annealing the cases.
I have had three different rifles, two in 243 calibre and one in 7-08, where full length resized cases that had been shot in other rifles, would not go in the chamber, after full length resizing with RCBS dies and the dies turned in for a good over cam.
In every instance I annealed the old brass that the bolt wouldn't close on, resized them again and every time the brass case would then go in the chamber and the bolt would close on them, in a normal manner.
I first encountered this fifty years ago with the hot loaded Norma ammunition in 7x61 S&H and 8mm Norma magnum, shot in Schultz and Larson rifles. I think I still have the shell holder I ground down a bit, trying that method, also.
And Grouch, if you are reading this, you will know where that was!
Bruce
I have had three different rifles, two in 243 calibre and one in 7-08, where full length resized cases that had been shot in other rifles, would not go in the chamber, after full length resizing with RCBS dies and the dies turned in for a good over cam.
In every instance I annealed the old brass that the bolt wouldn't close on, resized them again and every time the brass case would then go in the chamber and the bolt would close on them, in a normal manner.
I first encountered this fifty years ago with the hot loaded Norma ammunition in 7x61 S&H and 8mm Norma magnum, shot in Schultz and Larson rifles. I think I still have the shell holder I ground down a bit, trying that method, also.
And Grouch, if you are reading this, you will know where that was!
Bruce
I've had my Sako A7 in 300wsm for several years and had to remove a little off the shell holder as well, and I also anneal now and again. I chose to just shave the shell holder as it is cheaper to replace, but this worked for me and have so for years.
Good shooting!
Good shooting!
- Location
- Haliburton County, Central Ontario
Dave and Boomer have it correct IMO. I have a .270 WSM the brass from which would not chamber in the BLR after being resized. After scratching my head, trying three different brands of dies, and taking some measurements, it became apparent that even though the press was set to cam over fairly heavily on the shell holder with each die, the shoulders were not being bumped back enough. I thought of shortening the die itself, but then decided to take incremental amounts off a $7 shell holder in stead. When I got to .008" off the shell holder the resized brass finally chambered. A good snug fit, but not an issue in closing the lever. A small base die is not the answer here. Again, IMO. This has been covered on CGN before, and seems to be a common problem with all the WSM chamberings. I thought this at first to be a Browning issue with very close chambering tolerances (i.e. barely a 'go'), but last year I actually found a gun magazine that addressed this very issue in a different manufacturer's rifle wherein the author of the article arrived at the same remedy.
RSA1
I am glad u have taken a chance on the good advise and found results. I noticed u said u removed .002 off each the die and the shell holder. May I ask why both and why only .004. The reason I ask is the reason some people advised to take only off the die only and up to .020 is becuase it all has to do with the proper die adjustment after it's been cut. So a die with .020 taken off would have resulted in the same results you got if adjusted properly. There was no reason to take off anything from the shell holder.
Just an observation
