7mm-08 reloading problem

[Anonymous]

I recently picked up some privi brass for 7mm-08. About half was new, and half was once fired. The new ones were already primed.
Wanting to start fresh, I needed to deprime the new cases. Easiest was to just load In rifle and pop them. A few of them were extremely hard to close the bolt on.
I FL sized all of them, trimmed, etc. Loaded 20 and went to shoot. About the same ratio were still hard to close the bolt on. Fired ok, and bolt was normal to open.
What was/is going on? They are all same brand, sized in same die, fired in same rifle. Whatever is happening, firing seems to "loosen" it back up.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[fairchaser]

If you can get your hands on a tool to measure the shoulder, that will tell you what's going on. Your once shot brass will be the size of the chamber. Your FL sizing should bump it back 1-2 thousands or even 5 thousands for hunting rounds. It sounds like your FL die is not adjusted to bump the shoulder back. I had to shorten a die like this once. Once shot, it conforms to the chamber again and when you resize it could lengthen it back out to be too tight.

 

[Anonymous]

If you can get your hands on a tool to measure the shoulder, that will tell you what's going on. Your once shot brass will be the size of the chamber. Your FL sizing should bump it back 1-2 thousands or even 5 thousands for hunting rounds. It sounds like your FL die is not adjusted to bump the shoulder back. I had to shorten a die like this once. Once shot, it conforms to the chamber again and when you resize it could lengthen it back out to be too tight.

I have a set of Hornady headspace comparators. Would that work?

 

[fairchaser]

If you can get your hands on a tool to measure the shoulder, that will tell you what's going on. Your once shot brass will be the size of the chamber. Your FL sizing should bump it back 1-2 thousands or even 5 thousands for hunting rounds. It sounds like your FL die is not adjusted to bump the shoulder back. I had to shorten a die like this once. Once shot, it conforms to the chamber again and when you resize it could lengthen it back out to be too tight.

I have a set of Hornady headspace comparators. Would that work?

Yessir, that should work fine. Just take some measurements on the brass shot from your rifle, then on the resized brass. If you need to bump the shoulder back, then keep adjusting the die down until you get the bump your looking for. As long as the handle will cam over your ok. If not, the die maybe too long which was a problem I had on a die until I had my son shorten it for me. He's a machinist, so I have no idea how he did it but I know it worked.

 

[MUP]

A neat little trick to measure shoulder bump is to take a fired, deprimed pistol case, and slip it over the neck of the rifle case, making sure the mouth of the pistol case contacts the shoulder area, then measure the overall length of the cases. Do this on your fireformed case first as a baseline, then run the case thru your die and then measure them together again. This will give you the distance measurement that your die is, or isn't, pushing the shoulder back. Fireformed measurement minus the sized case measurement equals shoulder bump distance. Be sure to deburr the inside of the pistol case for more accurate measurement.

 

[fairchaser]

A neat little trick to measure shoulder bump is to take a fired, deprimed pistol case, and slip it over the neck of the rifle case, making sure the mouth of the pistol case contacts the shoulder area, then measure the overall length of the cases. Do this on your fireformed case first as a baseline, then run the case thru your die and then measure them together again. This will give you the distance measurement that your die is, or isn't, pushing the shoulder back. Fireformed measurement minus the sized case measurement equals shoulder bump distance. Be sure to deburr the inside of the pistol case for more accurate measurement.

That's a great trick MUP! I'll have to try that sometime.

 

[MUP]

Did it just yesterday while measuring the shoulder bump on some WinMag cases for the Sendero. I used a .38 spcl case btw.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok, I've done some measuring this morning. I measured several fired cases, and several sized cases. Everything is within .001 of each other. I don't understand why it's not pushing back the shoulder. The shell holder looks to be bottoming out on the die. Maybe the die is to deep. But interestingly, these were FL sized before I got them. I only cycled the new/primed ones through the rifle....and those are the ones that were randomly hard to close bolt on. What are the odds that 2 different sets of dies are "off"?

 

[splatter]

I have two sets of lee dies that are that way. Need to have both shortened or better yet just buy a different brand of dies.

 

[mr.big]

Keep turning the die down in the press aittle at a time until the brass chambers easy in the gun..

The press will flex under pressure..

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[gtk]

following this thread.. will be interesting to see the culprit.

mup, great idea. i'll use that one for sure..

i'm not an expert, but i think your hard bolt closing can be caused by only three things.
1. too long (OAL)
2. too long in length from head-to-shoulder
3. too big in diameter

I'm betting its #2

 

[fairchaser]

following this thread.. will be interesting to see the culprit.

mup, great idea. i'll use that one for sure..

i'm not an expert, but i think your hard bolt closing can be caused by only three things.
1. too long (OAL)
2. too long in length from head-to-shoulder
3. too big in diameter

I'm betting its #2

I agree and the only solution is to shorten the die or buy a different brand that hopefully is shorter.

 

[mr.big]

following this thread.. will be interesting to see the culprit.

mup, great idea. i'll use that one for sure..

i'm not an expert, but i think your hard bolt closing can be caused by only three things.
1. too long (OAL)
2. too long in length from head-to-shoulder
3. too big in diameter

I'm betting its #2

I agree and the only solution is to shorten the die or buy a different brand that hopefully is shorter.

Run the ram up and screw the die down till it bottoms out on shellholder,,then lower ram,,then screw die down a little at a time and try chambering in rifle, you may have to go down a quarter turn or more to get a cam over,,and take up all the flex and slack on the press.

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