I've neck sized W-W brass two or three times, now when I chamber some of the brass there is resistance as the bolt closes and I have to force the bolt up to get the round out. The brass was trimmed to suggested length so I know it's not length. What's going on?

On that chamber full length size only. Some chambers are round and have perfect headspace and others are not quite perfect but very serviceable.

Of course when you set the FL die don't oversize or the web will thin out fast.

You will be glad you did this if it's a hunting rifle.

Once I see the situation you have I start checking more things. Like for web separation, case length, headspace, neck thickness etc.

Your chamber is probably a bit on the large side and your dies when you neck size are not reducing the base sufficiently. Thats why it's getting hard to chamber the brass in the gun. You will have to full length re-size more frequently. I would replace your brass every 5-6 reloads.-Rob

Rob, excuse my rookieness. When you refer to the dies not reducing the "base" sufficiently, do you mean the part of the case near the case head?

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Originally posted by Robgunbuilder:
Your chamber is probably a bit on the large side and your dies when you neck size are not reducing the base sufficiently. Thats why it's getting hard to chamber the brass in the gun. You will have to full length re-size more frequently. I would replace your brass every 5-6 reloads.-Rob

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If full length resizing doen't cure the problem, check neck thickness. Brass for my XP in 7BR tends to get thicker, rather than longer.

Good luck,

Eddie

A had a problem like that a few years back, and the fix was to trim the cases. I was also stretching the necks just enough to cause problems, until I decided to carefully lubricate the inside are of the neck down to the shoulder. Haven't had the same problem since.

IF YOU HAVE JUST BEEN SIZING NECKS, after several full-power loadings the cases need to be full-length resized so they will chamber easily. Just try full-length sizing and see if this doesn't cure the problem. But, you should not have to do this EVERY TIME you reload the case.

Antlers, I've experienced the same thing with several bolt guns. Sometimes chambering gets hard after only 2-3 neck sizings, sometimes it doesn't happen until 5 or 6 neck sizings.

After doing a ton of reading, I'm pretty sure what is happening is that a piece of brass continues to "grow" in nearly all dimensions each time it's fired and then only neck sized. Every time you fire, the shoulder gets shoved forward and more fully fits itself to the full chamber dimension. The brass probably hardens a bit as well, so that when the pressure drops it doesn't spring back smaller, the way it did on the first few firings.

The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is that when a given piece of fired brass won't chamber easily, it's time to FL size it, which will push the shoulder back a few thou as well as resizing the brass along its full length. Then if it's your preference, you can probably go back to neck sizing it only for the next few firings.

I was a strong believer in the benefits of neck sizing until recently, when I discovered some of my FL-sized brass outshooting neck-sized brass. I've since corresponded with some folks and read some material by author/shooter Glen Zedicker indicating that indeed many guns are more accurate if you FL size the brass every time. There are a multitude of technical reasons why this sometimes is true.

So the bottom line is that you just need to FL size the brass, trim the length and maybe check the neck thickness. Do those things and the brass should load and chamber again just fine.

Ray, AK

I'm curious about the comment you made about "stretching the necks". I'm mainly curious because I haven't been making an effort to lube inside the necks of each case. If the necks were "stretching" wouldn't the case length increase? Is lubing the inside necks that important?

Thanks for everyone's help! I'll FL size and see if that solves the mystery.

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Originally posted by Ray, Alaska:
A had a problem like that a few years back, and the fix was to trim the cases. I was also stretching the necks just enough to cause problems, until I decided to carefully lubricate the inside are of the neck down to the shoulder. Haven't had the same problem since.

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