First time to do 257 Weatherby or any other Weatherby for that matter. Have done 300 Win Mag and 7mm Rem Mag before. Using RCBS dies - full length sized - first set of reloads - Hornady brass and Weatherby.

When I seat the bullet - it crushes the shoulder down almost flat to the beginning of the case neck. Never had that happen with any other dies / caliber. Been reloading almost 40 years. Is there some secret to doing Weatherby?

Thanks.

Any ideas?

Sounds like the crimping part of the die is pushing the neck down to the shoulder. Back off the die.
Also make sure the seating die is the correct caliber for the ammo.

Hip

Although I've only neck sized my 460 Weatherby I've got around 120 cases and reloaded some of them 4 times. I lube them with graphite and clean them well afterward. I always seat and (lightly) crimp separately.

Chamfer your case mouths. I would assume you are loading flatbase..

Interesting, I load for 270/300/340/375 Weatherby, never crushed/crumpled a case neck or shoulder yet.

I think you have the die screwed down too much or the case mouths are not chamfered enough.

Place a sized case in the die, raise the ram, screw die IN until it touches the case mouth and back off 1 TURN. Tighten the setscrew and adjust seating depth with the seater stem.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

quote:

Originally posted by 416RigbyHunter:
Interesting, I load for 270/300/340/375 Weatherby, never crushed/crumpled a case neck or shoulder yet.

I think you have the die screwed down too much or the case mouths are not chamfered enough.

Place a sized case in the die, raise the ram, screw die IN until it touches the case mouth and back off 1 TURN. Tighten the setscrew and adjust seating depth with the seater stem.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

As above.

Plus....make sure you run a bristle brush through the necks. Wby cases (also 40 degree AI calibres) are such that it does not take much force to collapse the shoulder.

If the friction between the bullet and neck is to high then the Wby shoulder will collapse when seating the bullet.

Had the same issue using 100 grain Swift Scirocco II.

Turned the seating die 2 complete turns away from crimp AND use a Lyman 11° VLD
inside champher tool.

quote:

If the friction between the bullet and neck is to high then the Wby shoulder will collapse when seating the bullet.

That's true of any bottleneck case, but the Weatherby double radius shoulder is less resistant to crush forces so it shows up in the Weatherby's more often.

1. Check your expander button to make sure it is the right diameter.
2. Chamfer the insides of your case mouth.
3. Never, even if you are going to crimp later, set your seating die against the shell holder. Back it off as others have described to assure that the crimping shoulder does not engage the case mouth. If you insist on crimping (for reasons that totally escape me on most centerfire cartridges), then do it in two steps: First, seat all of the bullets with the seating die backed off of the shell holder. Next, screw the die down (and screw the seating stem out so that it doesn't contact the bullets) to give the proper crimp and run all of the cartridges through the seater die again. Seating the bullet deeper while also applying a crimp ("one step seating and crimping") can damage the bullet and distort the case, even though the vast majority of handloaders blithely do it this way.

+1 on everything said above. I lube inside the necks with Redding/Imperial sizing wax applied with a "Q" tip. Afterward, I remove the wax with a "Q" tip saturated with denatured ethanol/alcohol.

I have been loading for my .300 Weatherby for 15 years or so and loaded for a .340 Weatherby for 6 and NEVER had that kind of issue.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
I have been loading for my .300 Weatherby for 15 years or so and loaded for a .340 Weatherby for 6 and NEVER had that kind of issue.

It is more likely to happen with the 257 because the smaller bore means the shoulder is wider.

That sounds reasonable. But what about the .224 and .240? Wouldn't those have the same problems?

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
That sounds reasonable. But what about the .224 and .240? Wouldn't those have the same problems?

First up let's remember that it is not common.

The 224 and 240 are different because of the smaller diameter of the case. A 30/378 would be more likely to do it than the 300 Wby.

As Stonecreek said an undersize expander button will be a culprit and doubly so when the inside of the neck has old hard fouling/powder residue.