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Posted: 2/28/2010 10:23:27 PM EDT
Story: I have been reloading for about 1 year and half and made my first really dumb mistake. I picked up some lee rgb dies for .223 and while loading my first 100 rounds i didnt have my full length resizing die all the way touching the shell plate. Well i didnt notice it and loaded the 100 rounds. Well at the range today i noticed that my reloades would not let my ar-15 close the bolt completely. The loads wouldnt go the extra 1/8" that my full length resizer die was off. Well i am sitting here with my 100 rounds that wont chamber fully and was thinking......can i take those loaded rounds and lube them back up and then take the decaping rod out the full length resizer die and size the loaded dies the last 1/8" ? Does anyone see a problem with this? Safety? I think so. But i was wondering if this will work? What say the gods of reloading? 
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Since you've seated bullets in that brass, the case necks will be too large to re-enter the neck area of the sizing die. Any attempt to resize with seated bullets will probably ruin your brass.
If you pull the bullets, you will be able to resize the brass with the decapping pin out (leaving the expander ball in) thus saving your primers. |
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Alas, you must pull the bullets.
First lessons learned are usually the hardest. You will hate that kinetic bullet puller for the rest of your life. I'm glad that they didnt fire out of battery - that could have hurt your gun or more importantly you. You do have a case gauge right? If not get one. |
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I actually broke my kinetic puller trying to pull .223 rounds (pulled the edges of the jaws right off, returned it and exchanged it).... Pick up a hornady cam lock puller, you'll have all 100 pulled in about 15-20 minutes. You're hand/arm/sanity will thank you.
Since I size in one step, then do everything else in another step, i set my sizing die up so it's not just touching the shell plate, it's acting as the stop for the ram. That way I know I'm not losing anything to "cam over". |
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I did something similar. Resized a bunch of black hills (winchester made) cases with my wider bushing I use on Lapua cases by mistake. Threw a bunch of IMR 4064 powder charges all trickled up and individually weighed and didn't catch my error until I went to seat and had zero bullet tension.
Holy F! )()*&^%%$$#$$###$!!!! Fortunatley I didn't have to pull bullets but I had to dump all those charges and relube all the cases and resized with the proper bushing and the depriming rod removed. Basically wasted an hour of my time. It's good practice to measure and check as you go. That kills me because normally I do measure the inside neck diameter and shoulder location to see that i'm getting my target numbers. |
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Quoted: Quoted: You will need to pull the bullet. Invest in a drop in case guage, and check every round after size/trim. now you must be kidding might check the first and lastIn general, yeah, only 1st and last. When it comes to pulling bullets though, it's worth dropping them in to see if at least some of them are usable. |
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Quoted:
Story: I have been reloading for about 1 year and half and made my first really dumb mistake. I picked up some lee rgb dies for .223 and while loading my first 100 rounds i didnt have my full length resizing die all the way touching the shell plate. Well i didnt notice it and loaded the 100 rounds. Well at the range today i noticed that my reloades would not let my ar-15 close the bolt completely. The loads wouldnt go the extra 1/8" that my full length resizer die was off. Well i am sitting here with my 100 rounds that wont chamber fully and was thinking......can i take those loaded rounds and lube them back up and then take the decaping rod out the full length resizer die and size the loaded dies the last 1/8" ? Does anyone see a problem with this? Safety? I think so. But i was wondering if this will work? What say the gods of reloading? Per LEE die instructions.....the die should be screwed all the way down until it touches the shell plate, then screwed down an addititional 1/4 of a turn- 1/3 of a turn more. just FYI |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
You will need to pull the bullet. Invest in a drop in case guage, and check every round after size/trim. now you must be kidding might check the first and lastNo I am not,  untill the OP is 100% comfortable with the sizing process, I recommend checking them all.
I load 100 .223 at a time, I am in no hurry. I can check 100 cases for size, and length very quickly. Once the process is refined then the OP could do a little QA during die setup. |
This is the bad pic, end of case above end of case gauge. This case would not chamber. 
The good pic, end of case below end of gauge but above the cut = perfect. This case will chamber. Get a collet puller to pull the bullets. The hammer pullers are slow. 
The Hornady is a better puller than the RCBS. Be sure to get a 22 cal pilot with the puller. |
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