Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 284 making me nuts

I may have this solved, but only a none rainy day and enough time will answer.

Seems the brass I have is BIG and the Redding die doesn't size it any smaller.

I have new smaller brass thats a lot smaller and once I test fire a warm load with it, we will see if I have to go further.

Handle timing, done by the best in the nation that I know of, but again we all can make a mistake.

Not sure if it would help, but if you want to check the chamber I have go/no go gauges I'd loan you.

I"ve been waiting to fire more tests but just have not made time lately. Getting so much done around the farm thats needed doing for years its hard to stop to just shoot. At least I trimmed the tree by the bench that drives the Oehler 35 nuts with shade at times...

So fired one round. One round with new much smaller brass. That case had similar case capacity, IIRC the ones I had issue with and the new ones were about 4 or 5 grains different. Not huge.

But the WW cases were quite a bit smaller cross section at the expansion point.

Loaded the same charge that gave me a miserably hard bolt lift that needed a hard thump to get the bolt open... that one single round did not chrono good under the shady tree... 1256 which we know is way off... should have been 2900 or so.

BUT the bolt lift was like butter. Case didn't expand as much as the unfired hornady cases. Sizer die sized it a bit, so I'm still working on a small base body die or custom die.

I'll report back later but I think the whole dang issue was much oversize brass. Thanks to Keith here on the fire, we've had some long emails... and I"ve learned a lot. Part of it that 284 brass and chambers can be all over the place. Never experience that before. I was about to order lapua brass... found out that would have been BIGGER than the Hornady brass and likely not chambered at all in my chamber.

Live and learn and thanks for all the input. Its been actually interesting and fun while totally frustrating. Actually due to covid 19 I'm stuck in TX for way longer than I wanted which gives me time to work and shoot more than I expected so its now less stressful. LOL.

WW brass is smaller than most, had same problem in my 6.5 X 284, RCBS dies would size brass more than Redding dies also. Dies , brass and chamber must be similar dimensions.

Good to know about the RCBS dies. Have a supposed smaller Lyman die coming at some time.

Want to call Harrels about a custom die for it, but just keep forgetting during the day when I'm out working. LOL.