Hard to Close Bolt?

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Jarrett

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I'm having some troubles with some .300WSM loads - it's 'tight' to close the bolt on some of the cartridges? Not like you have to really reef on it but not smooth like most of the time? I full length sized everything - and have measured the loaded cases and all seems to be as shown for the .300WSM - after it's fired it come out as normal? :confused:

Any ideas what might cause this?

Thanks!

PS - it's a model 70 CRF
 
Your shoulder probably isn't getting bumped back. Check to make sure you have the die all the way down to the ram when it is in the full up position. If that checks OK then you can try honing down your shell holder a few thousandths of an inch and checking to see if that helps. I had the same problem on both my 270WSM and 325WSM using RCBS dies.
 
Jarrett said:
I'm having some troubles with some .300WSM loads - it's 'tight' to close the bolt on some of the cartridges? Not like you have to really reef on it but not smooth like most of the time? I full length sized everything - and have measured the loaded cases and all seems to be as shown for the .300WSM - after it's fired it come out as normal? :confused:

Any ideas what might cause this?

Thanks!

PS - it's a model 70 CRF
Click to expand...


I think cappy has the answer. You can purchase a cartridge headspace gage to make sure you dont push the shoulder back too far. Most manuals suggest .002" after fire forming.
 
Even after resizing my 6BR brass in the body die it was not sized enough.

A friend suggested that I set my press to overcam after shellholder contact to the die to push it in an extra couple thou. It worked like a charm, the bolt closed easily after that.
 
I have 2 WSM's, a 6.5-270WSM, and a 7WSM. If you measure headspace with a proper tool you will see it has increased, and will have to be bumped back. After one firing the bolt was hard to close by the fourth it was impossible.

I needed to use a Redding body die, and a competition shell holder (this is a set of 6 shell holders that are each 2 thou thicker than the next). If you have the equipment you can just take a few thou (5 thou for me) off your body die, and then adjust for headspace using the thicker competition shell holders.
 
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CyaN1de wrote:

Even after resizing my 6BR brass in the body die it was not sized enough.

A friend suggested that I set my press to overcam after shellholder contact to the die to push it in an extra couple thou. It worked like a charm, the bolt closed easily after that.
Click to expand...

That's all I had to do with my 300 wizzum and it worked like a charm. No grinding, sanding...

hf

:cheers:
 
I have the same problem with my Tikka. Fussy european stuff. What I found was that the head space of the case wasn't being reformed evenly. It would be perfectly flat on one side and a couple of thou out on the other side of the case. So now what I do is size the case turn it a 1/4 turn in the holder and size again repeating until I've made a full rotation. Works like a charm. The down side is excessive resizing will lead to work harding of the brass making it prone to cracking so it's bit of a damed if you do damed if you don't sort of a thing but I'm up to the fifth reload on the cases now and there is no sign of fatigue as yet. It seems to be, in my case anyway, only a problem with the WSM. I don't have this problem with either the 30-06 or the the 375 H&H.
I hope this helps.
 
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