I recently traded some things for a 1956 winchester mod 70 in 300 H&H and 3 boxes of spent brass, the next local gun show I found some old RCBS dies (cardboard box not plastic) and I had some sierra and hornady bullets to start loading with. I inspected the brass carefully and found 18 rounds once fired and not reloaded, 12 reloaded but ok looking, and the rest had cracked necks, tossed those.
I kept the 2 assortments of good brass separately, and started resizing them and then tested them in the gun, the used brass fit just fine, but the once fired went in with a little force and took a bit of force to un cock the bolt, some testing with a sharpie found the cases to be holding right behind the shoulder to half way down the case. leaving resizing lube on the case made them go in and out with only a little problem opening the bolt. I ended up loading some test loads with both brass, and found after firing the used brass extracted just fine, but the once fired set came out exactly like before firing. Back to the reloading bench, resized everything again, and the brass still had the same problem as before, one set works fine the other sticks.
Am I totally missing something here?
The used brass was win x or something, and the once fired was ww super, and I annealed everything between reloads.
Thanks in advance

quote:

Originally posted by sagi:Am I totally missing something here?

What's missing is new brass. You really don't know anything about the other stuff. If you don't have any first hand experience with the brass, your only real confidence is in how it performs relative to brass that you have shot.

could the dies possibly be neck sizers and the cases fired in a different chamber

You are saying that some of the brass, after being fired in your rifle is hard to extract??

Have you checked the brass to be sure it is not overlong?

Are you full length resizing the brass?? When you cycle your press without a case in it, is there a pretty stout cam over when your ram gets to the top?
When you full length resize a case and your ram is all the way to the top, is there any space between the shell holder and the die? If so, you need to adjust your die down so there is no space between the shell holder and the die. THEN you will be full length resizing the brass.

Be sure and clean that oil out of the chamber with some brake cleaner or such.

I don't think annealing is gonna help you one way or the other.

What kind of load are you running?

I know I need new brass, I simply can't afford it at the moment, and the plan was to use what I had to see if I could get results, to tell if I should keep it or sell it.
The brass that is hard to extract is hard to extract before and after firing, the exact same amount.
loads were imr 4831 7 grains under max, working up to 1 under max, and the second set was AA 4350 working up to max in the books I have, turns out that the hottest was the starting load accurate lists on their website. I was using sierra 180 spitzers and hornady 180 btsp.
The die is set down enough so the ram contacts the die, and I'm pretty sure they are full length dies. I also checked length after resizing, it is all under "trim to" length.
Is there a chance the full length dies are slightly bigger than my chamber? And does anyone know a cheap source for brass?

edit in: best group so far

If you have 1x brass, it's gonna be as good as anything you can buy new. FWIW, I've reloaded for a long, long time and never annealed a case. If your brass is 1x or only fired a few times, I don't think it would need it.

Without my hands on the rifle, the only other thing I can think of would be a dirty chamber. Get a 20 or 28 gauge shotgun brush and put it in a section of cleaning rod and put that in a drill motor. Run that into your chamber a few times and then use some Kroil and oversized patches. Finish up with brake cleaner. Be sure none of the brake cleaner get on the stock of your rifle.

What's so mystifying about your problem is the H&H was designed for ease of extraction.

I'll try cleaning the chamber a bit. Its hard to say if thats the problem, the brass looks different after feeding it to the gun, like a spotty shine. I'll try to get photos tomorrow if I end up loading some.

If it is hard going in I would guess that you probably are not getting them fully resized. Shell holders are cheap, see if you can find someone to take .005 off the top of yours and try again. I have had to do this for 1 or 2 rifles. Have you tried chambering a fully resized empty case? Also look at the case head just above belt and see if there is an expansion ring there. The first owner could have fired them in a sloppy chamber.
Neat rifle btw, I have one that is a couple of years older and love it.

C.G.B.

One lot of brass was likely fired in your rifle originally, and the other was likely fired in a different rifle with a slightly larger chamber.

Your resizing die isn't as small as your chamber. This happens. Not the end of the world.

