constable79

Yes, I trim after full length sizing

Thanks for the replies guys. Appreciate your thoughts.

Looking for advice/education from the experts. I have been reloading for 25 years but this is my first time reloading for .308. I have loaded tens of thousands of .223 but have not noticed this issue. Background Rifle: Rock River Arms LAR-8 X1, 18" barrel Brass: once fired PMC commercial, once fired Lake City NATO. Trimmed to 2.005" Bullets: 168gr SMK's Powder: RL15, 43grns COAL: 2.800 Brass was full length resized with the shoulder bumped back .004 from cases fired in this rifle. Sizing was confirmed using case comparator and a case gage. COAL was confirmed using calipers and COAL comparator. Cases were sized on a Rock Chucker single stage and the the cartridges were loaded on a Dillon 550. Since this was my first time reloading .308 I took some measurements of the fired cases before and after sizing. I discovered after firing the cases they hardly grew at all. After sizing the cases grew approximately .005". The question: When I measured the cases before sizing I found some of the case lengths to be in the 1.998" range which is considerably shorter than the 2.005 length they were trimmed to. I did not mark my reloads so I could have picked up someone else's brass with mine although big coincidence the headstamp was the same. This is the first time I have ever measured a fired case prior to sizing. I didnt think the brass would shrink since it headspaces on the shoulder and not the case mouth. I'm looking for someone to educate me or explain how my brass could have shortened during firing and why it was only some of the cases. I apologize for the long post but wanted to give as much information as possible. Thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge and experience.

If you are using load data for commercial brass (223) then you need to reduce the load by about 3% when loading in .556 because military brass typically has less case capacity. Your loading manual should have a note stating whether the loads were developed using military brass or commercial brass..

Sell me the 1050 and I'll be happy to drive to Jacksonville and provide some lessons

+ 1checking your powder bar... Make sure you have the large powder bar. One other suggestion, lower your powder die just a little. The plastic washer in the side of the powder measure should actually hit full travel when the handle is about an inch from the end of the stroke. To ensure you are "pausing" long enough on the down stroke, mesure the time it takes for you to dump the powder from a cartridge. Your dwell time on the down stroke needs to be at least this long. Hope this helps.

OVW, With Lemishine, more is not better. Don' t use more than 1/4 teaspoon. Also, I have noticed that nickel covered brass may tend to "grey" out and not come out shiny. Did this to all of my .357 Winchester brass. I'm not sure why this happens but if I tumble them a second time they come out shiny again. My mix is per the original instructions: 1 tablespoon Dawn dishwashing detergent, 1/4 teaspoon Lemishine, fill tumbler to 1 inch below the rim. Wanting to try Flitz liquid version but haven't found any local yet.

Ray, With the Redding Competition Seating die you will typically see a larger OAL variance when measuring with calipers from cartridge base to bullet tip. The reason for this is that the competition seating die seats off the ogive and not the bullet tip. If your bullet lenght varies then the ogive contact will be in a different place for each bullet. My last case of MG bullets had a variance of .010 in a batch of 100 I measured. If you measure with a bullet comparator you will see a much smaller OAL because the comparator measures from Ogive to bullet base. If you use a seating die which seats off the bullet tip then the calipers will give a better OAL variation and the comparator will give you a larger OAL variance.. When I use my RCSD in 9mm I get +/- .005 OAL when using the caliper measuring method. When using the Dillon seating die I typically get +/- .002 when using the caliper measuring method. In theory, the RCSD is supposed to provide better accuracy because the distance from Ogive to land engagement is more uniform. At my skill level I cannot see any difference between rounds loaded with my RCSD and my Dillon seating die. Hope this helps. timestamp='1335123931' post='1688338'] I have not been able to get the OAL variation below +/-.005" on my Lee Loadmaster. I have a Redding Competition seating die and have added "C" clamps to the toolhead to prevent verticle movement. Even when I segregate the ammo produced from each shellplate hole I still get variations of +/- .004". Although this drives me bats, I calculate a difference of .010" OAL only makes a ~1.3% difference in case volume. So, forgeddabouit ... Ray

If you like RL-15 (I use it in my 7mm-08) give MR-2000 a try. Meters much better with the added benefit of a slight velocity increase.

