We have been shooting factory rifles in small calibers lately.

Mostly 223s and small 6mms.

This morning I thought I will process my empties of our 375/404 hunting rifles, getting them ready for our safari in September.

I have been using Norma 404 brass since 2003. I prepared 150 cases then.

Sometimes we loose a case or two while hunting, but most of those cases are still being used today.

That means most have been reloaded at least 15 times.

Our chambering reamer was cut to our specs.
The dies were made to our specs.

What I noticed today was the ease of sizing these case.

They feel much easier to size than sizing 223s shot in factory rifles, and sized in factory standard dies??

Aloha Saeed,
As I recall, you originally purchased a case of 404 brass as many of us do for our favorite rifles. However, using only 150 cases and reloading up to 15 times only reinforces my belief that "We reloading gun nuts truly believe that we will live forever."

Geoff

Saeed, do you anneal those cases?

Who cut your custom dies?

Cheers, Chris

No, I don't anneal any of my brass.

The reamer was made by Dan Green.

The dies were made by Redding according to our drawings.

I think what is helping preserve those cases is how close the chamber and the resizing die are.

Very little movement of the brass.

Saeed, your experience and observations here agree exactly with mine. Most of my experience over the years has been with RCBS and Redding dies, but would probably be generally the case with other brands as well. With standard die sets, makers try to assure that brass sized with their FL dies will chamber in any rifle with a factory chamber, which can cover a lot of ground. This means dimensioning the dies on the small side which in many cases leads to over working the brass and increases sizing effort.

I first took notice of this years ago when some dies in .22 and 6mm rounds led to excessive effort and some apparent stretching when withdrawing the expander button through the neck. Some quick measuring showed that the neck was being sized way too small... Perhaps .006" too much. Lapping the neck section of the die out in small increments led to much better performance here.

Next episode happened with a set of .222 dies as I recall which appeared to size the body area excessively. The shoulder diameter was being reduced by perhaps .002 or .003 more than necessary, and more closely approximated that of a .223 (the blueprint dimensions are slightly different.) I contacted the manufacturer, sent the die and a few fired cases, and they lapped the die body to the correct dimension. It has worked perfectly since. I had another similar instance a few years later and again contacted the manufacturer. At that time they told me that the old guy who used to do the lapping had retired and they no longer offered the service. So I switched to another brand and all went well that time.

The next time of any significance was just a couple of years ago with a set of Redding 9.3x62 dies in which the body was being reduced excessively. That time I decided to measure and lap myself, removing maybe .0025" of material at the shoulder tapering to 0 reduction at the base. I ended up with perhaps a .001" reduction in shoulder diameter from the fired cases and much easier sizing effort.

I'm not a great guru here but I do have some machine experience (see my signature line ) By "lapping" I don't mean polishing with abrasive cloth on a mandrel, but rather using a brass lap charged with abrasive... 240 grit for material removal and 400 for finishing. This allows for precise dimension control at any particular point and will leave a flat non- rippled surface. The process goes slowly and requires a lot of measuring and checking, but I've been happy with the results thus far.

And btw, it has been my experience over time that Redding tends to make a bit tighter sizing die than perhaps some of the others. Was it with their dies that you noticed this? I had discussed this with them and their "answer" was as above, that they guaranteed 100 percent chambering. It didn't solve my problem but it did explain it. I personally think they may be over doing things a bit, but maybe that' s just me.

Saeed, the ease of resizing could well be because of the close dimentions of chamber and dies. However as a generalisation I have noticed that the larger the calibre generaly the easier the resizeing.

This might just be that with the rifles I have the larger calibre dies I have are closer to the chamber dimentions than the smaller calibres.

Saeed,

Does your resizing die have an elliptical expander or the usual radius shouldered expander?

I believe that the elliptical expander make a huge difference reducing case stretching.

Rusty,

The expander is a bit that straight walled about a quarter inch long.

My main observation is in the easy of sizing, and that is due to the fact that the die was made to closely resemble the rifle's chamber.

My .358 x .404 IMP has the same characteristic. The last .404 cases I used were made by Bell. roger

I am mildly amused that Saeed is still discovering things about his pet wildcat after 18 or 19 years of playing with it.

My reverse-engineered .375/404 Jeffery Saeed of 2012 has reloading dies from Hornady and works great with Norma brass.

If one uses Hornady brass, the necks don't get sized enough to grip the bullet.

Saeed's rifle has .409" neck diameter spec for chamber engraved on the rifle barrel.

I made my Neck-1 of chamber .409", and Neck-2 of chamber .408".

I spec the brass neck diameters at .405" for both neck-1 and neck-2.

Worked great for me.

Unable to reverse engineer the throat, I used the 2001 specs for the .375 Wby.

Saeed's recent work on C.O.L. showing little effect on accuracy was comforting.

1:12" twist Dan Lilja barrel, fluted No. 6 sporter contour, 26" barrel,
rifle weighs 8 lbs 14 oz:




1:10" twist Pac-Nor barrel, No. 3 sporter contour, light as I dare go for a .375 barrel,
at 25" length the rifle weighs 8 lbs 13 oz:



Reamer Minimum Specs:



Brass Max Specs:



Reloading dies:

quote:

I believe that the elliptical expander make a huge difference reducing case stretching.

Hornady Custom dies use that ...

"Elliptical Expander
Superior to “ball expanders,” this Hornady exclusive provides extremely smooth neck sizing and significantly reduces friction and case neck stretch. Internal threading prevents it from pulling loose and the elliptical expander also eliminates the need for a separate expander die for necking-up to the next caliber."

I see that Hornady added c clips to their rod. When did they do that?

Has anyone replace the old friction rods with these.

Looks like it may be there to limit the de-capper depth so it doesn't impact the case base internally.

quote:

Originally posted by richj:
I see that Hornady added c clips to their rod. When did they do that?

Has anyone replace the old friction rods with these.

I have 6.5 swed and 30-06 Hornady dies, don't use'em any more. I've pulled the decapping rod out the bottom on both of them.

all commercial brass, the 6.5 is norma. and no the rod isn't down too far.

richj,

I had that issue as well, until I started threading them and using a nut on the end like everybody else does on theirs...

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
richj,

I had that issue as well, until I started threading them and using a nut on the end like everybody else does on theirs...

Yup, me too. Now they stay put.

Concur with both the threaded rod and the elliptical expander.
One of the other things I do is polish the expander on all sizing dies. This eases the extraction of the ball through the neck. Realize I POLISH the expander. I don't reduce its diameter unless necessary to get increased grip on the bullet.

Saeed, I would be really interested to know if your loaded ammo chambers easily or if the bolt is just a bit firm when closing on a round in the chamber.

What I am referring to is whether any brass has flowed forward and the neck has got a bit thicker? With dies and chamber reamer of close tolerances I would expect this to become an issue.

Just a thought.