I resized some once-fired winchester 6.5x55 brass with hornady dies.

the sized case (no bullet) requires force to close the bolt handle.

unsized, once-fired cases do not.

yes I removed the expander ball to make sure the shoulder was not getting pulled forward. no improvement.

how in the heck is the sizing die turning brass that does fit into brass thaty does not fit?!?!

Maybe your case is too long and the case mouth is rubbing on the end of your chamber?

Or maybe your dies are sizing your brass body down and that makes it longer. That is the only thing I can think of to make the sized brass hard to chamber.

Seems to me that your shoulders aren't set back due to partial sizing. It could be that the die isn't adjusted in enough or maybe you are not using a full stroke of press. Also as already mentioned, the brass may be too long. Or(unlikely in a military Swede) the bullets are set out to far. Best-o-Luck

'Smoke' the case, lock it under the extractor with the bolt removed. Insert the bolt with case (no bullet) attached and see where it is hitting the chamber. That should tell you where the problem is and let you know what you have to do to fix it.

Sounds like reduced headspace due to partial resizing.

case length os 0.020" under max. I marked the cases and chambered them, they are hitting smack dab in the middle of the shoulder. the die is all the way dow, so I am full sizing. Thanks Hornady! BTW the hole on the side of the die is not drilled all the way through. [sarcasm]Wow! These are great dies![/sarcasm]

You should take the die to a gunsmith and have him take .010" off the bottom of the die. This will set the shoulder back about .007" and should give you a perfect headspace of .005"

I'd almost bet that Burgie and jonniemike have nailed it.
Before you do anything drastic try to simply tighten the die beyond over center on the press so that the press is stressed enough to accommodate the deflection in the press assembly. Usually that will correct the problem.
We often forget that in the process of reducing the diameter we also extrude the case longer until the shoulder is again pushed back.
Cheers from Darkest California,
Ross

Experiment, Take one of your fired cases which will chamber and resize it in stages. Start with the die not screwed in to the shell holder. Say two or three turns shy of touching the shell holder. The object is to not resize or touch the brass at any point on the first cycling of the press. Your brass should still chamber. Try it. Then turn in the die a little deeper and cycle the press. At some point you'll notice that the die is contacting the brass. Try chambering again. Keep turing in the die deeper in stages and chambering the brass. At some point you'll notice some resistance to chambering. Keep going and you'll find that it gets harder to chamber until you screw in the die(probably deeper than you have been screwing it in to the shell holder) deep enough so that the brass chambers. You should now be close to where you want to be. Some like a slight 'crush' fit. Others like to feel no resistance. If you really screw it in to far and have over .006" of play in the chamber you'll have short brass life and headspace issues. Lots of people have the same problems. The Schmidt-Rubin's, like the K-31, give many problems like yours until they get a handle on the resizing properly. Best-o-Luck

If you're neck sizing your shoulders may be blown out and neck sizing dies won't bump them back. If you're full length sizing it's likely you'll have to turn your die down a bit to make contact with the shoulder. Either way it's possible ypour shoulders aren't getting bumped back. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

I did resize in stages. the more I resize, the longer they get.

I did screw the die in all the way, and then some.

the HS in the die is just too long.

Here is an idea that may help instead of grinding down the bottom of the sizing die.

http://www.redding-reloading.com/pages/compshellhldrs.html

Burgie,
That is a good fix, but the customer ought not to have to spend $57.00 to make a new set of dies work.
That said, I would stone an extra shellholder down if I had one floating around, as it would be a quick fix.
Thin-lipped shellholders must be handled gingerly, and cases well lubricated.

A friend of mine had the same problem with a set of Hornady .204 dies. He had to grind off the base to get the reloaded ammo to chamber without undue pressure. I've never had this problem but all my dies are RCBS. Seems like Hornady should recheck the length of their finished dies before sending them out.

Are you useing a Hornady shell holder? I believe the others have hit it on the head with you needing to take a bit off the one you are useing. I have noticed a difference in the past, although I don`t remember which brand was shallower, a differance in height between a RCBS shell holder and, I think, it was a Lyman. It was only one or two thoudsanths. Useing a RCBS die with the other brand holder would have an effect on the sizeing.

quote:

Originally posted by Burgie:
Here is an idea that may help instead of grinding down the bottom of the sizing die.

http://www.redding-reloading.com/pages/compshellhldrs.html

These don't allow you to decrease headspace.

You can grind down the shellholder also.

Before you start buying up all the different shellholders, remember that there are production tolerances which work against you. you may end up going backwards.

I'm sending these dies back. the little hole on the side of the die is not drilled through.

I think I'm going to trade them for 0.308 dies (which I will use less) and get a Redding body die and a Lee collet set for the swede.

Thanks for the help, everybody!

I had the same prob with an RCBS full length die, and I put a piece of emmery cloth on a flat steel plate and polished the shellholder until it worked for me. Didn't take very long and cost nothing.

Eric

6.5x55 "swede" ?? IIRC it was developed by the Norwegians !And today , May 17,is Norwegian Independance Day !!