First night with a new caliber and its already kicking my butt. The bolt on my new Ruger M77 closes hard with my reloads. Bullets are seated to 2.693. I checked length with a dummy round and came up with a consistent 2.698. Factory Winchester rounds work just fine. They are seated at 2.645 to 2.655. OK, I'll just seat mine down that far. Nope, bolt still closed hard. I can even see a slight ogive? marking around the bullet where it looks like its getting crammed in. I tried just a resized, empty case and it works great too. I'm now out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated. BTW, I'm using 87 grain
V-maxes.

The shape of each bullet determines how far out you can seat it before it hits the rifling. The oal for one bullet of even the same weight can be vastly different from another. Just keep slowly shoving it in. roger

Take a black felt marker and go over the whole bullet with it. Now the bullet is all black. Very slowly try to seat the bullet in the chamber. If it binds up carefully remove it now look at the bullet. See if any of tha black is scrapped off the bullet. You'll probably be able to see where the lans hit the bullet. Make a dumby bullet. Repeat the process. Keep marking over the bullet with the marker after you seat the bullet a little deeper in your loading press repeat the process. Pretty soon it should chamber if the bullet is hitting the lans.

A bolt that closes as hard as described would force the bullet into the lands leaving a mark visible to the naked eye. I would look at readjusting my sizing die if I were you as it sounds like your problem is with the case, not the bullet. Be shure to check your case length too, as trimming might be necessary.

I forgot to mention Mic the dia. of those bullets.

Since a resized case works fine, try one more thing. Run a case into your sizing die and then through your seating die with no bullet in it. If it is more difficult to chamber than just the resized case then your seating die body is screwed into the press to far.

I have seen where the seating die body was screwed down so far that the mouth of the case is pushed down and the case is bulged below the shoulder. This makes it tough to chamber all of the way.

It really screws you up in the middle of a handgun silhouette match where the minor differences in case length causes 1 out of every 4 of your reloads not to chamber.

Revised and updated after two days of sorting and measuring and eyeballing. Out of the 113 once fired cases I bought (10 once fired out of my rifle), 9 would not chamber correctly. I still have no reason at all why. Some were resized(5), some were not(4), some were completely loaded(3). Of the non-loaded cases, 2 were trimmed to length. I measured everything I could think of and could not find a bit of difference between any of the bad cases and any random case I took out of the pile of good ones. I have the correct remedy to my problem, but I'm really curious as to what the hell is going on. Anyone else got any guesses?

Here's what I suggest...

Take all of your cases and do a full-length sizing on them.

Then measure all your cases and trim them to the length of the shortest.

Take three of the cases and seat the bullets so that all three fit in the magazine properly.

THAT IS YOUR MAX OAL.

Now, try to function the three rounds through the action. If they function, that is your OAL.

If the first one causes difficult bolt rotation, then seat the bullets in all three cases another 0.010" deeper and try to function them again. Keep doing this until you can place the three dummy cartridges in the magazine, and operate the bolt to feed them into the chamber and close without difficulty.

That is the length that you should load these cartridges.

NOW...if you change the bullet, you WILL have to do this again.

Every bullet is different, even bullets of the "same make and model" may be different with different lot numbers.

I suggest you buy enough powder and bullets to last you a lifetime. Shooting is a lot more fun that trying to work-out little problems.

I have had this same problem. I can almost guaranteed that its the way you are sizing the brass. Full lenght size the brass and make sure the sizer die almost touches the shell holder when it is at its max height. Then lube your brass and resize them. Hope this helps.

Steve,

Very good advice! I am amazed at the length of your post and it's good naturedness - have made a New Year's resolution

Remlover,

With once fired brass from another rifle the die should be adjusted so the shell holder touches it (and the case checked for length thereafter)

quote:

Very good advice! I am amazed at the length of your post and it's good naturedness - have made a New Year's resolution

Kinda...

Setting the size die to almost touch the shellholder is poor advice. I use black majic marker on my case necks and adjust the die until it almost perfectly sizes the neck to the shoulder/neck junction. If the rifle has a tight chamber maybe .010 off this junction. I like my bolt to close with some slight resistance, seems good for accuracy. Steves method of finding the correct seating depth is a good one though I turn the seating die stem in a quarter turn until the rifling no longer touches the bullet and you have to do this every time you change bullets so I keep dummy rounds made up so I can use them to set my seating dies easily. The black majic marker is good for this too, I will usually "paint" the bullets of several cartridges and progresivly try to chamber and seat the bullet deeper with succeding cartridges so the rifling marks are still obvious and it is obviuys that they no longer touch the bullet. I also like my bullets to be more like .020-.025 off the lands due to variations in the bullets of the same box especially with hunting loads. All bullets are not as consistant as Steve's favorite 85 grain Sierra BTHP sadly.

Laner I had a similar problem with a 22-250 last summer. I was trimming the cases to max overall length. I started trimming them .010 below max length & that took care of it.