Redding body die question

L

Longboat

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Long story short, 308 Win, Hornady brass, for 3 firings I Lee neck sized only. After 3× fired the rounds would not chamber. Checked before loading thankfully. I used a standard full length die to resize and bump the shoulder .002-.003 on this 3×fired brass. All is well.

With my 2× fired brass I induction annealed, and used the Redding body die to bump them .002-.003 then Lee collet sized the necks. This was 2 nights ago...

Tonight I check the chambering of the Redding bumped 2× fired brass and it was tight. I could close the bolt without crazy force but it is still a bit tight I would say.

I put the brass on a head space comparator and see that over the last 2 days they have gone from about 1.622-1.623 up to 1.625 pretty much where they started. Seemed to spring back even after annealing.

My standard full length die bump sized brass chamber easily.

My Redding bump die sized brass has a slightly tight bolt and seem to have sprung back after 48 hours.
 
Is it normal to have to compensate and go a little further than expected with a body size only die? I actually started letting the ram sit for a few seconds near the end of the batch. I will check those ones out now
 
I think you may be right about letting the ram sit for a few seconds to let things flow. The brass towards the end of my run when I did so seem to be all good and chamber perfectly.

Thanks!
 
Longboat

I buy bulk once fired Lake City 5.56 and 7.62 brass fired in a multitude of different weapons. I size these cases in a small base die and pause at the top of the ram stroke for 4 or 5 seconds. Using the small base die and pausing helps return the case to minimum SAAMI dimensions and close to new case dimensions.

Pausing when sizing greatly reduces brass spring back and keeps the shoulder location more consistent and uniform.

A example of this is for semo-auto rifles, the sized case body should be .003 to .005 smaller in diameter than than its fired diameter. This ensures the fired case will spring back from the chamber walls and extract reliably.

Bottom line, a fired case when resized wants to spring back to its fired size after sizing. And pausing at the top of the ram stroke greatly reduces the amount of brass spring back.
 
I did a bit more tinkering last night. In the end, I did about 50 brass bumped back .002-.003 with a standard full length die. They all came out almost exactly 1.623" with this method. Chamber easily.

I did about 100 more with the Redding body die. It was no so consistent. About .003" variance on a comparator with the body die. Between 5-10% were fairly tight closing the bolt. Tighter than they would have been just neck sizing only. I did those cases over and let the ram sit for about 5 seconds. It fixed most of them, but a few just won't stay put. And still inconsistent even with everything locked in on the press.

Whatever happens with this body die as well, I could have a case measuring 1.624 after sizing that chambers very easily maybe too easy. And the next one at 1.622 could have a bit of resistance closing the bolt.

Long story short, standard full length die very consistent.

Redding body die all over the map and pretty inconsistent.

BTW all cases on both methods were accurately induction annealed.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom