Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Belted cartridges - I like them

Might be good to get some discussion of basic cartridge design, especially the lately maligned belted magnum cartridges. I think the belt's virtues, such as the most efficient headspace (aside from rimmed cartridges) is seldom heard.

Especially in hunting cartridges that are full length resized, headspacing on the belt is the best system as it results in a the most consistent and positive headspace (90 degrees from the bore's axis). Bottle necked cartridges that headspace on the shoulder have much more potential for slop in headspace due to the angles involved. The less the shoulder angle, the more potential for excess headspace. Belts are crucial on such cartridges as .300 H&H and .375 H&H. I think most other cartridges would also be even better with the belts. The Weatherby series, for example, all with adequate shoulders on which to headspace, have belts - and I believe for much more than fad or style. Makes sense.

Some point to magazine feeding problems in criticism of belted cartridges; I've never experienced such a problem. The only magnum cartridges that must be without a belt are those oversized in diameter with rebated rims (such as the Dakotas or RUMs).

I'd like to see more belts on our new cartridges.

Top's off this can of worms...

How's fishing?

GF1,

I don't agree with you that cartridges with adequate shoulders would be better with a belt when it comes to handloading.

There has to be more space at the shoulder of a belted round manufacturing tolerance wise. That means more stretch at the cases expansion web. That can lead to over sizing with the FL die.

Most rounds including military are beltless. Thats good.

Yes, the brass gets thin and tends to crack right above the belt. Sizing at the shoulder, assuming it's an adequate shoulder, prevents this.

I'm pretty sure that if I owned a belted magnum I would NOT headspace it on the belt alone. I would set up my dies for minimal shoulder setback to prevent case stretching and subsequent casehead separation.
Selmer

WHile I do not have an opinion on belts I do shoot Wby magnums. I load for them all. I have put over 500 rounds through my 300 Wby with only my original 100 cases purchased with no problems. I have put over 600 rounds through my 7 Wby's with only the original 60 cases purchased. Again, no problems of any sort. I adjust the dies properly and all 4 of my Wby's (three 7's & one 300) are very accurate, fast as I want them to be and very terminal.

Savage 99, first I've heard about greater tolerance on shoulder dimensions for belted cartridges - nothing personal here, but I'm dubious of this. I would tend to believe that headspacing tolerances are higher on some older and very popular cartridges, such as 30-06.

Additionally, I think you'll find that even if this is true that there is very little flow of brass forward to make up this space - cases expand more outward when held in place by a belt or rim. Almost 40 years of handloading experience both belted and non-belted cases in a wide array of cartridges shows no discernable difference in case lengthening or separations. If brass is flowing forward on the belted case, it would not stop at the shoulder; I've not seen a difference here. Case head separations are the result of too much pressure; measuring case head expansion in my experience is no different, belted or not. High pressures will definitely expand case heads, ultimately causing separations.

Big point in the belted principle is the 90-degree angle creates less "slop" by alot than headspacing that relies only on a case shoulder. The angle is everything; steep shoulders create less fore/aft cartridge movement in the chamber, given nominal standards that accomodate variation in chambers. Belts very less.

Would be very interesting to see some data on shoulder variation between belted and non-belted cartridges.

The belted magnums have been around for years and have an excellent reputation among those folks that actually hunt. They are field proven..Belt bashing is just another croc that seems to follow the industry...

Bottom line is the belted rounds feed well but extraction is the best thing they have to offer, as the tapered case always ejects even with a very bad overload, and on a dangerous game rifle that could be an issue for sure...

Both belted and unbelted cases work equally well, and one is as good as the other IMO..It's really a no issue as I see it....I shoot the 375 H&H, 300 H&H, .338 Win. and I also shoot the 404 Jefferys, 416/375 Ruger, all good cartridges some belted, some are not.

I agree with GF1, that Belted Cases are better/safer for headspacing.

IME, there are however, two problems with belted cases.

