I had some erratic results in my 25-06 and after getting a factory crimp die to see if that would help I noticed I could at the least spin the bullets by hand once seated or at the most just pull it right out. The mandrel on my sizing die is .255" but the bullets mic .254". This is from 2 different boxes with 2 different lot numbers and 2 different calipers. I have a similar but not as bad time with the .308s in my 30-06 but they are not loose just not as snug as I think they need to be. My mandrel is showing .307 and so are the bullets. I think I'll be trying some others.

Old Cane:
How far are you seating the bullet in the case?
I had the same problem with 150gr & 130gr TSX's in my 30-06. The problem I had was the bullet wasnt seated far enough in the case. I seated them 50 thousands off the lands but with the rings on the bullet there just was not enough bearing surfice on the bullet for the case to hold it. Try seating it in the bullet more.It worked for me. Good luck. Bret

If the bullets really mic .254 they are undersized for the .257 bore of a 25-06. I never liked Barnes bullets, they seem to always have something wrong with them. You might want to have someone mic the bullets with a different mic.

Contact Barnes. I bought undersized Solids, and Barnes fixed the problem.
- mike

Tried 2 different calipers but told Ty I would try mic'ing them at the gun shop. He also told me they are larger at the base and taper toward the top. This I have noticed. On the .257 bullets I am seating all the way past the 3 rings and should be able to crimp but even crimped some spin. Not all I found out yesterday. Out of 20 I loaded I got 12 that seem to be seated., 5 that I pulled out by hand and 3 I didn't bother with because when I started the bullet before seated I could just slide it in and out by hand. My case mouths all seem to measure the same so the only variable I see left is the bullets.

On my 30-06 I am using TSX and XLC and they seem to seat ok. In fact some of the blue almost seems to be scraping off of the XLCs. They show about .307 and so do my case mouths so my cal may be off by that much but not by .003. Plus I loaded some corelocts aand they are snug as can be and measure .308. are corelocts oversize?

As a matter of fact I had a box of 6mm XLCs that miked .001"-.002" over size....as near as I could tell attributed to the 'blue coating'. In my tight chambered 6mm they actually required a slight change in neck turning but they did shoot pretty decent.
I have pretty much moved on to other bullets because as DF said they always have issues.

I got some Sierra Pro Hunters today and I'll mic them tonight and see if there is a difference. Guy at the gunshop said my die may not be closing up enough on the neck and I might need to send it back, it's a neck sizing die by the way. But the case mouths all measure the same. If these Sierra bullets measure .257 then I'll know it's not my method of measuring.

Thanks guys.