[spartan00054]

So I sat down to load some .308 before I go shooting this week. Everything went fine until I noticed that I could push the bullets into the cases with my thumb. This was using:

CAVIM cases (Venezuelan surplus)
Winchester 147gr. FMJBTs
LEE reloading gear (FL sizer and seater)

I then pulled and seated the bullets to the correct length, and crimped to see if that solved the problem. No dice. Some I could push into the case with my thumb as before, the others I threw into a mag and cycled through my AR10. The violence of chambering caused the other cases to eat the bullets.

Tried with new bullets and new cases (R-P), same problem. Checked the sizer's mandrel, discovered quite a bit of gunk on the mandrel, so I think that is the likely culprit; necks being stretched out of spec by a dirty mandrel.

This brings me to my question. I have around 300 cases that may be effected by the problem. They are all trimmed and primed, ready for charging and loading. Can I get away with buying a neck sizer and simply resizing the mouth/neck, or do I have to deprime (carefully) and FL resize and totally reprocess all of this brass? Also, do you have any other ideas for what might have caused my current issue?

Thanks in advance.

[rcmodel]

Brand of dies?

Collet Lee or some other brand?

If they are normal dies, and use a normal expander on the depriming rod?
It is too big!

It needs to measure .305" - .306" at most, for proper case enck tension.

If it's too big, turn it down with a drill & emery paper.

rc

[spartan00054]

I'm using Lee FL resizing dies at the moment, as this is for semi auto. I thought the collet dies were only for neck sizing. Yeah, the I.D. on my cases is at about. 307.

[243winxb]

The expander should be .002" or more smaller than bullet diameter.

[Trent]

You don't want .307 inner diameter unless you're loading single shot bolt action rounds. :)

I agree with the above, your expander plug is NOT doing it for you. Make sure your expander is .3055 (brass springs back a little).

Same problem if you bought new redding dies, they ship 30 cal dies with a .3065 expander which makes the unsuitable to semi-auto's UNLESS you crimp. (ran in to the same problem with 8mm, had to add a crimp die to my lineup, so this seems to be universal on all redding dies.)

You can add a neck sizer w/ bushing OR add a crimp die as an additional step, but it'd be better to get a die that works right. You want a max of .306 for semi-auto 30 cal loading. .305 is better, that'll be rock solid, but you may shave pieces off your bullet when seating. Could hammer on the damn thing and it won't budge though.

[243winxb]

I have around 300 cases that may be effected by the problem. They are all trimmed and primed, ready for charging and loading. Can I get away with buying a neck sizer and simply resizing the mouth/neck, Yes, RCBS, you can remove the decapping pin in a neck sizing die. Or buy a busihing neck sizing die.

[gamestalker]

Try adjusting the seating die down to the point it is making enough contact with the shell holder to cause light resistence. Lube a case see what happens after you resize it.

I have have never had a die wear out, and especially when considering the stout design and material used to make a die, how could one suddenly be worn excessively out of specification? That's why I said try dropping back to the basics of FL resizing and see if that changes neck tension at all.

[Trent]

How would FL sizing affect neck tension?

When you pull the case back out the expander die passes through again. It'll undo whatever thickness the sizing process did, and put it to an inner diameter of just slightly under the expander die diameter (due to brass rebound).

If he had problems chambering, yeah, it's out of adjustment. But moving the die up or down will not have one iota of impact on neck tension unless it's backed out so far he's not sizing anything (something I do, on occasion, when I'm depriming only prior to cleaning).

[P-32]

All of the rifle ammo I load are all held in place by neck tension except 30-30 which I lightly crimp. I have match bushing dies where I can adjust neck tension by changing the bushing. another My '06 huntin ammo die is a every day plain ole RCBS die set. The trick might be to lightly and I mean lightly lube the inside of the neck about every third one. This helps the size button get back through.

One of the signs of worn out brass is it won't take a re-size and the brass won't rebound. How many times have your brass been reloaded? Brass will work harden and you can anneal the necks and get it working again. Some people might do well on this but I think I would rather just replace the brass when it comes to that point. I have some 223 brass which is only loaded for practice that have been reloaded 12 times and still going strong. One of these days it's going to stop working for me.

[spartan00054]

They're once fired, this is their first trip through the resizing die. I'll measure the mandrel when I sober up and make my way down to the garage in the morning. Graduate school, it'll make you drink.