#1 is the BS that is so often written about the problems one has in reloading them.

#2 is that the length from head to shoulder of a FACTORY LOADED belted round, such as a 7mm Remington Magnum can be a Lot shorter, than on a fired case, more so, than encountered with a non-belted cartridge, because that would be unsafe.

OK, so the cartridge with NEW BRASS, safely, or possibly unsafely, head spaced on the belt, stretches, and the shoulder ends up longer fitting itself to the particular rifle�s chamber.

Of course, if when that case is reloaded and the shoulder is pushed back too far, you can have problems, because the brass will eventually get tired of stretching.

Adjust your dies correctly, for your rifle�s chamber, OR Neck Size, use a heavy press that doesn�t flex, and don�t overload the cartridges, and Belted Cases work fine. Even considering that Belted Cartridge chambers vary, and maybe the dies also.

There is one caveat. I have in my possession a 300 Winchester Magnum case that was fired in a friends New Model 70 Winchester Rifle, when they first came out in the early 60s. The chamber of that rifle was so dimensioned that the fired case has very little neck left. I�ve heard of a 264 Winchester chamber that may have been as bad. If you get one like that, and you probably won�t, just don�t reload for it.

I�ve never agreed with the idea that Belted Cases are a poor design. I do think that there can sometimes be issues with chambers, versus factory loads, dies, and hand loading methods, that aren't usually encountered with rimmless cases.

I like'em too.

Smitty of the North

I agree with Ray on the issue.90+ years of use of the 375H&H;the 30H&H,Weatherby series and our lineup of belted cases, in the gamefields of the world clearly establishes the credibility of the belted case in a hunting rifle.

In a rifle for serious big game hunting,I'll take a belted,tapered case on a Mauser system over a short/fat,beltless case chambered in just about anything.

This also occurs with virgin component brass in handloads. And even though the headspace from the face of the cartridge head to the space of the bolt may be correctly held by the belt the stretching and thinning of the case body still occurs upon firing just as it would for a beltless case.

The difference in head to shoulder length of virgin component brass for my 308 is typically two or three thousanths shorter than the minimally sized fired brass I use in subsequent loadings. For those I've FL sized to bump the shoulder .001" from its fired dimension.

In contrast for just about every 300 Win. mag I've checked out the shoulder difference between virgin and fired brass is glaringly obvious to the naked eye. True, the careful handloader eliminates this after the first go-round but one firing with that much slop is too much for my taste.

It isn't caused by the belt per se, but the unwanted slack is there a lot of the time.

Bob,

I agree with what you say. Off and on, I have been shooting and hunting with my Mod. 70 based .338 Win. for at least the last thirty years. All my shooting has been done with handloads, and I have never had a problem with case separation or anything else. I have always been careful to set my FL die so the case shoulder is just touched, and I think this is IMPORTANT when FL sizing a belted case and GOOD when FL sizing anything else.

Thanks to you and Ray for good posts on this subject.

M Bell

Same here! Been reloading for my .300 since 85' and the 7mm Rem Mag for 4yrs before that. Never knew I had a problem til I started reading about it.

til later

Tensleep: Thank you. I have nothing against beltless cases at all;presently I have a 7mmDakota and the case is SLIGHTLY rebated(by about 2-thousandths),and it works and feed,extracts very well..But I also have no problem with belted cases;both styles work well, so long as the rifle is set up properly and a guy watches his brass.

