The wait begins

[b23]

Upon further investigation and tinkering it seems that my FL sizing die is bottoming out. That's most likely the reason why I can't bump the shoulder anymore than 0.003" and that's even pushing it with alot of spring back.

Is you FL die just barely touching the shell holder or is the FL die screwed down far enough that you are getting a little cam over on the press?  I've yet to have a FL die that didn't require a certain amount of cam over before it would bump the shoulder back and to be clear I'm certainly not talking about gorilla strength cam over with a 4ft cheater bar on the handle but I've always needed a reasonable amount of cam over to size my brass consistently.

Curious, will fired brass, but not yet FL sized, chamber in your gun?  I thought I read earlier that you had some brass that would chamber ok while other pieces would not, if that is true have you compared measurements of a piece that would chamber to one that does not to see if you could figure out where the differences are in the brass the chambers versus the brass that won't?

[Stein]

I agree with B23, I initially set my Redding type S to fully contact the shell holder and when I resized it didn't bump the shoulder at all.  I had to go past touching to get 2-3 thou, but I'm guessing you are already measuring that.

[Magnum_Willys]

Unsized fire brass fit but tite but resized don’t?

If you had redding 5 pc shell holder set you could get .010 more bump.   Or you could file .010 off top of current shell holder. 

I have couple rifles that only certain brand dies will shrink base enough with .002 bump as other dies Need .007 or more bump which is not great if I can even bump that much. 

Or grind a couple thou off the base of die. 

[jasnt]

Only one of my sets needs cam over to get 2k bump

[dmoua]

I'm probably not being clear in my posts so I'll explain everything I have done from the beginning. Sorry if it's redundant.

So what I did was I started out with a fresh batch of brand spanking new Hornady brass (same lot). I then ran all of them through the FL sizing die without bumping the shoulder back at all (only uniforming the necks). The sizing die is setup by ramming the shell holder all the way up and screwing the die down until it touches the shell holder.

From there I tumbled all the brass for a few hours to get the lube off the cases. Shoulders measured 1.735" and overall brass length were in the 2.088 -2.090" range.

After all the cases have been clean and sorted out from the tumbling media I then primed (215M) and loaded some at 66grs of H4831sc with 185gr Berger VLD 0.015" off the lands for barrel break in purposes. I also loaded 10 rounds from 65.5gr-70.5gr in 0.5gr increments to run a ladder test for *censored*s and giggles. As I was following Proof Research's break in barrel process I noticed that I would have sporadic pressure signs with 66grs. Every few shots the bolt would be hard to extract.

Afterwards I shot the ladder loads just to see where I would hit actual pressure. I shot each charge weight examining the brass/ primers looking for pressure signs. The only ones that jammed were 69gr and 70.5gr in this ladder test. Yes some of you might think I was crazy to keep shooting after seeing pressure but I would have stopped if I had two in a row that jammed. After this range trip was when I started posting about my issues with this new rifle.

I made a second trip to the range starting even lower on the ladder at 61gr - 65.5gr of H4831sc in 0.5gr increments with 185gr VLD's seated 0.015 off the lands and a second set with the same charge weights seated 0.020" off the lands. The results were

0.015" Off the lands
                               
61gr- jammed
62.5gr jammed
everything else shot and cycled smoothly

0.020" off the lands

these pretty much had issues (hard to extract) besides 64gr, 65gr, and 65.5gr

As you guys can tell I'm pretty frustrated at this point. So I took some of your guys suggestions and fire formed the rest of my brass using 150gr SST bullets paired with 64gr of IMR 4350 that I hardly use. I seated them at 0.015" off the lands. A handful of these were hard to extract.

Well after fire forming all my brass and total round count now over 100 rounds I get back to sizing and case prep for actual load development. As a norm I bump all my shoulders 0.002" so that's what I did. Setting up the FL sizing die again by ramming the shell holder up and screwing the die down until it touches and then from there turning it down slightly until my shoulder bump measured 0.002".

Thinking back I noticed from the beginning that most of the ammo I have fed into this rifle needed a little extra force to close the bolt. So here's where I decided to see if a fire formed brass that has been FL resized with the shoulders bumped 0.002" would chamber smoothly.