[kingmt]

If your ID is .307 & your OD .308 I dont see how you can seat them by thumb unless you have the pull down FMJ stuff. I havent measured but it must have a very thin surface area that is full diameter then tapers down from there. I have some that I can seat by hand. Dont get to wild with press becuse you can only get so much before you just resize the neck & shave the bullet. .001-.002 is enough you may need to crimp. Clean off your mandral. Insteed of buying a new die just buy a mandral & brake the depriming pin off.

[rsrocket1]

Sounds like either the mandrel is over sized (happens sometimes with Lee) or you didn't screw the sizing die until it touched the shell holder then screw in an additional 1/4 turn.

Video link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Al2m72JyypA)

Yes you can salvage them by using the neck collet die, but

1. You must have the mandrel installed, otherwise the fingers will over squeeze the neck and ruin the case.
2. Unless you remove the depriming pin, as you size the neck with the neck collet die, you will deprime the case because the mandrel on the collet die cannot be raised like it can on the full length resizing die. Unfortunately, the depriming pin is part of the mandrel and the only way to remove it is to break it off.

If you didn't adjust the die properly, chances are the case wasn't headspaced properly either because you didn't completely full length resize the case which includes bumping the shoulder back.

If that was the case and you find that the mandrel is of the right size, you might as well go through all the cases and full length resize them again (be sure to relube the cases). The primers usually won't go off (I've never had one go off when depriming, but that doesn't guarantee anything) and they can be reseated and used as normal.

[USSR]

Yet ANOTHER insufficient neck tension problem, and ALL with Lee dies.:eek:

Don

[grubbylabs]

From what I read I would say this.

Pull the decaping pin out of your die and clean every thing to make sure you don't have excess lube or other gunk in there. Then double check that the die is set up correctly. Run a piece of brass through and check your neck tension then.

If you pull the decaping pin you can run it through your die again without messing with your primmer. Just be careful of the lube you don't want to fill your case with it and have it mess with the primer.

Good luck with that and graduate school

[rsrocket1]

Am I missing something?
I thought the Lee decapping pins are integral to the mandrel (unlike dies like RCBS which are replaceable and sold as a bunch in a baggie). I was not able to pull the decapping pin out of my 308 neck collet die even with pliers.

[MtnCreek]

Unless I’m mistaken, you can raise the de-cap / expander enough to still allow the expander to clear the neck, but without the de-cap pin reaching the primer. This would allow re-sizing of the brass with the primers left in place. But as others have stated, if your expander is over-sized, you need to correct that prior to re-sizing.

[NCsmitty]

Slide the decapping pin/mandrel shaft up to just clear the primer by loosening the tension nut on top, and you can resize without popping the primers out.

The Lee is designed to slide up if an obstruction is encountered like a berdan primer or a off center primer flashole to prevent breakage of the pin. If you read the instructions, you would find this information.

I thought I would add that if you want to reduce the diameter of the expander, remove it from the die and spin it in a drill and sand with some emery paper. It won't take much.

NCsmitty

[Chawbaccer]

Lee factory crimp die should solve your problem.

[MtnCreek]

Lee factory crimp die should solve your problem.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a lack of a crimp is an issue, but possibly a lack of neck tension. In my mind (which is a very strange place), if the bullet was held in place with a crimp only and without neck tension, accuracy would be affected. Seems like the crimp process could cause runout if there was no neck tension.

[rcmodel]

Crimp does not / cannot solve case neck tension issues.

A loose bullet is still a loose bullet, crimped with an FCD, or not crimped.

Turn down the dang expander like I said in post #2 yesterday!

rc

[AABEN]

Jest take the top off and it will come out if you have not bent it.

[Sin City Shooter]

You cannot remove the decapping pin from the collet die or raise it so you will need to use the FL die as mentioned above.

[Trent]

Crimp does not / cannot solve case neck tension issues.

A loose bullet is still a loose bullet, crimped with an FCD, or not crimped.

Turn down the dang expander like I said in post #2 yesterday!

rc

I agree, somewhat. If the bullet seats well, but not enough for the action, crimping applies extra neck tension that prevents it from moving.

I.e. in 8mm my Redding dies size the inner diameter to .0015 under bullet diameter. The bullets seat firmly but NOT firmly enough for that action. Crimping adds enough neck tension to prevent set back.

If I used an expander plug that was .003 under bullet diameter, I wouldn't need to crimp at all; neck tension would be so high it would be unnecessary.

If the bullet is "dropping right through" crimping won't help at all.

It's a minor point but one worth noting.

Not trying to be argumentative, BTW. If I'm wrong let me know, I'm here to learn and help, not to preach.

[kingmt]

All kinds of advice but not much of it good. I have my doubt that the tool is bad. Most of the time it is a matter of the person not knowing how to use it. As for another Lee problem I have found this still to be true.