Hey GF1

I have been keeping track of headspace on cases on my XL spreadsheet for a few years and have some data. There are 42 guns on the spreadsheet from 222 to 338RUM, some I have loaded for only once and some I have loaded for a thousand or more times. I use the Stoney Point Head & Shoulders Gauge (now the Hornady) and sifting through the data with application to the questions posed I come up with:

UNBELTED caliber / type rifle / new case / fully expanded case / headspace
22-250 / Remington VLS / 1.5770" / 1.5875" / .0105"
280AI / Hart rebarrel / 2.135" / 2.1520" / .017"
30-06 / Steyr Forester / 2.040" / 2.0515" / .0115"
338 RUM / Custom rebarrel / 2.377" / 2.383" / .006"

BELTED caliber / type rifle /new case / fully expanded case / shoulder gap
6.5 rem mag / Custom rebarrel / 1.768" / 1.785" / .0170"
264 win mag / pre-64 Mod 70 / 2.1215" / 2.1245" / .0295"
300 win mag / Beretta Mato / 2.253" / 2.2725" / .195"
338 win mag / Beretta Mato / 2.097" / 2.1240" / .027"

Now the new case measurement on the shoulder of the belted cases is not technically headspace but the fully expanded shoulder measurement is. I thought about a way to measure the headspace on new cases for belted cases and have even done it once. It is complicated and I will have to duplicate it and take pictures for an explanation. Have to feed the dogs, smoke the salmon and shower but will post again in a couple of hours.

The thought that belted cases are made with more gap at the shoulder is certainly true but is more the fault of the brass manufacturers than the rifle chamber. The brass manufacturers could manufacture to fill the chamber more, but like you say why worry about it if the belt is going to catch forward movement. I will have more later on how far a belt lets a case travel before stopping it.

I let my chambers do all of my cartridge sizing and simply neck size. With or without belts, I've never had any issues chambering successive loadings. I've done 6 to 8 loadings on some sets of cartridges and some are hot rod Wheatherbys. I guess my actions must all be pretty tight. I hope issues don't pop up, because I yard saled all of my full length dies. 1Minute

I can do with or without em,makes no never mind to me,I guess I always believed that the belt was just carry over from the old H&H cartridges,is not hard to see why the Holland Super 30 {300 H&H}needed the belt with such drastic taper and minimul shoulder the headspacing had to be done on the belt and as many of our Magnum rounds have come down from the 300 H&H the belt was just left on the case but as for the cases with sharp shoulders the belt is not at all needed as these cases would headspace properly on the shoulder...............

Interesting stuff, woods, looking forward to seeing the rest.

I could only find new cases in 2 of the belted calibers, the 6.5 rem mag custom job and the Beretta Mato 300 win mag. The way I set the test up was to use an R-P tool that is a stainless rod with 2 lockable collets and a brass tip shown here with the Stoney Point



I took the new cases and seated a bullet so they were not close to the lands. Then I chambered the case with the bolt into the chamber, inserted the rod into the muzzle and pushed the bullet against the bolt face. I then set the rear collet at an arbitrary point close where it was close to 2" between the collets (it was hard to get it exact). I then took the measurement between the collets which came out to be 1.997"



I then removed the bolt and put the same case with bullet back in the chamber and held it tight to headspace with a wooden dowel on the case head



and with the case held tight I inserted the rod against the bullet tip and took another measurement which came out to be 2.001"



That tells me that on the 300 win mag there is .004" movement forward allowed before the belt stopped it. .004" headspace on that particular case by that manufacturer (R-P) in that rifle.

The 6.5 rem mag got an interesting result which is probably not typical since it was a custom rebarrel and the action was squared and has a custom tight necked chamber. Same actions revealed a 1.991" measurement between the collets



and with the case held tight to headspace with the dowel



it got the same measurement

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v663/bwestfall/RELOADING/DSCN1230.jpg[/img]

which tells me the bolt is holding the case tight against the belt.

It seems like on a previous measurement like this months ago I came up with .007" headspace till the belt stopped movement. So, it seems that even though there is significant gap at the shoulder on new cases, the belt severely reduces forward movement when the firing pin slams the case.

But that also means that there is a lot more stretch necessary on belted cases than on unbelted cases.

Where that takes you is now up for discussion.

Agreed, and I can see why people can be turned off by it, maybe even enough to reject Belted Cartridges.

However, the design is solid IMO, and one that I like.

Smitty of the North