I removed the firing pin from the bolt and placed a piece of prepped brass into the chamber. I ran the bolt up and it just gets stuck, it won't even close unless I give it a hard push forward and then down. If you watched Eric Cortina's video on shoulder bump you would see how easily his rifle would chamber a piece of brass bumped back 0.002". Out of curiosity I tested this same process with my 700 .308 and a piece of prepped brass that was fired from that rifle. The results were pretty much the same as what Mr. Cortina got from his video.

From there I decided to try bumping the shoulder more on the 300 WSM in case that's what it needed. I was aiming for 0.003"-0.004" more shoulder bump and somehow managed to squeeze out 0.003" shoulder bump but then realized that my die was bottomed out already.

So that's where we are now. I can make the prepped brass with 0.002" shoulder bump fit into the chamber if I give it some force. But that's where I'm scratching my head thinking I should not have to use this much force to chamber a piece of sized brass that was fire formed from this rifle. Again this has happened from the beginning with all the loads I have shot in my 101 count. I jut thought *censored* would loosen up with the more rounds I put into it which is why it leads me back to what b23 said a few pages back that I probably have a sizing issue. Maybe my die has been the culprit this whole time since I had similar results in a Model 7 300 WSM using this die. This same issue with the Model 7 was what led to this whole custom build thing. I took Shawn's advice and sold the Model 7 and collected parts for the build.

Hopefully that clears things up. Writing has never been my favorite so again I apologize if things aren't clear.

As of now I just purchased another RCBS FL 300 WSM sizing die new from Sportsmans to see if my old die is the issue.

[Karl Blanchard]

Whats the specs on an fired piece of brass? Also cancel your die order and order some Redding dies.

[dmoua]

Whats the specs on an fired piece of brass? Also cancel your die order and order some Redding dies.

1.738-1.739” on the shoulders. I just went to to local Sportsman’s and bought one. Redding bushing dies is next on the list.

[Magnum_Willys]

 
Or Forster or even Hornady.   

[Karl Blanchard]

Whats the specs on an fired piece of brass? Also cancel your die order and order some Redding dies.

1.738-1.739” on the shoulders. I just went to to local Sportsman’s and bought one. Redding bushing dies is next on the list.

and will the bolt close on a fired piece?

[b23]

Also cancel your die order and order some Redding dies.

I'm partial to Redding dies so I always recommend them but the above would be my suggestion as well and if you want to go with a bushing die Redding Type S Bushing FL sizing die (Part # 77223) would be my die of choice.

[dmoua]

Whats the specs on an fired piece of brass? Also cancel your die order and order some Redding dies.

1.738-1.739” on the shoulders. I just went to to local Sportsman’s and bought one. Redding bushing dies is next on the list.

and will the bolt close on a fired piece?

No sir. Maybe with some force but I didn't want to damage anything.

[b23]

Maybe you're already doing this, but when using the stripped bolt method I also like to pull the ejector out as well so there is nothing putting any kind resistance on the bolt.  Then I size my brass till the bolt handle will nearly fall closed on its own weight.

[dmoua]

Maybe you're already doing this, but when using the stripped bolt method I also like to pull the ejector out as well so there is nothing putting any kind resistance on the bolt.  Then I size my brass till the bolt handle will nearly fall closed on its own weight.

The ejector is still in the bolt. I'll have to look up videos how to remove that.

[Karl Blanchard]

Maybe you're already doing this, but when using the stripped bolt method I also like to pull the ejector out as well so there is nothing putting any kind resistance on the bolt.  Then I size my brass till the bolt handle will nearly fall closed on its own weight.

The ejector is still in the bolt. I'll have to look up videos how to remove that.

please don't. Its real easy to tweek them.  If you can, compare some body measurements between fired and sized to see if the die is actually doing anything. I avoid loading threads like the plague because its normally sloppy practices that are to blame and people don't like hearing that but your measurements are where a fired piece should be and if in fact you're bumping them back to .736ish and they won't chamber then then im guessing its a case body issue. Your pressure issues are weird as well because you shouldn't be hitting pressure till well north of 70gr with those 185's.

[b23]

Maybe you're already doing this, but when using the stripped bolt method I also like to pull the ejector out as well so there is nothing putting any kind resistance on the bolt.  Then I size my brass till the bolt handle will nearly fall closed on its own weight.

The ejector is still in the bolt. I'll have to look up videos how to remove that.

please don't. Its real easy to tweek them. 

Karl, ejector, not extractor.