.204 neck swelling

[red_munro]

hello,
i'm not a reloader but buddy is having trouble when seating nosler .204 into hornady once fired brass. he says the neck swells and he isn't able to advance the bolt to the closed position. any ideas??

thanks in advance

red

 

[Fassteel]

Is he meaning that the brass needs to be trimmed? I have shot this brass several times and haven't needed to trim it. But then again I don't load for max velocity. FS

 

[Fassteel]

I thought that if you have trouble closing you bolt on a round that the full length sizing was not done correctly. FS

 

[red_munro]

he seems to think the neck is bulging i think...would that be caused by the same thing?? improper full length sizing?? should he maybe double check his OAL?? and casecase length by the sounds of it??

thanks for the help

red

 

[Mount Sweetness]

It's very possible that the sizing die and/or bullet seating die is not set up properly, when trying to seat the bullet you end up actually crushing the bottle neck angle....leaving it ever so slightly mushroomed.
I had this problem with my .22-250, die was not set up properly.

 

[sunray]

Is he using proper equipment or just trying to stuff the bullet in? His seating die isn't set up right. Have him loosen the seating plug, then set up the die so it just kisses the shell holder with the ram all the way up and lock it. Then adjust the seater to get the OAL he wants. If he's crimping, tell him to stop. Too much crimp can cause the case to bulge.
"...full length sizing was not done correctly..." There are multiple causes. Bad resizing is certainly one of 'em. Likely the most common too. Die is down too far and the shoulder bulges.

 

[rembolt]

check to be sure your not trying to seat a .224 bullet in stead of a .204

 

[Pathfinder]

Does the resized brass chamber on its own ?

if not:

Tell him the screw the FL die down a little bit at a time until he can chamber his brass.