Since your dies are oldies that you probably didn't pay a lot for, the fix is simple: Take your resizing die to a grinding wheel and grind about .05" or so off of the bottom. This will allow you to screw it down further, effecively allowing you to size the body/shoulder of the case a little more. Exactly how much you take off of the bottom lip of the die isn't critical since the bottom 1/2 inch or so of the die doesn't do anything to the brass, anyway. Only turn the die down in the press sufficiently to allow the sized case to enter the chamber without excessive resistance. It is neither necessary nor desirable for the shellholder to bump against the die bottom.

The same thing can be achieved by grinding a little off of the lip thickness of your shell holder head. Do whichever seems easier to you.

the good news is my friend has 3 number 4 holders, I'll try to shave some off of one and see if it helps. I can't get a good enough photo, but I can tell the shell is rubbing against the chamber for the first half inch behind the shoulder by coloring a line with a sharpie on it and chambering it. these are empty cases right after resizing and cleaning off. I'll sacrifice one holder and see how it goes

the belt will still hit in the same place.

the belt seems to have some room in the die, I sanded off .008 off the shell holder and the die left a mark on the sanded surface. I'm not sure how much room there is left to use though. they still stick a little I might take some more off still
for some reason I found some 375 H&H cases that were a friends that had no use for it, I ran 4 through my dies and they chambered just fine.

The best deal I can find on new brass is about 80 (shipped) for 100 on cabelas I think, anyone know a cheaper source?

quote:

Originally posted by Lamar:
the belt will still hit in the same place.

Yes, which is no place. Most dies for belted magnums don't come anywhere close to touching the belt. Unfortunately, sometimes neither do rifle chambers.

Sagi: Hone that shellholder down a little more. Eight 1000ths isn't much.

yeah I realized that wasn't a whole lot. this weekend I should be able to spend more time on it and hopefully get it working. thanks for all the replies

so I ended up taking off .025 from the shell holder and half the cases still stick and the other half don't. I'm worried taking much more off will stretch the shoulder too much and wear out the brass faster. how much is too much for over resizing?

watch out. .. the nervous nellies in the bigbore forum might start an internet rumor that that's something wrong with the caliber and its "in trouble"

best of luck

its not the caliber, I'm thinking its my dies. the set of brass that feeds fine in my rifle does so at near max loads (69 of aa4350 with 180's, max is 71.5)
I have alternated what set gets high and low loads, nothing seems to change. at least I'll have 12 rounds if I want to use it for elk/bear that I know will work.
if anything is wrong with it, it overheats after 5 rounds, I end up sitting for about 15 minutes between a very slow set of 5. I have no experience with other magnums though. the good news is it only holds 4 rounds! more than enough.
enough ranting, I'll take it to the local smith and see if he can figure anything out

quote:

Originally posted by sagi:some testing with a sharpie found the cases to be holding right behind the shoulder to half way down the case.

If the case is sticking after resizing because the diameter behind the shoulder is too wide, then grinding the shell holder down may not solve the problem until you are pushing the shoulder back further than advisable. It sounds like the problem is a difference in diameters between the sizing die and chamber, not length to shoulder. Most experienced reloaders set up dies for belted cases so the shoulder will lightly contact the chamber or be only a couple thou short. Either the die or rifle chamber could be out of spec.
I would closely inspect the brass just above the belt as most dies don't resize the case just above to the belt, and that is the spot where problems occur if brass has been fired in another rifle with a larger chamber.

that seems to be the problem, I was hoping lowering the die would make the taper of the sides of the case come down enough to size it more but that didn't happen. its not sticking just in front of the belt, I checked that and it shows no wear.

Your set of sticking cases were undoubtedly fired in an slightly oversized chamber in a different gun. In order to use them you'll have to take a little more off of your shellholder until they will enter the chamber without excessive force. Once you have sized them down, you will NOT need to do it again as they will only "grow" as large as your chamber upon firing. The SECOND time you size them you will need to raise the die off of the shellholder an appropriate amount so that it does not push back the shoulder, leaving your brass "neck" or "partial full length" sized. You will need to check length and trim/chamfer if necessary after the first firing subsequent to FL sizing.