I'm glad I found this thread. New to me, 1923 vintage model 99 takedown, just picked up two weeks ago. In the venerable 300 Savage, of course. After all, this is a PA deer rifle.
Mechanically sound, with a Marbles folding rear sight & original Lyman tang sight. Cool thing is, using factory Remington 150 grain core-lokts, it's shooting 1 inch groups at 50 yards with the tang sight, 1.5 inch groups with the regular sights - Right on top of each other.
So, that made me happy. BUT, same exact issue with fired brass. Now I seem to remember reading in the past, and I find posts all over the place now, complaining about bolt thrust and bolt compression - to which I am inclined to say - BS - not at the pressures this cartridge operates at. I'm thinking it's either head spacing or just an overly generous chamber. FWIW, it is a takedown model and I can't get it to actually come apart. Not sure if someone silver soldered it in place.
I was thinking maybe looking for a small base sizer die until I read this thread.
I did buy 100 virgin Hornady brass, and my take away from this thread is to use the false shoulder trick to size the brass to this particular chamber. I suppose I could get a cast made and then go the custom die route.....but that will easily double the cost of this project - which I am inclined NOT to do.
In the end, I supposed I could put away a bunch of Factory ammo and give up handloading.....but that is no fun either!
