Crooked bullet seating?

H

horse_men

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Hi all

I have been reloading for about 6 months and have done very well with both 30-06, 223, and 375 Ruger. I have been happy with my results and the accuracy I have been getting.
Yesterday I thought I would try load some 243 hoping the have the same success.

I have neck sized once fired brass from the same rifle, chamfered inside and outside of the case necks. Case length is within spec. I used an rcbs neck size die for sizing. I also tested each resized case into he rifle to make sure it would chamber easily, none had problems. I had measured the oal length for the chamber as I had done with previous loading that I had done. I am loading 85 gr Sierra hpbt bullets and using a redding seater die. When I seated the bullets to the oal that I wanted I tried to chamber them in the rifle to make sure everything was ok. What I found was that it was difficult to close the bolt for the last little bit and when I ejected the cartridge it had a small rub or scrape mark on one side of the bullet in the same spot of each tried cartridge. At first I thought I measured the oal length wrong and tried seating deeper until the problem stopped. I ended up seating the bullets to the same oal length as factory rounds using the same bullet. I knew I should be able to seat the bullets to an overall length greater than that with out the hard chambering I was seeing. I rolled a few loaded rounds on a table and see that the bullets are abviously seated a bit crooked even with the deeper seating, this would be even more crooked with the original longer oal length I was aiming for.

I am planning to clean out the seater die to see if there is anything gummed up in there but is there anything else I may be missing? My intended oal length was 2.625 and I ended up with 2.560 which is the same as the federal factory load I was using previously. The rifle in a weatherby vanguard in 243 win.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
Is the bullet not seating straight or is the case neck out of round/bent slightly?
Roll your brass after resizing and look at the neck for being out of round.
 
if it is a crooked bullet and not crooked brass, check the shell holder to make sure it is clean and then make sure the case is going as far up into the die as it will go. Remember to adjust your seating depth with the seater stem, not with the threads into the press. Remember too that OAL means nothing. Comparing one load to another, you need to measure off the OGIVE and for that, you need a comparator. COAL only matters when it somes to making sure rounds fit in mags. seating depth needs to be measured off the ogive.
 
Thanks for the information so far. I will check the shell holder for debris tonight and also check the sized brass to see if it has any wobble to it. I understand the importance of measuring off of the ogive, in this case I am using the same bullets for reloading as I was using in the factory rounds. I am using the seating die to adjust seating depth as i have kept the die high enough so as not to begin a crimp. I will report back tonight after I have a look at the suggestions offered.
Thanks again.
 
I just had a look at a few different things. The first thing I looked at was some sized and chamfered brass that I had, what I noticed is that the necks appear to be straight but it looks like the chamfer of the neck is not consistant all the way around so one side may be a bit deeper than another. I just remembered that I had my son helping me and he was doing the chamfering. He made a mess out of a bunch of them so when I tried to smooth them out they may have been more buggered up than I had thought. While they appear to be smooth when you roll them you can see some difference in the necks for sure. I will try to size a few more cases and see if than un-chamfered ones appear to be better. I may have to trim the sized ones back a bit and start over.

I also looked at the dies I had used, they did not look to me like there was anything that would cause any problems, I gave them a good cleaning anyway so as to have a fresh start. I did the same with the shell holder, it looked fine but I cleaned it all up anyway.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, anything else you can offer would be great. I will try size some new brass and see what happens and will trim up the brass I have sized and give them a go. I may have to pull the ones I loaded and start over.
 
ive had pistol rounds seat a few degrees off if the case mouth wasnt flared out enough; that's usually only with cast tips but i guess it may be possible with jacketed tips.
 
I tried a few things last night. I had cleaned all of my dies, shell holders so there was no debris anywhere that would interfere. I checked my die adjustments again to make sure everything was correct. I took a few once fired cases and put them through the rcbs neck sizer die. The lengths were checked and found to be fine. The necks appeared to be straight when rolled. I tried to seat a few bullets to the originally intended length and found that I had the same problem. The cartridge had to be forced into the chamber and when I extracted the cartridge you could see where the bullet had been rubbed while entering the chamber.

