308 WIN Reloading issue

Gunner4life

Gunner4life

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So I was attempting to reload my first batch of 308 WIN today with 150gr Hornady FMJBTs.

I'm using 1F Federal brass within the OAL after FL sizing.

I made two dummy rounds to check the seating length but encountered a problem here.

The first dummy I made I started at 2.8 (an obvious over length) and worked my way down to 2.68. The whole time my bolt on my Rem 700 would not fully close unless I forced it closed.

I had the same problem with my second dummy round. I even ran it through my case trimmer to bring it slightly under the max length, and still had the same problem. I left the OAL of this one to the same as the factory.

Just to double check everything, I measured a factory cartridge for OAL and it was the same as the second dummy.

I was wondering if anybody had the same experience or solutions to this problem.

tl;dr - Reloading 308, bolt wont close unless forced.
 
Will an empty case with no bullet let you close the bolt easily? If yes, the next step is to back off your seating die a turn or two and readjust you seating stem as usual. you may be crimping as you seat your bullet and pushing down the neck causing the shoulder to bulge a bit. If the bolt won't close on the resized brass, check to make sure your shell holder is contacting the die when fully up. Let us know.
 
You said you Full Length sized the cases. Assuming the die was set up good, and they were sized right you then need to make sure the case is at or below the max case length (as long as it is NOT longer) of 2.015". Then you would seat this 150FMJ to the cannelure on the bullet and it should fit in the magazine and chamber and fire in any .308 Win. There would be no need with a bullet like this to bother with finding optimal OAL. Seating to the cannelure is just fine, whether you crimp or not. OAL max may be listed as 2.800" but you will find these bullets are a little shorter and that is fine. Mine are 2.715" and they will not all be exactly the same due to differences in each bullet (they are not seated by the tip so the measurement from the tip is not exactly the same). One might be 2.715" the next 2.718" etc. This has to due with the position of the ogive on the bullet, and that being the same is more important, but again these are not match bullets.
 
If you are not going to crimp, the easiest way to set your seating die is the following.
with your seating die backed way out, pur a case on the ram and raise the ram completely up.
Keeping the ram up, screw in the seating die until you feel it touch the case mouth. If you screw it in more you will crimp, I usually back off a full turn and lock it there.
You now can play with the seating stem to get the lenght you want. Hope this helps.
 
Another possibility that has happened to me is- If the once fired brass was fired in a 308 with an oversize chamber it may still be oversized at the base just above the web. A standard full length sizing die doesn't get that last little bit of the base sized down. This happened to me and I had to resort to a SMALL BASE sizer. RCBS and Redding make them maybe others. They are commonly used in 223 and 308 because ammo fired in machine guns and other military chambers is often oversize (on purpose)... you don't want your full auto mg to seize up in a firefight!

Like a previous poster suggested start by seeing if an empty sized case chambers OK. If it does then the problem is with the seater and probably a bit of crimp as has been mentioned.
 
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I think I found the problem, I loaded an empty case after resizing it in and it didn't fit...so it want a problem with the shoulder. Instead I set the resizing die a but lower and got the bottom of the car resized.

Will let you guys know if our works with a fully loaded round.

Thanks for all your input.
 
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