I reloaded 50 300 win mags the other evening and about halfway though seating my bullets, I noticed that a few of my cases were bulging/wrinkling at the base of the shoulder. I realized I had my seating plug too high and die to deep and made the proper adjustments. My question is should I pull my bullets and start with new brass or just let it shoot out? Thanks, John

Break them down and toss the brass. I would be suspecious that the damage you see on the brass would mean that you set the shoulder back, creating a head space issue. The cartridges may not even chamber, as they are now, but if they do and you have increased the headspace, you may will end up with excessive pressure.

Brass is cheap, your health is not.

john---

i doubt very seriously that the cartridges will even chamber. personally i would pull the bullets, save the powder and forget the primers. put a drop of oil into the damaged brass to kill the primer and thro them in your brass scrap can.

I can't imagine that the cartridges would be dangerous to fire. After all, the 300 WM does headspace on the belt. If you can chamber them they should be OK. I wouldn't throw away a bunch of good brass because of a mistake like that. Even if you can't chamber them you may be able to run them into a FL die enough to iron out any bulge, enough to chamber them at least. If in doubt, fire one and then section it to see if the brass has stretched to the danger point. i agree that brass is cheap compared with your fingers but I don't think we're talking anything dangerous here. JMHO

Ray

Sorry fellas, I wasnt very clear about the final product. What I described as wrinkling is more or less the shoulder kindof pushed back very slightly into the case. It was only noticable in a couple of them and the deformity is less than some of the bulges i've had while forming 7x30s from 30-30s. They still chamber quite easily but I was also concerned about the headspace. In my 10+ years of handloading, this was the first time I had ever problem like that seating bullets and I guess I just got in too big of a hurry adjusting the die. So should I scrap the whole mess or just the ones with a noticable deformity? Thanks, John

300 Win Mag headspaces on the belt ... pull the bullets, take the decapping pin out of the sizing die, and resize the cases. Then reload them with apropriately adjusted dies ... just go kind mild so that they are fireformed when you pull the trigger.

If they chamber, shoot them. 300 Mag has a belted case and headspaces on the belt.

If they chamber, shoot them. You won't have a problem. Pulling the bullets now is a waste of time. The brass will fireform to your chamber.

Even if you ran them up the sizer again, it won't do a thing, the shoulder is already bumped back and wrinkled. You now need to do the opposite and push the brass back into the chamber.

You may have used a bit too much sizing lube.

Shoot them.