claydee

Hey Guys

Ireally appreciate all the previous tips and help! Sincere THANKS!
But now I have a new problem. After loading 30 rounds I decided to cycle them thru myBrowning A-boltand 7 of them are really hard to cycle. They feed in, but the bolt has a hard time closing and opening. What did I do wrong????

I full length resizied, Each one is under OAL spec, etc..

bigcountry

Maybe you have a short chamber? When you FL sized, did you cam over? In other words, you set your seater down touching your ram, and then turn another 1/4 turn? Most do not turn down enough. Also did you check to see if they needed trimmed?

You most likely needed to cam over more. On alot of FL sizers, pulling the expander ball thru will actually pull the neck up some. Thats the reason, most of the time, I use a universal deprimer, and deprime, and then size without any expander ball, and then push the expander ball thru, in a later step, not pull it thru. I did alot of this to control neck runout, but it didn't really help much.

claydee

I used a universaldeprimer also. Do you mean when I Installed the resizing die? I raised the shell holder, installed the resizing die unitll it JUST TOUCHED the shell holder, Then gave a 1/4 inch turn.
Should I have screwed in the resizing die untill it came intoFIRM contact with the shell holder and then give the 1/4 turn?

bigcountry

I would give it another 1/8 turn and see what happens. Your going to have to troubleshoot a bit.

This is the reason I have alot of measureing tools like stoney point OAL gauge, and head and shoulders gauge. They really tell you whats going on.

thndrchiken

I would also closely examine the rounds that won't chamber to see if you may have crushed the cases while seating the bullet. Sometimes it is hardly noticeable.

mello_collins

Did you make a dummy round with no primer or powder to check your lead length? To do this, use the dummy round and a candle (I found oil candles work best) to blacken the bullet. Seat the bullet further out of the case than usual, blacken the bullet, and gently chamber the round. If you meet resistance take it out and inspect the blackened area. You will see where the rifling touched the bullet; buy the marks left on the bullet. Seat it a little deeper and try again until you either get no marks or just the tiniest bit. Then measure. This is the max COL for that bullet in your rifle. Each bullet model is diff and you will have to repeat for each. With this as a starting point seat the bullet 20thousandths of the lands. You might have a short lead. Check your reloads against the dummy for length, not the book.

mello

ubetcha

Another possiibility is,depending on how many times the cases were reloaded,is excessive case length.FL sizing causes the brass to stretch and needs to be trimmed to proper case over all length

Pawildman

Yep. Check your resized case length. Also, have you tried to chamber a resized empty casing ? If it won't chamber easily you have a sizing/case length problem most likely. Both should be easily correctable. If the resized casing does chamber and lock easily, then follow Mello's advise about bullet seating off the lands. The problem should go away.

claydee

Thanks Guys!!!!
I re- installed the resizing die a little bit further. Resized, cycled them thru empty, loaded up another batch and carefully cycled them thru my gun again. No Problems!

You guys are a great help! I'm doing this all solo except for your advice from here!

eldeguello

You may have done NOTHING WRONG at all. The cases may just have been fireda lot, and need to be sized down more than you did. BUT if you are certain theprimer, bullets, and powder charges in them are OK, THE CARTRIDGE CASES ARE WITHING SPECS AS TO LENGTH,and you can close the bolt ALL THE WAY, even if it takes some effort, you CAN FIRE them safely. Just use these at the range, and use the ones that chamber easily forhunting..... You will probably find that the tough ones will rechamber easily AFTER FIRING...

IF the cases turn out to be too long, pull the bullets, dump the powder charges, and trim them!!