Can you post a close up pick of the bullet?

If they are the bullet I think your talking about it is the bullet not the die. I have seen this stuff spin free in factory loaded. A crime is all you can do to keep it from setting back.

[Trent]

Where's the bad advice?

If he measures the diameter of the expanding plug in the die and it's > .306", that's a big problem for semi-auto.

Measure the bullet diameter, if it's < .308", that's a problem.

If the bullets are fine, and the die is adjusted according to manufacturer instructions, and the expanding plug is < .306", then the brass is too thin walled or the die reamed incorrectly - that particular sizer isn't pushing the brass neck IN sufficiently on the uptroke, and the expander has jack all to do with it.

If that's the case, he needs to A) get different brass with thicker walls, B) get new dies, or C) get a collet neck sizer that he can get the appropriate sized bushing for for that brass to get sized properly.

Bushing neck sizers are great tools, by the way, and not just for neck turning / anal retentive benchrest shooters (guilty).

Neck sizers can be used with different batches of brass to get more uniform neck tensions. Remington, Winchester, FC, etc - all brass manufacturers have different THICKNESS, so using one die to resize mixed lots of brass really doesn't help you on the accuracy end of things. Even without neck turning you can reap great benefits by using a bushing die to size brass of each brand to a specific range of tension.

Factory brass WILL vary considerably even within the same lot, but aside from neck turning, you'll get better overall consistency on neck tension with a collet die. (Heck to avoid neck turning altogether and end up at very accurate loads, you can even measure the rounds and sort them by neck thickness, and use the appropriate bushing dies to get .002" or .001" under bullet diameter to get very uniform loads without the extra step of neck turning)

[243winxb]

Winchester 147gr. FMJBTs
Think i saw something about, if bullets are seated to deep they loose all neck tension???

[kingmt]

I call bingo. 243winxb that is what I was talking about if they are seated to where they will crimp there is no press left.

I don't have time to type all the bad advice in this thread. I will point out the post about making necks so small they shave the bullets. Not only is the brass going to be resized but your shaving the bullet. How could that add press? It may make a shoulder that will stop set back. Is this common practice for benchrest shooters?

[Trent]

.003 under will only shave certain brands of bullets. Boat tail ammo will seat just fine, no shavings, with an extraordinary amount of grip. Flat base bullets will shave, for those you need .002.

If you read the OP, you will notice the OP knew with a reasonably high likelihood what the culprit was (expanded necks too far due to crud on the expanding plug).

He asked for any other ideas should that not work, and many were given.

No bad advice here, save one post using a crimp die to solve the problem (which wouldn't work alone, if the brass was oversized to begin with, but COULD help if he still had light neck tension AFTER resizing).



The question he posed was how to fix the 300 brass he already sized with the too-large expanding plug. (and the answer was to check the mandrel, hone if necessary, resize them, or use a collet die, or xyz).

He also mentioned he tried NEW bullets to the same effect, so your bullet-being-pushed-back-too-far argument is not really relevant.

[grubbylabs]

I think Trent has it here. He needs to examine his equipment measure and clean then try again.

[rcmodel]

Shaving bullets?

Doesn't anyone here own a chamfering tool??

rc

[grubbylabs]

I threw it in the trash I thought it was useless. Don't tell me I should have kept it.

[Trent]

Umm.. you shoulda kept it. :)

I don't use mine anymore, will send it to you if you want; the RCBS power trimmer + 3 way cutter makes it universally useless. :)

[grubbylabs]

I am just pulling rc's chain. I chamfer every case.

[kingmt]

I agree measure but I never seen a post where he did. I see one saying another Lee die problem & the problem is still unknowen.

I use the bullets that Im sure he is talking about & bet I know wnat is going on but there needs to be more info to know. A FCD may have been the best answer or stab in the dark.

If that is the problem then they can be shied to me & I will put them with the other 6000 Im trying to dispose of in my bolt gun 1 at a time.

Just measured mine & .3075 behind the cannelure & .308 ahead of it.

[Casefull]

See if your bullets are undersize. I recently bought a bunch of 308 bullets online and they are not even close to 308 diameter.

[popper]

Mic the bullets. I use Hornady and RCBS F/L die for my lr-308. Expander for both is .307, no problems. You can use 600 emery to take .001 or so off the expander if needed, Lee is a tapered pin, not a ball. Get a case gauge and use it. I've had troubles with LEE die not setting the HS properly. Make sure your primers are below flush. I had a problem with .243 and did the N/S trick with the de-capper pulled out, on loaded rounds. Kind of worked for a bolt gun but NOT a S/A.