New to neck sizing.
I re-barreled a Mex Mauser to 250 Savage with minimum headspace. The first 5 pieces of brass I used to check fire function I then neck sized. They chambered, without bullets, fine. They were a bit tight trying to extract however and didn't really pop loose until the bolt bevel hit the receiver extraction cam. They look fine with no discernible markings . Full length sized and unfired brass worked as expected.
Is this usual with neck sized brass?
Thanks
The sized cases chamber fine. The rifle's action is designed to use the camming surface to start the extraction. I'm not seeing a problem.
If on the other hand, the cases chamber fine, but it is hard to get the bolt open, that does not indicate a problem with the brass. It may indicate a problem with the action - perhaps as simple as a bit of grit, a burr, or a stiff mainspring, but there are other possibilities.Have you tried taking the striker assembly out of the bolt and cycling the brass using just the bolt body with extractor?
FWIW I only ever neck size. I like Lee's Collet die for the purpose. I have had batches of brass go literally dozens of loading cycles without FL sizing, in a range of calibres and actions.
A case comes out of the chamber small enough to go right back in again, unless for some reason it is bulged or out of round perhaps. Other than those situations, if it won't go back in after sizing it is because of something you did to it in sizing.
A sticky case can also be caused by higher than normal chamber pressure. I've had to knock a few of 'em open with a mallet when I got a little too close for comfort. When firing neck sized only brass only the neck expands and contracts much upon firing because the case body nd shoulder were never resized and fit the chamber pretty much exactly. So the case can be a little sticky upon extraction, but not to the point you need a mallet or some other aid to open the bolt. If you have to knock the bolt open you're probably developing higher than normal chamber pressure. If that happens you need to look at your primers to see if they're flattened or check your primer pockets to see if they enlarged.
I have a .250 Savage that I had built on a Howa action that I worked a load up for. I knew I was getting close but kept trickling more powder in every time I reloaded because I wasn't seeing anything to stop me. I had gotten up to 41 grans of RL-17 with absolutely no sign of excess pressure, no sticky bolt, no flattened primers and accuracy didn't seem to be affected. However, I stopped there because I was approaching 3100 FPS with a 115 grain bullet and knew this was getting past the edge of the normal envelope with the .250 with other powders for this weight bullet.
Anyway, when I finished shooting that batch of 10 rounds and went to reload that brass, when I was priming the cases (I use a lee hand priming tool) I noticed the primers felt loose. That keyed me on to the first sign of excess pressure. Up to this point nothing seemed out of line, then all of a sudden the primer pockets were loose? Why? I figured I would have seen other signs before this. Anyway, I discarded that brass and when I loaded up another batch I backed the load off a whole grain of powder. At 40 grains I was still getting 3000 FPS but the primer pockets weren't gettng loose.
However, even so, I did further rethink my operation and figured it prudent to back it off another grain to 39 grains of powder just for good measure. With that I still get over 2900 FPS with a 115 grain Combined Technology Ballistics Tip and 39 grains of RL-17. For a .250 Savage that's a smokin' hot, but safe load. It's accurate there and it doesn't loosing primer pockets or show any other signs of excessive pressure. I learned a valuable lesson with this. Always pay attention to your primer pockets when working up a load, even though everything else looks good. Be sure they're not getting loose. If they are it's probably a good a sign your case head is expanding due to high pressure.
Now as for my load, some of you experienced guys may be thinking that 2900+FPS with a 115 grain bullet still sounds a little hot for a .250 Savage, but you gotta remember I'm shooting through a 26" barrel with a long throat. A more normal chamber and shorter barrel probably wouldn't yield much over 2800 fps safely, if that.
