Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Tight chamber?

So an update on my journey with this gun. First off a big thank you to all who helped here. The sharpie trick made it easy to spot where the pressure was. Second, Al sent me one of his "brass gizmos" and I received it last week. I had loaded up several and fired them using Big Game powder. I then used the headspace tool Al sent me to measure how much the case stretched during firing. It looks like my cases stretched .003-.004 inches when firing, which I did not think was bad at all. But now that I have that tool, I can set the shoulder back a particular amount when I resize. I believe I will start at .002!
I think I just turned a corner in my reloading hobby. Since I started reloading 11 years ago, I never measured headspace. Just adjusted until the shell holder touched, and a bit more until it slightly "cammed over". But now I have a feeling I will be wanting to measure headspace on all the rifles I load for! Funny how some guys go all their lives and never worry about headspace. I have an older guy I am friends with who has helped me on occasion with reloading questions. I don't think he ever measures headspace, and he has been at it a lot longer than I have!

Glad it worked out for you. once a person is able to measure what's happening when setting up dies, things get a lot easier and make more sense.

Good shootin' -Al

Something I learned from JB: To prevent expander ball induced case stretching, you can neck expand in a separate step (after sizing without the expander ball stem in place) by running the case UP into the sizer die with a lowered expander ball. Lubricant inside the case neck is still needed. I suppose there's a chance of case shortening or some shoulder setback with this method. JB says the above described method keeps the neck straighter (if your sizeer die is reamed straight), too. -Mark & Belle