.303 British reloading. HELP!!!!

LawrenceN

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Ok, to all you gurus out there, I'm having a bit of a problem. I'm loading once fired IVI brass, trimmed to 2.19 OAL. I'm using IMR4350 at 44 gr. for 174 Gr. flat base FMJ. These are old FNB ball bullets pulled from surplus stuff years ago which I recently tumbled to clean off the oxidization. When I go to seat the bullet, they are getting stuck in the bullet seater itself. I mean to the point that they actually pulled the bullet out of the casing. If I turn my seating die down any further, I risk over crimping the bullet in the case, and we all know what that could potentially do. I'm going to play with it some more, but any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
 
If the bullets were pulled years ago is there a chance they got mixed up and may be a larger diameter? A quick check with the calipre would show this.
 
Its possible that the bullet tip might be pointed enough that it will stick in the seater stem and you might need to get a stem with a slightly different inner configuration such as a stem for a semi-pointed bullet.
I have the same problem with a 6.5X55 seater with certain bullets if they are really pointy...
 
My 375H&H dies were doing the same thing with X bullets.I tried polishing the bullet seating plug and removing the expander ball.
I finally switched the seater plug with one from my 338 die set.
Wierd.
 
IMR4350 WORKS GREAT IN 303, ALSO H335, 39GR CHARGE WITH 174 BULLET, WITH H335, USE LARGE RIFLE MAGNUM PRIMERS, YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE THE DIFFERENCE WITH MAGNUM PRIMERS, GROUPS WITH THE MAG PRIMERS AT 150YRDS HOT 5 SHOTS,VERY gd group, 2 5/8", without magnun group opened at same distance to about 4.5" My rifle has a basically new cond bore, ive used other powders, as well message me and i can share my data
 
Ok, to all you gurus out there, I'm having a bit of a problem. I'm loading once fired IVI brass, trimmed to 2.19 OAL. I'm using IMR4350 at 44 gr. for 174 Gr. flat base FMJ. These are old FNB ball bullets pulled from surplus stuff years ago which I recently tumbled to clean off the oxidization. When I go to seat the bullet, they are getting stuck in the bullet seater itself. I mean to the point that they actually pulled the bullet out of the casing. If I turn my seating die down any further, I risk over crimping the bullet in the case, and we all know what that could potentially do. I'm going to play with it some more, but any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

First, take your seating plug and polish it up a bit to get rid of any sharp edges. a bit of 400 sandpaper around the nose of a bullet will work.
Secondly, it sounds like you are trying to crimp at the same time you are seating, and perhaps you are jamming the bullet much harder into the seating plug than necessary. Try backing off the seating die until you have no crimp, then seat the bullet to the desired length, and see if you have sticking bullets. Then crimp.
 
Okay all you guys, thank you so much for you input. Some of you came off a tad condescending, but given that you don't know me, it's understandable. I found the problem!!! It was just one bullet that may have been dropped at some point and had the tip slightly flattened and may even have bulged the bullet just enough that it was binding in the seating cup. All the rest are loading fine, so I'm back on track. I tend to be pretty exacting, especially when it comes to reloading, so it had me pretty stumped to tell the truth. There it was, such a simple little thing. I had a VERY knowledgable buddy drop over and double check my set-up, the dies and how they were indexed, and I had everything set up properly. One freakin' bullet!!! Just goes to show ya.
 
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