tight cases

[Sollybug]

Murphy & others:
thanks for the feedback on tight cases. My cases are difficult to chamber after one use. After you mentioned high pressure thought I better check my scale so I weighed a few bullets and it is accurate. I dont use max loads and there are no other signs of pressure and the powder. The next thing I checked was my dies (rcbs). They might have been the problem as the seating die was pushing the shoulder a little. The rounds seem to load easier after adjusting it. I dont know if this was causing the tight fitting rounds as all my cases are already resized, but Ill know after I shoot them. Hopefully it helped, if they are still tight I will let you know. Thanks, Pete

[Murphy]

Seating Dies

Solly,

Yeah, sounds like you're hitting the crimping ridge in the die. If you back off the body of the seater, that will fix it as you've no doubt found out.

I don't crimp bottle necked cases except larger calibers. When crimping it really needs to be done in a separate step with the seating stem backed off a bit. It is very easy to push the neck down into the case and bulge the shoulder. Also, if and when we crimp, make sure all cases are trimmed to the same length. This will make a uniform crimp.

Generally we will crimp any round that will be used in a tubular magazine rifle, such as a lever action, and these will include the 30-30 and the 45-70. The 30-30 is such a pain because that case stretches a lot and brass is not the best so trimming is required, and crimping. The Ackley version is really nice, it stops the case stretching. Also, the heavier calibers, 458 WM/Lott we crimp as recoil will tend to push a bullet into the case, so must be crimped. A better way to do that is to make sure the case is full of the right powder. The bullet will rest on the powder charge and not be pushed in under recoil.

I'm off on a tangent again but I like to yak about loading, I do a lot of it.
I loaded and fired about 600 rounds of rifle ammo in the month of June but only 60 rounds in July. (Tourist season) June was 325 WSM, 405 Win, 30-06, 30-06 Ackley, 338 WM, 300 WM, 35 WCF, and it seems there was another one or two in there.....month. Lots of good shootin'.

Murphy