I need some help with this one very soon so I can use this rifle for deer in 2 days.

I was bear hunting in PA last week and took a box of reloads that I had just made (180 gr Nosler Partition, 83.5 gr 4350, Rem Primers). I went to load the rifle the first morning and couldn't get the shell chambered. Upon examination, the shoulder of the cases were slightly flared and preventing me from closing the bolt. I finally got a couple of rounds to chamber, but they were very tight. The cases are loaded a little hot, but there are no pressure signs at all on the primers. Each case was full length resized and trimmed prior to loading. What could be causing this? Why didn't the full length size die correct it? How can I prevent it on my next reload? The only thing I can guess is that when I seated the bullet it compressed the case slightly, causing it to bulge.

jethro,

You may have your bullet seating die screwed in a bit far and are picking up the crimping action and with no cannelure or the cannelure positioned wrong and you will get what your are taking about.

Mike

Jethro,
I noticed you said your loads were a bit on the warm side. You are right. I checked on the IMR and Nosler website for 4350 and this is what I copied for your reference. This is with the 180 grain Partition.
IMR
IMR 4350 80.5 3110 62000
Nosler
IMR4350 Max. 82.0

Thanks for the advice. I'll try backing off the seating die this afternoon. Easy solution now that I think about it , but I didn't have time to play around since I am leaving tomorrow morning.

Thanks for looking the numbers up Roger. I went by the Nosler book and found them to be a bit conservative and somewhat off on the velocities (many factors could be at play for velocities though). I worked up the load starting at 80.5 gr and going up in 0.5 gr increments. I didn't start seeing pressure signs until over 83.5 gr. I may back down a bit to 83.0, but haven't seen any problems with pressure yet. I admit, 4350 isn't the ideal powder for this rifle, but I have about 9 lbs. of it that I want to use up. This gun really sucks it up too. Once I'm down to about 2-3 lbs, I plan on switching to RL25. Seems many guys are getting good results from it with exceptional velocities.

Your future is looking bright indeed...better get some shades.

Jethro,

Yep, since powder is so expensive here due to shipping I try to minimize the brands/type. I have mostly slow burning powder beginning with IMR-4350 and go slower from there; H870, H5010, H1000, IMR7828, RL22 and several pounds of RL15 since my .500 eats 113 grains per pop.

Proper setting to eliminate the crimp design feature of most all bullet seating dies. Take a empty unprimed case trimmed to proper length. With your press set at full swing and the empty unprimed case in the right shell holder, screw the die body in until it contacts the head of the empty case then back off one half turn and set the lock ring. Now you can seat your bullets with no crimp taking place.

Feed any rifle a steady diet of hot loads and the action will sooner or later fale. Choosing mild to medium accurate loads will give your rifles action a long life. If you continue to shoot hot loads in the words of the Fram oil commercial, pay me now or pay me later. Many a fine rifles action have been destroyed by shooting hot loads.

Stay within pressure limit,adjust the seater one turn back before touching the shell holder,use the correct amount of lube.

Jethro...

Reloder66 is talking about the "knee curve" in proofing steel I believe, cycles at levels of psi until fatigue. At a certain psi the number of CYCLES (firings) contained until failure SHARPLY DROP, and I mean DROP. This is refered to as the "knee" (sharp turn) in the graph where the number of cycles is infinite to less than a handfull at a certain point. The in between maybe 10 or 500 cycles, so at a point the steel will have a limited lifespan in safety terms now instead of a LIFETIME and you never know when its life will be UP! A good reason NOT to buy a used rifle of unknown treatment.

That said, just know that pressure signs don't always show up as clear as we'd like sometimes. I shot some 180 Sciroccos at 70,000 psi on the Oehler 43 recently, there were only moderatly flattening of the primers, that's all. Stiff bolt lift on the last load was only barely noticable, but that was almost 71k psi.

Anyway 83.5 gr of 4831 is not a compressed load and won't make the powder bulge the case. It was the first load I tried in my Ultra, 82gr was I believe their most accurate powder and charge wt. I got under MOA with ten rounds at 200 yards.

One thing I found odd when setting up my Redding sizer die was that it had to be tight to the shell holder and then it was just barely enough to chamber ALL empty cases. If you were crimping THAT hard, you probably would feel it at the end of the stroke pretty firmly. Don't know what dies you're using but run the die down until the empties chamber well then you will know for sure.

I have some 180 loads with RL25, if you want them email me...

[ 12-16-2002, 13:38: Message edited by: Brent Moffitt ]

Everyone, thanks for the input. I actually backed down to 83.0 gr 4350 before the hunt. Still shot like a champ. No pressure signs on the case. Excluding visual inspection, how do you test for pressure level? Is this a job you have to have done by a gunsmith or someone else? I've never done it, so I'm pretty curious.

Also, I've only been using the Nosler manual for this rifle. What are some of the other manuals saying for max loads on 180gr Nosler Part. using 4350 powder?

Correction, I was using 80gr but 82 was the max load in the Nosler manual.

I use an Oehler 43 with a strain gage to test psi on my rifles but one can only compare the results to factory loaded ammos pressure. It is quite an expensive unit not to mention requires a laptop computer. I was lucky enough to aquire one for $400.00 with the acoustic target and all the goodies, but it cost me $$ to get the laptop though.

Fabrique is another company that some here have used with good results and are much cheaper and don't have the requirements of a laptop, the features of the Oehler 43 or much nicer from what I gather because of the data storage, test playback and other combined data on the computer.

I have a lot of respect for Dr. Oehler, but, with all due respect, the Model 43 is only a strain gauge and is not a dependable tool for accurately measuring chamber pressures.

There are so many variables at work with this system (elasticity of the barrel steel, chamber wall thickness, other metallurgical qualities of the barrel, etc.) and the reliance on using a somewhat unknown variable as the standard make the system useful only for comparing the relative pressure between loads in the same gun, not for establishing the absolute pressure.

Handloaders must still rely on age-old pressure signs to regulate their loads: Sticky extraction, case head engraving, eventual expansion of primer pockets, primer appearance (with a known headspace and a known primer), and chronographed velocity factored for barrel length and established qualities for a given powder/cartridge/bullet combination.

Stonecreek, have you ever used one while comparing it to a piezo psi tester to see how far off they really are?

I know ALL the factory ammo I have shot, which is quite a bit so far, has been right at or just under SAAMI specs, so I thought not bad for a beginner. Pretty basic really.

I've read some of your posts concerning them in the past, and I think what error there is in them is so small it isn't even funny, that's why I wondered how much you have used them.

Guessing at signs on brass is a better way? There are not variables in brass, primers and chambers that would give much more false psi numbers, or should I say indicators left open to the interpretor to arbitrarily attach numbers to?