Bringing up an older thread as I am loading 6.5x55 at the moment.
Brand new Winchester (blue bag) brass are measuring .4715 - .472 at the case head. Noticeably smaller than the NUY brass at .479
Interesting that they would use smaller case heads (understand it from a supply management standpoint) when the Lyman 50th edition loading handbook states:
Shooters loading for the Swede should under no circumstances attempt to form brass from 30-06 cases. Case diameter of the 30-06 runs .008" to .010"
smaller than the Swedish cartridge. Such reformed cases will bulge dramatically when fired, or worse.
The Lyman manual shows the case head diameter as .480".
Also was loading some 1x fired Remington cases last night with 100 gr Nosler BT (going to try on wolves). I needed 5 more cases for the box of 50 and used 1x fired Winchester cases. All resized, chamfered etc at the same time. The bullets fell through the case necks on the Winchesters and sat on the powder load for all of them. Tested with some of the other 40 resized 1x fired Winchester cases and same thing. No issues with the Remington cases or the NUY cases (which are going to be used in another bullet weight).
I've made up 6.5x55 brass from all sorts of different cases. There was a time when the only ammo available (1973) was Dominion, loaded with 160grn round nose bullets.
There was a raging controversy back then that making cases from other cartridge configurations was going to result in catastrophic failures.
Most of the derision came out of US firearms magazines.
Horsefeathers says I. Let common sense take over.
.005 is NOTHING. If it were, North American manufacturers, especially those in the US, who are litigation shy, wouldn't even consider doing it. Yet they don't seem to be bothered.
It may make a very minuscule difference if you're full length resizing every time MAYBE.
There is more variation in chambers than .005. Does that mean you have find a source for brass cases that only makes cases for your rifles specific chamber???
This isn't alchemy or rocket science. There is a bit of leeway in all of it.
Some of the longest lasting 6.5 Swede cases I have are made up from IVI 7.62x51 BLANK cartridges. I made those up back in the early eighties and still have a hundred left. They've all been reloaded a few dozen times. Yes, there is a bit of stretching on the web. Is it going anywhere??? No.
I shot that stuff out of ag42B rifles without any issues. It was also shot through M94/38/96 rifles and later a Remington 700 Classic with maximum chamber dimensions, no issues. I've even shot it in my Tikka T3, with very stout loads.
