I'm loading for another friend again and he is convinced that you can have problems if you take the brass fired from one rifle, full length resize it and fire it in another rifle of the same calibre. He says that it fire forms to the original rifle. I say that may be the problem if you only size the neck but full lenght should take it completely back to original size.

Am I wrong in any part? I have been doing this with other rifles and have not had any problems.

Thanks in advance.

It is true that chambers may vary slightly from rifle to rifle. However, full-length resizing returns the brass to "official" specs, so it should fit in any rifle of that caliber.

My Redding dies' instructions describe a somewhat complicated process for sizing the brass to a particular rifle's chamber. They then say that using the die in a normal way returns brass to factory specs which should be "lowest common denominator" for any rifle of that caliber.

Fire forms to the original chamber? You gotta be kidding me. With pressures in excess 50,000 CUP, there is no way a case is going to only form to what it was originally formed to. It's going to expand to whatever space is available in the chamber.

I would continue what you are doing. I don't see any problem with it.

I'm with your buddy, kinda, sorta.

You can resize milsurp brass that has been fired in oversized chambers all you want and you are still gonna run into cases sticking with lighter loads than you would with cases that had only been fired in your rifle.

That's a fact. And when I have a fact, I don't worry a whole lot about what theory says.

I have one rifle with a "minimum" chamber, and if I F/L size brass from a factory chamber, it still won't be small enough. It won't chamber. I have to shim the case with a strip of aluminum can to turn the die into a "small base" die, and then things are fine from there.

That's the only time I've ever run into that. FWIW, Dutch.

[ 08-12-2003, 17:23: Message edited by: Dutch ]

Dutch is right! if you have a small chamber, regular dies might not size small enough. then you might have to use a small base die, or use only brass from that rifle.

Are you guys saying that, if your rifle has a larger chamber, you should NOT full-length resize?

I can see some sense to that--the case has already been sixed to that chamber.

So would you neck-size only?

Ok, I can agree with the statement about the small chamber. However, that issue is caused by the resizing die being the incorrect size, not because the brass can't be resized to be used in other rifles. If you had the correct die (meaning the right size for your specific chamber), there is no reason you shouldn't be able to resize someone else's brass for your rifle.
Now I have no experience or knowledge of military surplus, so I can't comment there.

Arty

Would a manufacturer deliberately make a chamber smaller than specs or is that a flaw that happens? Sounds like a rare occurance.

Boiler - As a chamber reamer is used, it's going to wear and get smaller and smaller until ultimately it's TOO small. See where I'm going with this?

Anyway, it's not a dumb question. NORMALLY, full length sizing allows cases fired in one rifle to be fired in other rifles. But there are factors which can ruin this happy communion, which the others above have outlined.

[ 08-13-2003, 08:17: Message edited by: Pecos45 ]