Thread: First crack at reloading

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Im still trying to get my head around this bit....if the dies go down far enough to contact the base.....the round CANT be any shorter,or can it??? using the hornady new dimension .308 dies no matter how hard I try or how much I screw them in I cant get them to touch base.ther seems to be a mm or so of case still that doesnt get touched.

Depending on the lenght of the chamber and the lenght of the die the die would normally have clearance from the shelholder......so winding it down further than nessacary will shorten the case more than nessacary and it will streatch back to chamber lenght on fireing.....this streatching all happens in the region of the case just above the base and if it is excessive and repeated many times then the case head falls off the case and the rest is stuck in your chamber.
The opposite situation is a short chamber where you cannot size short enough and the die is bottomed out on the shell holder.
All presses streatch a bit and some cheaper ones a lot .So thatwhen sizing the brass even tho the die is set to bottom out it doesn't touch it because the pressure of sizing streatchs the press....can be fixed sometimes by winding the die slightly lower than contact to take up some flex or sometimes the die or shell holder will need to be ground a bit to let them size short enough.

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