Thread: first time reloading.

Hey,

First attempt at reloading at a mates place. He loads for his WSM and 22-250, so I bought some second hand 243 dies, powder, pills and primers for a start.

So we found that the COAL theoretical was longer than we could possibly achieve as the Nosler Varmint BT's couldn't go in any less. The COAL measured theoretically 2.752. The actual we could seat to was 2.700".

We had problems with the Hornady neck seating die. We set it up in the Redding press using the Hornady instructions. First time we found it near impossible to remove the case from the die. After 3 attempts at butchered cases I took the die apart and found that previous owner had bent the centre spindle. Ah,ha. So I pinched the spindle from the full length reseating die and started again. Much better.

We loaded up a couple of cases without powder and found that the bolt was slightly tight to close when the bullet in place, yet a resized empty case was fine? (WHY?)

We started at 42g of ADI 2208 and loaded 3 per weight of powder, incrementing in 0.3g per triple, until we had loaded to max from the ADI table which worked out nicely at 11x3 = 33 cases.

Then we headed out to the range.

three shots at a target, new target per load and took as best a time as I could for most of the afternoon.

Somewhere in the middle of the loads I had 2 bullets touching and pulled the third :-[ booger. Then the groups got bigger and started to close up again until the penultimate load 42.7g. I got three rounds at 100m with a 0.28inch measurement outside edge to edge. The last group first round was too high pressure, could barely open the bolt, so we called it quits.

So summary. I think I have a load. Need to chrony it now. But why the resistance in closing the bolt, and what do I do about it?

Case without bullet chambering sounds like you are seating projectile too far out, so it is getting jammed into lands and bolt will be tight or impossible to close. You getting any marks on the projectiles ?

With most projectiles it is better (more accurate) to measure base to ogive with a comparator.

You can measure the lands for you chamber / projectile combo using something like the Hornady Oal Gauge

The centre spindle you talk about is called the decapping rod / expander ball. Those are probably sizing dies, not seating dies.

Nice looking group

The projectile may be touching the rifling.
Did the projectile have rifling scratches on it when you ejected the test round?
It may have pushed the projectile slightly further into the case as well so check the length with your measuring stick to check if it did shorten as this will confirm that the projectile is engaging the rifling.
You will need to seat the bullet slightly deeper if this is the cause of your issue.
Good luck.
Nice group.

And also, if you got to the stage you had real trouble opening your bolt you went WAY too far. You would have felt it starting to get heavier before then surely?
Load a dummy round and colour the projectile in marker pen, chamber it and eject it. Look if it has marks where it has contacted the lands. Another way to do it is to remove the firing pin assembly ( a remington you push the wee square edge on the rear of the bolt onto something and slide a 20c coin into the slot that appears then unwind it from the bolt body) from the rifle and you can get a feel what it's like with an empty case and a loaded case. It's very noticeable if the projectiles are getting jammed.

Also check case over all length.

Originally Posted by ebf

The centre spindle you talk about is called the decapping rod / expander ball. Those are probably sizing dies, not seating dies.

Nice looking group

yep, my bad. They are sizing dies. I used the seating die to put the bullet in place.

and that you are not trying to crimp and seat by having the seating die set to low. this can push the shoulder out enough to make tight chambering.

Nope, checked the crimp function isn't set on the hornady dies.

Check the case length and trim it. Even new brass can need trimming.

If you take the case and bullet that was hard to close the bolt, adjust the seating die in by 20thou and check again in the rifle. If ok, the bullet was seated to far out and the projectile was touching the rifling as mentioned. If the bolt is still hard to, case is either touching the rifling or not fully sized.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk