Last time we talked, we were going to take the barrel off and set it back a thread and re-ream. After a chamber cast and measurement, my local gunsmith (Gary Bennett) talked me out of that. he felt like this was cutting off the leg at the thigh, when only the toe was infected.

You see, the chamber measured out to Jeffery diminsions, albiet at the absolute maximum. All the ammo that I have loaded so far has been sized at the minimum, or close to it. Even brand new brass is sized well below maximum. For some reason, my rifle is one of those that is sensitive to the difference. The exception is Kynoch, which fits my chamber perfectly (at about a million dollars a shot).

What Gary did was make me a case expander that screws into my expander die. This moves the shoulder out a bit on new brass. I then size it back down with the sizing die a full one and one-half turns backed off. This produces a butt-ugly case with a big bulge in front of the shoulder. This bulge disappears when I cycle the sized case through the rifle. The resulting round is extremly tight in the chamber, but fires every time. The fire-formed case, however, cycles with little difficulty and only slight pressure when the bolt is closed.

So far, I've fire-formed 60 rounds with no problems. And the beautiful part is that the primers come out nice and rounded instead of flat and punctured, even with the hottest loads. This is a first. I havn't shot any of the fire-formed cases yet (Saturday I will) but I don't foresee any problem, judging by the way they cycle in the chamber.

I've finally settled on a load of 92 grains of IMR 4831, which moves my 400-grain Woodleighs at 2370 fps with very little fluctuation and groups about 1 1/2 inches at 100 yards. This should handle the light work with little problem

All this is just in time; we leave for Africa in a month and the 404 will be at my side.

GA-You now have your die set to put shoulders in right place.Does the base of the brass get worked
down to small yet(compared to max chamber),when you resize with die 1.5 turns up from holder.
If so you could have resize die honed out.Reworking base more than neccessary will shorten case life.Ed.

Sorry Ed, I didn't quite follow your question and comment.

GAHUNTER,

Glad to see that you are on the right track . When you have the time you might want to try 76 to 78 grains of Reloader 15 (as with any new load start a few grains lower and work up) with Federal 215 or CCI 250 primers and the 400 grain Woodleigh. It groups extremely well in my rifle.

Good shooting,
Jim

GA - Headspace can be a bitch. It's been a long time coming, however, I am glad to see that you finally found a resolution....

I think where Ed was headed was to make sure your sizing die is not considerably tighter than your chamber which will cause excessive movement in the brass during resizing. The easiest way to avoid this is the have a custom die set cut.

Your next feat will be to brush up on your case annealing expertise. You have a lot of time invested in fire forming your cases, might as well make them last a while.

Ooooh the joys of non-belted cartridges and headspace...

Zero is right.You want to anneal cases once in a
while to make all this work on brass last for as
long as possible.What Zero and I are referring to
in overworking brass, is you have a maximum chamber.You know the dimensions of the max chamber at the base, and after resizing with your die up 1.5 turns(to give you proper headspace), and your case at the base measures, say .008 to
.012 smaller, that is more resizing than is neccessary, and will cause thinning just ahead of base to fast, compared to brass .002 to .003 under max chamber size at the base.Ed.

[ 04-25-2003, 02:15: Message edited by: hubel458 ]

Mbogo,

You must have read my mind. I was already planning on trying Reloader 15 and have loaded a bunch from 74 to 78 grains.

The book says 78 should have me licking 2400 fps.

Zero,

Got to admit that you were the one with the steady hand in this matter. You knew the fix all along, just made me find out for myself.

By the way, I don't know a Neal, but I hunt with a guy named Neil.

I've only been reloading for a little over a year so I'm not that up on all the nuances of the trade. Need help in that area.

GA,
Congrats on resolving the issue without cutting up your rifle!!

I would echo what zero drift and other have recommended about the custom dies. I'm sure that with three of your fired cases someone like RCBS can make custom fitted dies for your rifle.

That's the way I got dies for my 300 Apex. Just sent them 3 fired cases and presto! Once you have those, then it's just a walk in the park!

Rusty
We band of brothers!

GA - I have about pulled all my hair out of my head at times attempting to match brass, chambers, and dies with several rimless cartridges. Sometimes just takes a little tweaking and creative thinking to resolve some headspace issues. The good news is you are over the hurdle and have a lot more appreciation about rimless reloading challenges.

Now onto load development...

Rusty,

I talked to the RCBS custom division (the actual factory, not Huntington) about a month ago, and was told that they were no longer making special order dies. I was trying to find out dimensions on the factory die set for 450x2 1/2" Flanged Nitro Express, and the possibility of getting smaller dimensioned dies since my rifle has a minimum sized chamber (CH dies were too large to size the brass enough to fit the chamber-now I have an expensive set of CH paper weights ). Luckily the factory RCBS set worked, but in the future this limits the possibilities for wildcats .

Jim

Mbogo,

CH4D still does custom dies. I talked to them the other day. I'm going to send them some fire-formed cases after I get back from Africa and have a set made.

I'm not thrilled with their dies, either, since part of my problem has been their minimum sized 404 dies, but they should be able to make a custom set. After all, there is no guess work involved. All they have to do is match the brass.

[ 04-25-2003, 05:44: Message edited by: GAHUNTER ]

Congrats.

Redding does custom dies with their photocomparator-duplicator-some-such-device. They will do them from chamber specs too, but the "ancient" method of reading three fireformed cases would seem to be in order here. Redding will read 'em.

GAHUNTER,

Good luck on the custom dies from CH. I tried that route about a year ago on another project when the standard CH form die set and sizer were too small for my chamber and brass. I was promised 12 week delivery on a custom set, but after about 5 months I finally called and they had not started on them yet (it was going to be another 3 months ). I gave up and got a set of factory RCBS dies(333 Jeffery)that worked with no alterations.

Don't take what I am saying in the wrong way, as Dave at CH is a nice guy and I have purchased several sets of dies from CH, but don't be in a hurry if you are ordering non-standard dies. The problem is that many of the older British calibers are not standardized, and it is almost impossible to produce a set of dies that will work in all rifles. I always seem to get the oddballs .

Jim

The only die in this case needing change is the
resizer might needing honing out, I think.Your gunsmith who made expander might be able to do it.I did my
own in making dies for my wildcat.If the seating die is tight, a little honing also.Expander die
is oversize so it is ok.Measure your base after you shoot and compare with base size from chamber cast.Then measure base after resizing.Let us know
these measurements, and we can help.And perhaps save a lot of waiting for custom dies...Ed.

/

Alf,

Swift was selling the .423"/400 grain A-Frame from their booths this show season; I recall Ray A. writing that he bought a lifetime supply at Dallas. Also I saw one of the USA catalog suppliers saying they had them in stock.

The .404 Jeff is definitely a handloading proposition here.

jim dodd

I have not got them as yet...I ordered them at Dallas..Apparantly they were going to be overruns from a huge factory order, and they expected a huge overrun in order to supply the public market for some time...

GA--I forgot to ask. Do your fired cases look
like the ones the Judge showed in his thread
about sloppy chambered 350 Rem Mag?? Really
curious, considering the measurements of the
amount expansion you mentioned..Ed.