Some of you may remember my post concerning the problem I was having with my 6.5X50R Bellm barrel - I would size the cases, they would drop in flush with the chamber, but when loaded they would stick before going all the way in sometimes with a 1/4" to go. Having waited a long time to get this barrel I was disheartened - I knew it wasn't the barrel, that something else was going on that I couldn't get a handle on. So it got put aside. But I am going hunting in a couple of weeks and thought it would be nice to have it up and running. So back at it I went.

After checking the usual suspects, I thought either runout (was having more than I would have liked) or expansion of the case due to using a slightly compressed charge was the culprit. Checked the cased dimensions and they were ok. So I bought a mandel and expander to turn the necks - thought the necking up operation may be the problem. Turned the necks and loaded up a bunch of rounds with 31.5 gr. of H4895 which had given me a 10 shot 1.2" group even with the chambering problem - very promising. Checked runout and was within 0.002" on all of them - more than acceptable. Went to drop them in and still had the same problem - Arrrgh! Was completely out of ideas and was fondling the case thinking when I noticed the bullet had been slightly swaged where the seating stem on the Hornady dies had contacted it. The pressure to compress the powder was evidently enough to bulge the copper jacket of the 120 NBTs I was using and making it contact the lands before it normally would. Bizarre.

So I am going to try a different bullet and see if I can get Hornady to provide me a different seating stem. But at least now I know what is going on.

[ 09-18-2002, 23:35: Message edited by: Rob ]

Rob,

Now that is an unusual problem! Let us know if Hornady takes care of you, or if you find another sollution to the problem!

Amazing! Thanks for the report out. Always good to hear about this stuff before it happens to you (read: me!).

steve

Rob-
Thanks for the update. I am glad to hear you have found the culprit -- and what an unusual one at that. And good luck hunting, by the way...

Good catch Rob! I don't think that I would have seen or figured that out on my own if it were me. It would have been a shame to have gotten rid of that barrel with the problem being the dies. You may want to consider another set of dies if Hornady doesn't come up with a solution for the problem.
Rich Jake