A gent told me last night he discards any belted magnum case that the belt has been reduced in diameter from factory specs. In my case, I ran a mic. on five 3X fired 300 Win. Mag. cases & all were slighly under .530"...I believe they are still good. Make any sense to anyone? r in s.

There's no way that the belt is going to get SMALLER upon firing. Whatever the diameter pre-firing, it will be at least as large as it came from the factory.

Nominal specifications for the belted head vary. I believe that specifications call for a maximum diameter of .532", meaning that the chamber specs must be slightly larger than this. It is not uncommon for belts on new cases to measure as little as .525".

It is pointless to measure -- much less discard -- cases with belts slightly under .530". Besides, on the second loading (provided it is a bottlenecked case) you should be setting the cartridge to headspace on the shoulder rather than the belt, making the belt totally irrelavent, anyway. You could even turn the belt completely off of a case which is headspacing on the shoulder and it would make no difference.

quote:

A gent told me last night he discards any belted magnum case that the belt has been reduced in diameter from factory specs.

Sounds like someone has way to much time on his hands.

This post is young so I'll be the first one to say.........."tell him you'll take all the rejects!"

+1 for Stonecreek's post.