Recently rebarreled a savage 110 from a 25-06 to 25-06. Used the go, no-go gages and everything seemed to go okay. Tried to feed the new barrel some 25-06 reloads and on many of the reloads, I could not close the bolt. I FL sized some additional cases and when I chambered the unloaded cases, the bolt would not close. As a check, I tried to feed the unloaded but resized 25-06 brass into a factory savage .270, but I could not close the bolt of the .270.

I believe I have a problem with my full length sizing die, or more likely, my use of the die. It is an RCBS die. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Your sizing die is not set right. You should get firm contact with the base of the die. Either that or your die isn't locked down. I'm guessing you used the same shell holder to size all ofthe brass. If not that changes the length of yor brass also.

Common mistake; first make sure your shell holder is touching the bottom of you die; if the bolt closes then, you are on the right track. If you want to minimize the excess headspace, then back off the die until you get a slight "feel" on closing.

The shell holder touches the bottom of the die and the die is locked down.

Curious as to whether the brass can just be worn out? Some of brass seems to work just fine while other pieces just don't seem to "hold" the resizing. Some of the brass may have been fired 5-7 times. The older 25-06 brass does the same thing when I try to resize it in a .270 die, but when I use once fired .270 brass and resize it, it runs through the .270 fine and when I run it through the 25-06 die it resizes and chambers fine.

Also, with my previous barrel, I had more headspace. It would close on the no-go gage, but not the field gage. Maybe the brass was stressed a bit more because of the longer headspace with the previous barrel?

Don't want to part with brass that does not look bad, but I am at the point that I think I have worn out brass.

Are you using a lot of force to pull your cases over the expander?

It might be beneficial to start taking comparative measurements over cases that do go in and those that don't.( head. over all case length.)

Blackening the cases to see where they gall could help.

There are a lot of possibilities and I doubt I've seen them all. roger

Your chamber is set at min headspace and your die is at max so, given the stretch factor and springback of brass, that is why you get some of them to chamber and others, not. If it is a Savage, just unscrew your barrel a bit. If you think you have worn out brass, it will work harden at the neck and crack; you could anneal it to make sure; shoulder too.