Massive loss of confidence just occurred.

Last year in cool but not cold weather I tested and came up with 100gr ballistic tip loads for my rifle. Loads were worked up to 42gr of VVN150 with a COL of 3.018, remington brass and remington 91/2 primers. (With the exception of the remington instead of norma cases this is the Nosler max load)

Accuracy was excellent with the 42gr load which showed not the faintest sign of pressure. As I wanted a ballistic twin for my 120 load I went with a charge weight of 40gr. All was well except that when I had to bump the shoulder back things got sooty.

I increased the charge weight to 41gr and all was well until I had to bump the shoulder back again. More soot. I persevered after all I only fire one shot at a time and the soot doesn't take long to clean off.

By now through loss (ever tried to find a case amongst beach leaves?) I had 25 cases left I got some new brass but this needed fire forming (new RP brass cannot be made to shoot light bullets cleanly in my rifle) and I had some deer to stalk. I decided to anneal the necks, I full length sized as last 2 times around I partialy full length sized. I individualy checked all for case length and allthough they were all more or less at the max trim length none were over. decide I would go to the previously tested 42gr. Having tested the seating depth with the stoney point I decided that I was so far off the lands I would seat a tad deeper for some more uniformity seeing as I feed from a magazine. I shrank the COL by 18thou.

Yesterday was warm but not hot, I set up a target and fired 3 shots to check zero and test to see if these loads were clean. Ammunition was not stored in the car or in direct sunlight.

Shot number one had a bit of sticky bolt, seeing as my rifle seems to have a tightish chamber which is sensitive to ammunition that is not full length resized (and this had been partial full length resized) and the case was sooty I noted it but fired a second shot. This was a bit cratered but the rifle has a weak firing pin spring and cratering often happens in the middle of a run of normal loads, besides it was sooty. Third round and pufff. The firing pin strike on the primer is raised past the rest of the primer and part has given way to look like someone half cut a baked bean can and pried the lid back to get at the beans.The case was - you guessed it ...sooty!

Rifle handled it fine, the only way I knew it was because of the smoke. I had it checked by a good smith and headspace and function is perfect.

So I freely admit that to the letter of the law I broke the rule of not working back up because I changed something and even worse I changed 3 things very slightly at the same time (annealing, slightly deeper seating and charge weight) in addition I was using brass that was too old and then finaly I shot in warmer weather....

Even though I will never repeat this I am still surprised that I managed to blow a primer on a load that was a max book load charge wise but that was accurate, gave incredibly low SDs and was 100fps below (24"barrel) the max load velocity (23" barrel) What really pisses me off is that I don't even want velocity I just want the darn things to shoot cleanly. I did try mag primers in the new brass but RP new brass is so short headspace wise even that doesn't work.

Anyhow lesson learnt - headspace and function tested by the gunsmith and are perfect, the new brass I got round to fireforming was worked up to 41gr cleanly with maybe just the tiniest sign of cratering, it will be backed down to 40gr I'm toying with the idea of getting a chamber cast or maybe just giving up loading alltogether, it would certainly make home life easier not to mention my sanity.

[This message has been edited by 1894 (edited 04-24-2002).]

Oh and when I can I will work back up with some WLR primers.

I would be curious as to how you annealed your cases. Are you certain your case heads weren't softened?

OK, I've looked over the post about three, four times:

WHAT CALIBER are we talking about here?

Forgive my ignorance. What do you mean by "bumped the shoulder back" ???

"Partial full-length resize" -- You mean you're running an FL die part way down the case to "neck size" the brass?

Depending on the caliber (we're literally shooting in the dark here) the round headspaces on the neck of the case or on the "datum point" -- a point on the taper of the brass.

Each time you move the neck back you reduce the load capacity of the round. Seating the bullet deeper reduces the case capacity too.

If your gun is headspacing on the neck, you're changing the headspace on the brass by moving the neck back.

For about $20 you can buy a neck sizing die and then you're getting the Mickey Mouse out of the resize part of the system.

Sooty necks are an indication that you're not headspacing the case properly in the chamber.

If the brass is "short" in the chamber, you'll have a gap between the bolt face and the base of the brass. This allows the case to literally hammer against the bolt face, and the primer is going to slip first. The primer is the weak link in the integrity of the brass.

You're introducing a lot of variables into the reload. It's hard to know exactly what you're coming up with. You've increased seating depth, moved the neck back, decreased case capacity, and it's hard to know exactly what you're doing in terms of sizing.

Soot on the neck is an indication that you're not headspacing the brass. The gun can headspace just fine, but if the brass is too short, it's too short.

A blown primer can indicate excessive pressure IF your brass is properly headspaced. Sounds like it's NOT properly headspaced. So, blowing the primer could be a result of short brass.

Once again, it would help enormously if we knew what caliber you're talking about.

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The other variable you introduced is new brass. It is possible that your new brass has less internal volume than your previous lot.

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I know the next rifle will be perfect.......

Cal 6.5x55.

Partial full length sizing = neck sizing plus moving the shoulder back a tad but not complete full length sizing.

This happened with the old brass. Best I can estimate is that a combination of thickened necks due to excessive use of brass, increased temperature, slightly reduced COL and perhaps a weak firing pin spring allowing cratering all conspired together.

DON'T MOVE THE SHOULDER BACK-YOU'RE CREATING EXCESSIVE HEADSPACE!!

Huummm.... Sooty necks? Is this a serious problem? I neck resize a Rem .243 and I have noticed this sooty dark neck. Whats the solution to the problem? A Case gage? Backing off 1/4 to 1/2 a round on the die? I'm not the type to load my rounds at Max. I try to stay off max loads. I'm curious and perplexed..

JoeJoe,

I usually get sooty necks on light loads. this is because some burnt powder can sneak back past the end of the case before the pressure has blown the case out to chamber dimensions.

This doesn't usually happen on higher pressured loads.

Buzz thanks for the info. The more I read these posts it makes me wanna throw my press away and buy factory stuff from wally world. Reading keeps me wondering how much Im doing wrong! LOL Just kidding