I'm fairly new to reloading and having some trouble with my 243. I can't get some of my shells to fit in my gun, I can't close the bolt. The brass fits in fine, but once I put a bullet it in it won't fit in. Some of them will fit in fine and shoot great and others won't. They measure exactly the same, from brass to oal. What am I doing wrong or what is wrong?

Check the length.

Mark the shoulder with a sharpie and see if it is hitting in the chamber.

After inspecting the ones that won't chamber closely there is a slight crease at the shoulder. Am I not setting up my seating die correctly

Bingo....We have a winner..

If you are crimping, you could be swelling the neck or riveting the shoulder. If not, he's probably right.



The solution would be to turn out your seating die in a small amount at a time until they chamber. 1/8 or 1/4 of a turn should do it.

Edit: I blew it. I should know better than to post late at night.

He needs to turn his die out, not in. He's got it too close to the shellholder and when he seats the bullet it's trying to crimp it into place, but I'm betting his bullet doesn't have a cannelure so it buckles the shoulder slightly.

I had the same thing happen for years with a 7mm rem mag and couldn't figure out what was going on. Finally I figured it out and backed the die out of the press 1/2 turn & readjusted my seating depth with the seating stem. No more problems.

As above, the easiest way to fix the problem is to back out the seating die one full turn and screw the seater stem down the same amount.

The reason the case shoulder doesn't buckle on every cartridge is because of a slight variation in case length. The longer cases will buckle at the shoulder while the shorter cases will be fine.

If the seater die is setup wrong you can usually feel it when seating the bullet, it will have a slight "camm over" feel about it !

If you are trying to crimp, stop it. You don't need to crimp 243 cartridges even if they have a cannelure.

To adjust the die:

1. Put a case in the shellholder and put the ram all the way up.

2. Screw the die in until you feel resistance and then back it out at least a turn.

3. Then adjust the seater stem to seat the bullet to the depth you want.

As an alternative to Grumulkin's method:

Put the shellholder on the ram,
Raise it all the way up,
Place a nickel on the shell holder,
Screw your seating die down until it bottoms on the nickel,
Tighten your die lock ring.

After this is done, adjust bullet seating depth by screwing the seating stem in/out.

What brand of dies are you using?

Rcbs dies. Did what you guys said and works good