Kineteks, As explained to me by both Redding and Dillon techs, the following statements are correct. 1. If using a seating die that seats off the bullet tip, if you measure using calibers you will get a more consistent OAL reading 2. If using a seating die that seats off the ogive, if you measure with a bullet comparator you will get a more consistent OAL reading. You are correct when you state that bullet variance will not affect round OAL when seating off the bullet tip if you measure with a caliber. If you measure with a bullet comparator you will see a variance since it measures off the ogive. Also, in this case, you will have a greater variance of each round from the chamber size on the ogive to the distance to the chamber. As you also summarized, when using the redding competition seating die, you will see a wider OAL variance when you measure with calibers. Assuming the bullet variance is between the ogive and bullet tip, the redding competiton seating die will put the same "length" of bullet in the case. When seating off of the bullet tip, the bullet length variance will cause the "length" of the bullet seated in the case to vary. As to your question about tight tolerance and OAL the answer should be no. The redding competition seating die is designed so that the seating stem is approximately the same size as the chamber. Therefore if using the redding die you will see a larger OAL variance when measure with caliber but there should not be an issue other than you may have a magazine fit issue if your desired OAL is close to max magazine length. There should not be any issue with the bullet contacting the rifiling as long as the OAL was setup for your individual gun. I would think the Redding die would yield better accuracy since the distance from ogive to chamber engagement is consistent for all rounds. As you stated, i'm not sure my shooting capability would notice the difference except maybe longer distance rifle shooting. This was the first time I have ever measured my bullet lengths because of the wild OAL range. I'm not sure if this range of variance is standard with Montanna Gold bullets or not. I did measure some Nosler 308 bullets I have and their variance was much tighter, in the .002 range. The purpose of my post was to educate those thinking of using the Redding Competion Seating die of how it is designed to work and alert them they would probably see a wider OAL variance if measuring with a caliper. Thank you very much for your inputs.

Latech15 I follow a similar process as you. Did you ever consider using a universal decapper in a single stage? This way you would only have to tumble once and and run thru your 1050 once. This is the process I follow and I find it is not much slower than doing it your way for the initial depriming.

Paul, Just a suggestion as food for thought. Use the 1050 for your small primer calibers (9mm, .223, and .40) and use the 650 for large primer. This way you would only have to worry about changing the caliber and not mess with the priming system. You are correct, tool heads and conversion kits for the 1050 would cost you roughly $325 for each caliber but you could get by with just buying the conversion kit for .223 and .40 since you already have the dies.

Racer, I measured my bullets before starting and my readings were in line with what you have listed with most in the .576-.579 range. At the time i was not concerned with the variation because the Redding seats off the ogive and not the bullet tip as the dillon seating die. I don't have the proper tools to compare but this is leading me to believe the MG's vary just as much in the ogive area as they do in length. Thanks for all your imput.

Sarge, I am with you on that. The micrometer feature is nice for quickly adjusting different bullets but from my experience detailed in the thread my results are much worse than the standard dillon die. I also have one for my .223 and 7mm which I haven't tried yet. So I guess I have 3 to sell.

JAXShooter, Thanks for the advice I'm not sure I understand how the length of brass would affect bullet seating as these dies seat off the ogive. I'm used to some variance but never saw this wild a swing with the Dillon Seater die. Also I'd like to ask what is your thought on when I ran them thru a second time they all came out within a range variance that I would have expected (+/- .001 versus +/- .005). My concern is that if I see this type of variance (especially longer) that I could run into a situation where the round is setback when chambered thus increasing pressures if I were to increase COAL in the future. If you are also seeing this type of variance on your loads then I don't see what I gained by spending the money for this die over the standard Dillon die. Thanks for your input.