GooseGestapo -
The brass I'm using has been fired in an assortment of rifles. It's come from probably almost a dozen different sources, one of which is my brother's old "Ted Williams" Winchester 94. His gun has a loose chamber. What you describe with loose chambers sounds like it's what's going on here.
As far as the crimp goes, I've thought of that too (because I've screwed it up MANY times before) but it's already been ruled out.
For one, the sharpie marker test on an empty casing shows contact at the shoulder. Second, it happens with both loaded rounds and empty, resized casings. Last, if I compare a casing fired in my gun, a resized casing from these dies, and a brand new factory loaded round, I can see that these dies just are not sizing the shoulder at all. Its like RCBS forgot about the shoulder angle altogether. The dies size below the shoulder and they size the neck but they don't touch the shoulder.
To farther complicate things, I tried a BRAND NEW set of RCBS dies today and got the exact same result. I promptly returned them for a refund.
After a lot of swearing, I put the RCBS shellholder my brother has and his dies back in my press and tightened the dies tight. They are so tight now that the shellholder hits the bottom and the handle cams over hard. It takes both hands to snap the handle down and both hands to snap it back up from its bottom position but it does seem like I might get some sized enough to try some reloads this way. I know it isn't right but it might be workable until I can solve the problem.
My last question to you guys is this:
Since RCBS has failed me twice on this, what dies should I go with?
I basically need dies that are going to return my fired brass to original factory dimensions (factory ammo runs fine in my rifle).
The brass I'm using has been fired in an assortment of rifles. It's come from probably almost a dozen different sources, one of which is my brother's old "Ted Williams" Winchester 94. His gun has a loose chamber. What you describe with loose chambers sounds like it's what's going on here.
As far as the crimp goes, I've thought of that too (because I've screwed it up MANY times before) but it's already been ruled out.
For one, the sharpie marker test on an empty casing shows contact at the shoulder. Second, it happens with both loaded rounds and empty, resized casings. Last, if I compare a casing fired in my gun, a resized casing from these dies, and a brand new factory loaded round, I can see that these dies just are not sizing the shoulder at all. Its like RCBS forgot about the shoulder angle altogether. The dies size below the shoulder and they size the neck but they don't touch the shoulder.
To farther complicate things, I tried a BRAND NEW set of RCBS dies today and got the exact same result. I promptly returned them for a refund.
After a lot of swearing, I put the RCBS shellholder my brother has and his dies back in my press and tightened the dies tight. They are so tight now that the shellholder hits the bottom and the handle cams over hard. It takes both hands to snap the handle down and both hands to snap it back up from its bottom position but it does seem like I might get some sized enough to try some reloads this way. I know it isn't right but it might be workable until I can solve the problem.
My last question to you guys is this:
Since RCBS has failed me twice on this, what dies should I go with?
I basically need dies that are going to return my fired brass to original factory dimensions (factory ammo runs fine in my rifle).