Classic lee loader problems!

flipp121

flipp121

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Hi everyone, no new to the forum but this is my first post. I've got a mosin nagant and decided that mil-surp ammo sucks so I decided to buy a 'Classic lee loader' and reload myself. Everything went almost perfect but the bullets dont seem very tight into the casing and sometimes a slight jar pushes them into the case! The ammo is 7.62x54r igman brass. Using winchester 30 cal bullets to reload. It seems its not resizing the next tight enough? Anyone know what this could be? Im hitting the casing flush with the die....
Thanks for any reply!
Mark
 
Read the above link on how to slug a barrel(surplus rifle/slug etc..the 2nd link..Scroll down a bit and read it). It involves a piece of soft lead and a few minor bits..Dont ask for a bag of slugs or they will try to sell you the Calgary Tower or Brooklyn Bridge..You will get it figured out eventually.
Good luck
dB :)
 
your problem is your Igman brass....

How do I know this?

I have about 400 empty Igman 6.5x55. this brass (if it really is brass) is tough as nails, and it is very hard to begin with. If you even want to get anywhere with it, you are going to need to anneal the necks to make them softer.

I have had necks split with this brass from factory firing :eek:

What happens is when you resize the neck, this brass has a tendancy to "spring back" to its original form. This springback is worsened when you seat the bullet, and even moreso if you try and crimp with the lee loader :mad:

I have annealed a batch of it, twice in fact, and then did some neck tension tests. They are not 100% satisfactory, but they are yards in front of the non-annealed stuff. When I did not anneal it, many bullets could simply be pushed into the case with simple finger pressure.

I tried neck-sizing with a Lee Collet die, no improvement.

I would suggest that you look at buying another kind of brass, or getting it properly annealed. I am not an annealing expert so my method of doing it (propane torch) is probably not the best...
 
Slug your bore if in doubt.....get some cast .312" bullets and try to push them part way into the barrel at muzzle end......you can even tap them in with a mallet...leave some sticking out....remove and measure....even without a exact measure it should tell you if they are the right size or too large or small. M.T. Chambers makes .312 or .314 gas check cast bullets.
 
Ahh, well i'm new to reloading, so i havnt heard of annealing. The whole problem is that if i dont use igman brass its gonna cost me $40 for 20 rounds of reloadable brass, at which point reloading is not economical. So i need .311 bullets then eh? I'll see how much those are. The whole point is to not fire mil-surp ammo, cause most of it is crap, and be able to hunt deer with non full metal jacket ammo. And to be honest its a lot of fun too :D
 
flipp121 said:
Ahh, well i'm new to reloading, so i havnt heard of annealing. The whole problem is that if i dont use igman brass its gonna cost me $40 for 20 rounds of reloadable brass, at which point reloading is not economical. So i need .311 bullets then eh? I'll see how much those are. The whole point is to not fire mil-surp ammo, cause most of it is crap, and be able to hunt deer with non full metal jacket ammo. And to be honest its a lot of fun too :D
Click to expand...

you know I might not be 100% right :) I did not spot the difference between .30 and .311 bullets in your text :)

But Igman is a little hard to beat into submission from my experience. Once you do, however, it is great and tough brass.

Is new brass really that expensive for that caliber? :eek:

If with .311 sized bullets you use the loader, I recommend you do not try and crimp it with the roll-crimp of the Lee Loader. You risk loosening the neck tension somewhat, and it in my experience does not tend to be very equal from one round to the next. And do not even try and bother crimping if you are not crimping on a bullet with a crimping groove, as the Loader does not make one :rolleyes:

Another thing about the Loader: WEAR GLASSES. Especially if you are doing the primer seating with it :cool:
 
Hahah, oh yes i most definatly wore glasses, I've heard of a few charred eyebrows from it. Yeah its a really tough caliber to find brass for. It would make sense about the whole bullet size though. I dont expect the guys at frenchies to know much about military rounds. I really like the lee loader, its easy to use and cheap!
 
I had a similar problem with my .303 British Lee Loader. I started using it and it worked great. Nice tight bullet grip. Then I graduated to a press, dies etc. and continued to use the same brass (light loads). I noticed (my experience anyways) I got more accurate results from the old Lee Loader than my Lee collet dies. So I decided to "go back" to the Lee Loader. Same brass (now reloaded about 12 times or more). Would no longer hold the bullets at all. Just fell into the casings pretty much. I realized the brass I used so many times eventually resulted in thinner necks. Since the Lee Loader sizes by squeezing the outside of the brass neck inwards - (and not against a mandrel rod like the Lee Collet dies), it turns out that the inside of the neck was significantly wider than when the brass was new. So that brass got chucked and I used some new brass which, due to it's greater thickness (neck area anyways) - gripped the bullets firmly. I also heard that different brass manufacturers brass is of varying thicknesses. So you may have entirely different results by just switching brass to another manufacturer. Good luck - I still say that Lee Loader makes the most precise ammunition of all.
 
I dont use the lee crimper either, if i want a crimp, I just bump the neck gently into the full length sizer with the decap removed. This crimps the brass nicely into the groove of the 303 round.
 
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