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Posted: 6/17/2010 10:40:52 PM EDT
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Ok might be a noob question but I searched and couldn't find anything,
Ive been having a problem getting any consistency when I bump the shoulders on my once fired 30-06 cases. I set my die to .001-.002 bump from the fire formed dimensions. After a few cases I would get some that would give me a .003 to .004 bump and I would re adjust my die. This went on for a while. After probably the 10th time of readjusting the die, only doing 3 cases or so at a time, I just left it, and noticed that it would vary from 3.034-3.029. So i finished up my cases and separated them in 2 groups 3.034-3.032 and 3.031-3.029. Now I made sure to try to apply equal pressure on the press every time, but there is a little flex in my bench. Is this just normal variation? Will a .006 bump hurt accuracy or change poi much? This is my first batch so im trying to find a good load, and not sure if I should just use the .001s to develop my load, or is the variation not going to effect it that much. Also I sorted out all of the cases I used to adjust the die, just in case, because they were ran through the re sizer 4-5 times. Will these have a reduced life span due to the added resizing? Dies and press are lee, head space gauge was from Sinclare,and the gun is a Savage 110 |
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Quoted:
make sure case mouth is lubed so you are not jerking it out.... +1, make sure you lube throughly, and the centering of the die should minimize any shoulder iregularitys. Make sure the die is clean inside also..... and the brass can "spring back" at different rates. |
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I know you say you're using once fired so for your particular case look at the bold comments.
My thoughts on your variance; -inconsistent lube thickness -mixed brass, -mixed age brass, brass with more loads on it will spring back more as it's work hardened more than less used brass - +1 to the unlubed necks with a grabby expander will tug on the neck as it comes out and cause variance I think you need to lube every case the same and lube the necks. Also you might want to take your expander out and polish it with a power drill and some crocus cloth or even steel wool. I wouldn't like having that much variance. I want 0.002 to 0.004 of a bump. ETA- To check to see if it is an expander drag/pulling issue. Take out the expander and size a half a dozen cases without it. Measure the shoulder datum. If your variance is gone you know what to target; neck interior, clean with a brush, lube, and maybe polish your expander. One trick I have used is to clean carboned necks with a case neck brush wrapped with steel wool. |
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Welcome to reloading rifle casings!
I had the exact same problem with .223 using Lee dies, Dispite my best efforts I could not fix the problem. I went to Redding's standard dies ($34.99), purchased the Carbide expander button upgrade ($25) and changed to spray lube. No more problems. You will always get s small variation due to different brass spring-back, but it's as consistant as you can get! I will never use Lee resizing dies for bottleneck cases again. Now before you get the 500 people that will follow my post with "I've been using Lee dies for 50+ years and I've never had any problems, Lee dies are the best, blah blah blah". I don't doubt that Lee sizing dies made 20 years ago were made better. The fact is if you take a redding die and a Lee sizing die apart, it is like night and day the difference of the inside finish and reguardless only a carbide sizing button will reduce/eliminate the pulling on the inside of the neck causing the shoulder to be pulled out and Lee doesn't have a carbide expander button option! Lee's Pistol dies and bullet seating dies and FCD dies are all great. HTH and as always YMMV -Masta |
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I have been putting lube in the case neck, but ive been using the lee lube and my finger so there may be some difference in case to case lubing. Is this my problem?
I also used some metal polish and a rag to clean the expander ball, and hopes 9 on the inside of the die, and it was pretty dirty. However i got the same results. The expander ball has some tooling marks on it but I couldn't get a good enough picture. The weird thing is it would never get longer than my die setting only shorter. So im not sure if that eliminates die movement, but I would think it would move out if anything. However I don't really trust Lee dies locking method, I wish they just provided a real lock ring. All cases were Remington. I have some Winchester but im gonna try to figure this out before I move on to resizing them. edit- Ill try to check without the expander on a few Winchester cases. |
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Quoted:
I know you say you're using once fired so for your particular case look at the bold comments. My thoughts on your variance; -inconsistent lube thickness -mixed brass, -mixed age brass, brass with more loads on it will spring back more as it's work hardened more than less used brass - +1 to the unlubed necks with a grabby expander will tug on the neck as it comes out and cause variance I think you need to lube every case the same and lube the necks. Also you might want to take your expander out and polish it with a power drill and some crocus cloth or even steel wool. I wouldn't like having that much variance. I want 0.002 to 0.004 of a bump. ETA- To check to see if it is an expander drag/pulling issue. Take out the expander and size a half a dozen cases without it. Measure the shoulder datum. If your variance is gone you know what to target; neck interior, clean with a brush, lube, and maybe polish your expander. One trick I have used is to clean carboned necks with a case neck brush wrapped with steel wool. This inconsistent lube is a major factor so is mixed brass also what guns it was fires in, it may be once fired but in chambers of varying headspace. |
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