Next I tried to full length resize some once fired brass in a redding FL sizer die. When I seated bullets in these cases to the same length they chambered with no problems. I even ran the previously neck sized brass through the full length die and found that those rounds chambered fine as well.

Now I am thinking there may be a problem with my rcbs neck die. I don't think that is very common but I guess it is possible. Any other ideas of what might be happening here? I think I will give rcbs a call to see what they have to say.
 
I have a 308 sizer die that is wonky. I did a chamber cast just for practice on a cavity and to my surprise had a hard time getting it out. The die is banana and out of round. I also have a rifle that appears to have a chamber that is not well aligned with the bore though it chambers ok just not accurate. Does it make a difference if cartridge is magazine fed or directly chambered if possible. Feeding can bend some rounds. If the cartridge is not crooked or bullet and case not concentric then the trouble is elsewhere. What happens if you give the cartridge a half turn. Does it still mark the same spot on the bullet? Just some food for thought.
 
It does not matter if I feed from the magazine or just by hand, the same thing happens. It seemed to me that the die is causing the issue as when everything else but the die is the same the loads chamber properly.

This rifle is very accurate with the factory rounds that use the same bullet so I do not think the rifle is the cause of the problem??
 
A good friend has a finely accurate .308. He has tried a RCBS neck die, and rejected it as unsuitable for precision handloading.
It was bending the necks of his cases. Measured runout of the seated bullet was way too high, with TIR's of 10 thou. plus being common.
With the exact same components and proceedure, substituting a Lee Collet die for sizing, the TIR's measure .5 to 1.5 thou..

The targets will show what runout does to group size. Not to mention those pesky 'fliers' that bedevil crooked ammo.

Any die that pulls an expander button out through the neck is unlikely to produce straight cartridges, in my opinion.
Where I in your boat, that crooked RCBS would be "retired", and replaced with a collet or bushing type neck sizer.
Your FL die however, can do a fairly good job, if the center stem is first removed, the die adjusted for partial FL sizing (it does not touch the shoulder), and a Lyman 'M' die used to expand the neck.
For some reason, necks don't seem to bend much when that expanding is by going down into the neck, as vs. up and out.
You will need to deprime as a seperate step, Lyman universal deprime die works well.

After 4 decades of trying to make standard dies load straight .... I gave up.

It's Lee collet, Redding body, and Forster or Redding BR seater dies for any rifle that I want better accuracy from.
 
He has tried a RCBS neck die, and rejected it as unsuitable for precision handloading.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Neck die has been retired to the recycling pile. Garbage. Stick with the collet die. I measured once fired brass neck run out straight out of the chamber which was practically 0, ran it through the RCBS neck sizer die and measured it again. Came out with 12 thou run out. Reloaded it, fired it, measured it again. That was enough confirmation for me.

My RCBS neck sizer blows. Now only use the collet die. More work but better results.

I roll every round after it has been loaded and the collet die will consistently give me bullet run-out of 0.5 to 1.5 thou. Use a benchrest bullet seater as well.
 
Neck sizing dies are usually used on brass that has been turned to fit a chamber.neck sizers are only made to size brass a few thou , also most brass is thicker on one side vs the other so when you size uncut brass more than a couple thou it tends to force the neck out of alignment a little.have you Tried chambering the empty brass after nech sizing ,if it is tight it may need the shoulder bumped Back could be why your full length sizer works vs just the neck die. Hope that is some help
 
Pesky, the bushing dies or collets do indeed move the neck dia. in a minimal amount, and they will limit die induced run out to the existing neck wall thickness variation. Turned cases will be straighter by the lesser amount of their neck wall thicness variation.

The RCBS neck die is an entirely different kettle of fish. It sizes the neck in much more, then drags an expander button back out, and this bends the necks. (in the few RCBS examples that I've tried.)

Gootch's necks were bent 12 thou. on the trip through the die. Seated bullet runout would measure somewhat more than that.
 
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