Difficut to close the bolt

Rick65Cat

Rick65Cat

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First off, the rifle. Its a brand new never been fired Remington 700 SPS "Varmint" in .223....

Secondly, I found a good sized quantity of Winchester stamped .223 Rem brass at Gennesee and brought it home.

Its cleaned, de-primed, and resised with Lee Collet dies. I'm assuming its "once fired" due to the brass colored primer.
Now, putting one of the empty brass in the chamber of the rifle, its difficult to close the bolt.
Should I have run the empties through a full length resizing die instead of the "neck only" collet die?
Another assumption is they were fired in an AR type semi from the quantity I found.
Thoughts?
 
yes a full length sizing is needed
your chamber wont be the same as all the chambers that the bullets were shot from
they may also need to be trimmed
 
Yeah, I was kinda thinking about the different chamber thing. I haven't measured the case length yet. I'll see if it falls under the max length.
When I pushed the case in with my fingers it slid easily into the chamber. Just that last little push. Maybe the shoulder of the case changed the tiniest bit during the original firing to fit the other guys gun.

Think it change to fit my gun after 1 or 2 firings?
 
The Lee Collet die is an excellent product. However this die should only be used for brass that has been previously fired in the rifle that is being resized for. Only the neck is resized with this die & therefore a rifle with a slightly larger chamber than yours would cause a hard closure of the bolt.

All other brass, range pickup etc should be full length resized.

To answer your question the brass should be fine after it has been fired once in your rifle. :)
 
Rick65Cat said:
Yeah, I was kinda thinking about the different chamber thing. I haven't measured the case length yet. I'll see if it falls under the max length.
When I pushed the case in with my fingers it slid easily into the chamber. Just that last little push. Maybe the shoulder of the case changed the tiniest bit during the original firing to fit the other guys gun.

Think it change to fit my gun after 1 or 2 firings?
Click to expand...

One firing will do it, afterwards you can get by with just neck sizing since it's a bolt gun. Any brass that hasn't been fired in your rifle will need FL sizing first.
 
You need to clean, trim, champher and full length re-size new or once fired brass that is new to your gun. After firing in your gun you can just check the length and neck size.
 
if the brass was at the long range part i can pretty well guarentee it was out of my ar-15. im going to need that back. ahhhh just kiddin randy told me not to pick it up he said somone would take it and if u put it in the brass barrels that r half full of water it kinda carodes them.
 
Yeah Mutt...it was at the farthest right hand shooting table on the 500 yrd range. About 150 cases.
Thanks :)

So...I better invest in a trimmer, I did measure five cases tonight before I went out and three fell in between the min/max level. That makes them ok to shoot right?
 
Well - Thing is you really dont know the pedigree of the brass. Its at least once fired, thats all you can be assured of... And perhaps not from the same rifle, and perhaps not all fired the same amount.
Sounds like you're relatively new at this. Inspect each case, check for case length, trim as needed. As you dont know whether the previous firing(s) were in a rifle with a larger chamber, FL sizing guarantees a fit. If you dont want to FL size, after already neck sizing, check each case in your rifle chamber for fit (after trim check).
Finally, ensure the brass is clean - any grit will scratch dies and chambers.
 
Rick: Before everyone assumes that you need to resize.Make sure you gun is not a control feed action. In other words it must be loaded from the magazine as apposed to a push feed where you can load shell directly into the chamber. If your rifle is control feed then it will make the bolt hard to close if you are loading one at a time.
I know it happen to me
my thoughts
cooner
 
Full length them, it will push the shoulder back so they will fit in your chamber. Fire it once in your rifle and it will be fire formed to your chamber.

After that they will be fine with the collet die for a few(or more) reloads before needing another full length resize or to be scrapped.
 
Wouldn't hurt to ream the primer pockets and polish em once in a while. While a milder round like .223 doesn't usually bother, the hotter rounds like the old Swift tend to flow brass a lot and need annealing to be able to resize properly after as few as four reload cycles. And watch for case head separation as your cycles add up!
 
Always full length re-size and trim brass of unknown origin. Use the collet die only after it has been fireformed from your rifle.
 
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