Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles hard to chamber??

so i'm reloading some once fired 300win nickle casses from federal and about half stick. seems like the bolt face (remington 700) has to snap over the case head, then it takes more force than there should be to lower the bolt handle. all are trimmed to proper length. i've never ran into this problem before and it doesn't happen with my brass casses; some of those are three times fired. i tried reseting both my rcbs and horny day dies to no avail. i thought that the nickle would be easier to defferentiate between my hunting and load development rounds; besides their all shiny and cool right:) any ideas?

95% of the time a slight turn downward of the sizing die takes care of these problems. What did you do to reset the sizing die??

i pulled both apart and cleaned. ran the ram up, screwed the die down till it stoped, ran the ram down, turned the die down 1/8 turn, didn't work, turned the die down another 1/8 turn, still didn't work. odd!

Sometimes the neck sizing button will pull the neck/ shoulder
junction out a scosh bit. Try putting a light coat of Imperial
Die Wax on the inside of the junction with a Q-Tip.
This drove me nuts one time.
Good luck!

I have had the same problem when reloading 300 wby's. One guy told me to file a little off the shell holder, or was that the die. One guy said to use redding resizing wax, he also said the best spray is from dillon, but uses the wax.

I use One Shot, but I found that I have work those case 3,4,5 times in and out of the rcbs die, then they chamber.

I was reloading for 2 different rifles. One was an MOA, the other was a Sauer(?). Some of my loads would not chamber in the Sauer, but would all chamber in the wby moa. So I pulled them, remeasured etc. I then just resized them again and again, that seemed to work.

Another little issue with belted brass is that sometimes after repeated firings you get excessive swelling forward of the belt,and standard dies do not really reduce that swelling down to where you can chamber the cartridge easily.

Many assume the problem always lies in the shoulder area of the case,and sometimes it does,but it can also occur in that area forward of the belt on the body of the case.

There is a die made by an outfit called Innovative Technologies out of Casselberry,Florida (www.larrywillis.com)that makes a special die specically designed to deal with this problem.I think this has been mentioned on here before.Other companies may make the same thing,but I have this one.

The die is called a "Belted Magnum Collet Resizing Die". Hope this helps.

I have the innovative die and pretty much only have to use it on a buddies custom weatherbies that are cut with a generous chamber.
What I found on those guns is if you measure the bulge above the belt left by resizing if it is over .513 at the widest point you could very well have trouble there. If you chamber these cases a few times you'll see some scratches there.
Please take that measurement.....look for scratches and report back.

Was the brass originally fired in your rifle? It is not uncommon to find that brass fired in one rifle will not re-size down small enough to fit another rifle.

This is caused by first firing a cartridge in a max SAAMI chamber, then by chance, purchasing a max SAAMI FL resizer, then trying to fit the loaded cartridge into a minimum SAAMI chamber.

I have had it happen, and on another thread a few months ago, Mule Deer mentioned that he has had it happen several times. Of course, he has loaded many more different cartridges than I have.

All FL sizing dies will not size a case down to original factory dimensions. It is a matter of manufacturing tolerences.

On mine, after FL sizing brass that was fired in another rifle, the cartridge was too fat about an inch above the belt. The FL die was too large for this particular rifle.

I purchased a FL die of another brand and everything worked out fine. But, I could just as easily purchased another max. FL die and still have the problem.

Try some factory loads to see if they chamber okay. If they do, fire them, then measure them at several different spots, such as a half inch above the base, an inch above the base, and also at the shoulder. Measure the headspace of the fired case from the shoulder to the base, and compare these measurments with the cases that will not fit.

Compare the OAL length of the cases.

i have had several full length sizing dies that i had to grind a little off the bottem in order to get them to push the shoulder back enough. but if it is only happening with the nickle cases ? have to think nickle cases were fired in another rifle.

ed

If it comes down to shaving something the shellholder is much easier to shave down (and the cheapest component). I've also had to do this mainly with some wsm calibers which are known to be a bit finicky. Just put it in a vice grip and gently hold it against the side of a grinding wheel. Take off about .010". The top of the shellholder has no effect on the reloading process at all so you won't hurt a thing.