Reloading question

I'm a relative novice when it comes to reloading. Never had any real problem with my 45-70 or 357, but when it comes to my 260 and tonight my 308

The cases are twice fired in my gun - this is their third reload. Trimmed, deburred and chamfered. The cases fit the case gauge and will chamber fine before I seat the bullet, but when I seat and crimp the bullet, they no longer want to chamber and they sit just a smidge high in the case gauge. When I measure the diameter of the case necks at the mouth they seem to be about .337 - .340 and it seems like the Nosler BTs run larger than the Remington - all 165gr bullets.

Am I over crimping when seating the bullets?

How do you make use of your case gauge? I drop the case in and check the neck length and the case head with my eyes and fingernail.

thanks

It's possible you have a short throat on your rifle and the bullet is seated out too far. The OAL gauge is the SAAMI max length, which COULD be too long for your rifle.

Carefully chamber a round (PLEASE use a dummy round ) making sure that you don't scratch the bullet and case any more than necessary. Remove the round putting finger pressure against it to make sure it doesn't drag on the side of the chamber / receiver. Look for "scuffing" on the bullet. If you have some scuffing then you have the bullet seated out into the lands. Sounds like you case is longer after you chamber it than before, which leads me to believe your bullet is sticking in the rifle's lands.

As far as crimping goes - you will probably find that you get better accuracy \ consistency and improved case life by not crimping your .260 Remington and .308 Winchester. I only crimp when I am loading for tubular magazines in lever action rifles and when I am loading for revolvers. Over crimping can bulge necks, which could also be your problem.

I don't use a case length gauge. I generally use Redding or Forster neck sizing dies for all my bolt guns and I use a caliper to measure case OAL (for trimming). I seat the bullet from 0.005" to 0.050" off the lands depending on where the load's sweet spot is. This of course assumes the magazine box is long enough to do so, which is not always the case.

I am keeping an eye on my C.O.A.L. and keeping it short of the listed maximum. The 165gr NBTs are at 2.805 and listed max is 2.810, the Rem 165grSPs usu. run about 2.73". I trim all my cases at each loading, these trimmed to 2.007 (the max case trim length listed in the Hornady manual is 2.015). I typically discard any case that I have to trim too much and I measure all the cases before and after I trim them to keep them uniform.

I just backed off the seater die about 1/4 turn and this round chambered fine.
It would be just barely crimped now, if at all, but it does chamber and the bolt closes just fine (still using a non-primed dummy case).

So you don't really crimp these rounds like I did my 45-70? : So much for reading the instructions that came with the dies.
Thanks!

As 7x57 says there is no need to crimp reloads unless they will be used in a tubular magazine. I've been loading 223, 243, 308 and 300WM for over 20 years, have never crimped any of them.


huntin1

leoparddog9 said:

I just backed off the seater die about 1/4 turn and this round chambered fine.
It would be just barely crimped now, if at all, but it does chamber and the bolt closes just fine (still using a non-primed dummy case).

So you don't really crimp these rounds like I did my 45-70? : So much for reading the instructions that came with the dies.
Thanks!

Click to expand...

Do make sure that when you backed off your seating die that your COAL stays the same. This will require you to adjust your seater plug a little deeper. Depending on which brand of rifle you have, you could be on the verge of having a round that is too long for the magazine box.

When you crimp a bullet without a cannalure, you will deform the neck of your brass and perhaps the bullet. Your .260 Remington and .308 will have plenty of bullet pull with just the neck of the round itself. It sounds to me like the crimp is what was causing you the problem. If you would like to get scientific about the correct starting point for seating depth, check out a Stoney Point seating depth tool.

I've been in the same situation. You probably had the seating die down to close and bulged out the shoulder just enough to cause the problem. I got in the habit of making up "Dummy" rounds for everything I load. Makes die adjustments a snap. When it comes to crimping where needed I usually buy a die just for crimping.

My gues is it is your seating depth. You should know/determine the maximum seating depth for each bullett type. As for crimping, I only crimp for revolvers, tube fed and semi-automatic rifles.

Lots of excellent info and I will add one more tip. To make sure your dummy round isn't being pushed into the lands when you close the bolt you can blacken the bullet itself with a marker. Once you have blackened the bullet, carefully load and close the bolt, being sure not to rub the black off of the bullet. When you extract the round you may see where the bullet was seated into the lands. I went through this same problem with a 7-08 I bought. The rifle has a short throat and I cannot chamber loads set at max OAL.

Dbodkin nailed it. Seating and crimping in one operation with a combo seater+crimp die is not the way to go for best results. If you want to crimp, seat first with no crimp,and then crimp in a separate operation. The best crimp die I have found is the Lee Factory Crimp Die. It is cheap and works very well, even on non-cannelured bullets (all I shoot). Back out your current seater so it does not crimp, and use the LFCD to crimp in a separate operation. I do this for all my hunting ammo. For competition I do not crimp at all. HTH