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Got home late last night and found my dies and cases boxed up on my door step. Cool, all fixed up and now I can size my cases with a correct set of dies. I ruined at least a half dozen or so cases using make shift set ups. I have gone through about 200 rounds doing all the work to get to this point. I need to get my friend to machine the last couple dozen cases I have.
So, don’t be afraid to load and shoot this caliber. But, you must make sure your gun is in good operating condition and is assembled correctly. Be sure to test the operation of the bolt. Sometimes, if not assembled correctly, the bolt will come out along with the extractor. You would not want this to happen during live fire.
Be safe, start low and work up.
Although I load something every week I need a new project??
Used my new dies yesterday to size 47 pieces of brass. I had ruined 3 pieces using my make shift set up. All went well. Didn’t ruin any. 24 of these I can load and shoot. The other 23 have been annealed, sized and the neck expanded. I need to have the rim diameter reduced and the extractor groove re cut before I can use these.
November 7, 2015
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Sounds like progress! Hope you have some good shooting weather after you get a few loaded. Good loading weather here, pressed an eye candy mould into production mode to see if it would work for a project. Bullet not what we hoped for but loading room time was a good Rx for a frustrating day.
Mike
Mike it was a nice day today at the range. A little chilly at first. Only fired about 6 cases just to see what would happen. All went fine except for one bad primer. I have no idea how long I’ve had these but they are old. Spent most of the time at the range figuring out my new replacement bi pod with ski feet for my 308 bolt action. Looks like it was a good purchase.
November 7, 2015
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Chuck said
Mike it was a nice day today at the range. A little chilly at first. Only fired about 6 cases just to see what would happen. All went fine except for one bad primer. I have no idea how long I’ve had these but they are old. Spent most of the time at the range figuring out my new replacement bi pod with ski feet for my 308 bolt action. Looks like it was a good purchase.
Have you had a chance to check out the fired cases? Any first impressions? Some of my primers are a bit old but they’ll probably be fine for quite a few more years if I continue to store them properly. Every now and then I have a bad one but it never seems to be one of the old stock.
Mike
I only checked the base to shoulder measurements to see if and or how they might have changed. 4 of them got longer and 2 got shorter. I have my die set to allow them to grow to what the original brass was. Most of the cases are withing .003″ of each other. I had 2 real short ones but 1 got a little shorter and the other was the one with the bad primer. Don’t really see how they got shorter? Once the cases grow in diameter the only place they have to go is longer. That’s why you have to trim your brass occasionally. You would think after 5 firings they all should have stopped growing in diameter unless the dies are squeezing them when f/l sizing. Before I was only neck sizing. I guess I should measure a few along the length of the body to see what is happening.
November 7, 2015
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I understand your situation. I’ve loaded for a rifle where every case seemed to have a mind of its own. Other cartridges seem to follow the general rule of bottleneck cases growing and straight cases remaining the same length or getting shorter. Others don’t. Some don’t grow after the third or fourth firing. You’re right, just have to trim or at least measure now and then. I full length resize most cartridges so I monitor case length more than someone who doesn’t need to FL resize. Too bad you can’t just order another bag of brass for this rifle.
Mike
That would be nice but I doubt that any brass was made after the start of WW II. How many times have you seen brass from the 1920’s or 30’s brand new in the box with split necks? Quite often has been my experience. One thing for sure with this brass is that I may never have to trim it unless the mouth gets damaged. The neck on this 220 swift brass in about 3/16″ shorter than the Lee necks.
November 7, 2015
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I’ve never tried loading 100 year old brass. I suppose it could oxidize over the years….er decades. Too bad making semi-rimmed basic brass hasn’t caught on with the cartridge component folks. I’m using a fairly recent lot of Winchester 32-40 brass and experiencing case failures. Some failed during initial loading. Some lots of brass are better than others, I’m hoping your next batch is better.
Mike
November 7, 2015
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Chuck said
Mike, where is the brass failing? Split necks or case head?
Most recent failure started in the neck area about .125” from the case mouth. Others were at the case mouth. Bill had a few in the brass I sent him but I don’t know where, thinking case mouth. New Winchester brass, been in my cache for a few years.
Mike
I’ve fired my brass a couple more times using the custom dies. I still have few that are a little longer or shorter than the norm, base to shoulder, and it seems to want to stay this way? I can size the longer ones down but they are actually closer to the original case dimension than the rest?
I’m also still getting pushed out primers. For some reason the majority do but a few don’t? FPS seems not to be the cause. I really need to check the headspace of the rifle. I have checked the rim thickness and I haven’t seen a pattern. If this was a regular bolt action and a bottle neck case I could figure this out easily. I’m going to use some scotch tape on the base and keep adding layers until the bolt won’t close. Rule of thumb is that the tape is .002″ thick. As far as I know most, if not all, Winchesters have a max headspace of .007″.
If this was a regular bolt action and a bottle neck case that head spaces off the base to neck measurement you can strip the bolt, ejector and firing pin, to figure it out. Using the bullet seating/bolt drop method you seat the bullet long, jam the bullet by forcing the it into the case when closing the bolt. We call this jam and many seat at this measurement minus .020″ to start their testing. If you keep pushing the bullet into the case you will eventually get to a length that allows the bolt to drop on it’s own. This is touch where the bullet is just touching the lands. Well you can do the same thing with the base to shoulder measurement. Bump the neck down slowly until you find where it takes a very very small amount to close the bolt. Then bump it another .002″ for .002″ of head space.
November 7, 2015
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Chuck-
Seems to be a very frustrating project, especially for someone with a background in precision shooting and reloading. Is the accuracy improving? Are velocities consistent?
Mike
Mike, I have been shooting at the dirt. So yes, it can hit the berm at 100 yds. My last 46 shots produced an ES of 22 fps. I am not going to enter all of the shots to calculate the SD but it is probably less than 10. I am mainly trying to figure out why most of the primers are backing out and why I can’t blow out the bottle neck/shoulder.
I shoot hundreds of 5 shot groups and I know if this was one of them my SD would be less than 10. As your population increases the SD will get smaller so definitely less than 10.. The extreme spread and standard deviation are a direct reflection of your loading capabilities. It does not always give you the best groups for a lot of other reasons. Like a bad barrel or shooter. Bad ES and SD will guarantee bad groups most of the time. I am upset when I get an ES in the 20’s.
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