[w296]

Picked up a Sweed 96 (Husky) at a local show. Fires factory ammo with no problem. I ordered dies and have reloaded 120's starting at the bottom of the chart working my way up. At mid way I had a case seperation, about a third of the way from base. A perfect seperation, just like you would have taken a cutter and cut around. They were remington factory cases and the first time these cases had been reloaded. Of course I stopped right there and called Sierra. I was told presures were fine that I either had resized the cases to much( used full length resize die) Or I may have a headspace problem. I don't have go, no gauges. Anyone know a way to check without having them? Thinking about just neck sizeing only and trying that, I may have pushed the shoulder to far back with the full lenth die. Like I said, shoots factory fine.

Thanks
Ron

[Vic303]

Headspace gauges should be available from Brownells or Midway fairly cheap.

[JNewell]

Checking HS is a good idea (mandatory, IMO), but...

First, while anything is possible, mostly the Swedish Mausers have been very lightly used. I have had a bunch and have tested HS and have not seen one yet that would come even close to closing on a no-go gage. That doesn't mean that there aren't loose Swedes out ther ;) but the odds are probably low.

That means it might be worth looking elsewhere. As a rule, chambers in military rifles are loose to make them function more reliably. That means that even if HS is OK the brass may expand more than it would in a SAAMI-spec chamber. To compensate for this, military brass usually has more brass in the lower part of the case. (This also changes case volume, so be careful transferring loads for commercial brass to military brass.) The reason I mention this is that IIRC several/many commercial loads are built on brass that is not quite correct dimensionally for the 6.55x55 spec. Put this all together and it is possible that your case separation is due to a large-ish diameter chamber and brass that is suboptimal for the military chamber. You should definitely check the HS, but that may not be the problem.

Good luck and let us know.

[Sunray]

"...Anyone know a way to check without having them?..." Nope. Other than paying a smithy. Full length resizing is not the cause. If you had an AG42B you'd have to FL resize. The fastest way for you to check the head space is to take it to a smithy. If he says anything about wanting to see the cases, take it elsewhere. You just want the headspace checked and that take proper guages. I suspect the lot of brass you used is faulty, but check the head space anyway.

[Mike Irwin]

It IS possible to create a false excess headspace situation by incorrectly sizing the brass. If you set the shoulder back too much, you've created a headspace problem.

[mete]

The 6.5x55 has gone through changes . There was the norwegian military , swedish military and I think a civilian spec. These differences have now been unified as the 6.5x55SE. But as a reloader it doesn't matter. What you have to do is to size the case to your chamber whatever that might be and forget the gage. Such problems are not limited to old military guns . When they started to make belted cases like the 7 rem mag the makers were very sloppy about shoulder dimensions .It didn't matter to them , only to the reloaders . But the solution is the same - size to the chamber whatever that may be.