Reloading .308 Question

J

Jb26wcu

New member
Hello,

I am new to reloading as so many probably are these days with sky rocketing ammunition costs.

I am pressing once fired (by me) .308 win PMC brass. I am using all Hornady equipment and I am having one issue. Most of the ammo is pressing fine but 1 out of 5 the bullet is not sitting in the casing tight. I am able to spin the bullet/projectile as it sits in the casing. Is this normal? Is it safe to fire these rounds? Is there a fix to this?

I have made multiple adjustments on the hornady custom grade does and I still end up with the same result.

Thank you for your help I greatly appreciate it!
 
It's not safe if the bullet is loose, you could have a bullet setback, with catastrophic results. Recheck your die setting, something is not set up right.
 
I assume you have calipers.

measure the bullet diameter to make sure it is not under sized.

you can also take your resizing die apart and measure the expander ball

I would also measure the inside of a case neck diameter before and after resizing a casing. a resized neck should be a couple thousands under .308, in the .304-.306 ish range.
 
PMC is Korean and is usually decent stuff.
"1 out of 5" indicates a case or resizing issue vs either the bullet or expander. Or maybe you're not quite running the ram all the way up. Still wouldn't hurt to check the expander. Just to be sure And make sure you have checked case lengths and trimmed, as required only, and chamfered the inside of the case mouth.
"...multiple adjustments..." That'll make you crazy. Set the dies up, from the beginning again, starting with the sizer die. Resize a case and measure the neck diameter. (One assumes you have vernier calipres.) Inside and out. OD should be 0.343". ID should be .309". There's a drawing here. https://www.6mmbr.com/308win.html
If all that doesn't help, give Hornady a call. https://www.hornady.com/contact/
 
well if you are using a standard non bushing sizing die and 1 out of 5 bullets are loose while the other four are tight then one of the following is occuring

- the neck on the die is expanding for 1 out of 5 cases then shrinking again - very unlikely. There is no way to adjust neck tension on a non bushing die

- 1 out of 5 bullets are undersized - possible but I doubt it

- 1 out of 5 case necks have .001 - .002 thinner neck walls the likelihood of that is somewhere between first and second

- you missed the sizing step with some cases - most probable

in a single feed yeah go ahead and shoot them. Don't put them in a magazine fed rifle though. Finger tight bullets were a fad among benchrest shooters a few years back
 
hounddawg hit on most of the things I was thinking.

Here are a few others:

I believe we have to assume you are using the brass and bullets from the same lot, so let's ignore any dimension differences in those.

Measure the OAL of a tight round and a loose round. If the loose round is a bit longer, then I think you probably aren't pushing down hard when bullet seating/crimping. Put the loose round back in the seating die and bear down on it. If that doesn't fix that one, then it's something else.

How much crimp are you giving the rounds? You might want to increase it a little. A little more won't hurt, and it might cure the problem. Be sure to adjust the bullet seating rod to compensate for the amount you added to the crimp.

You might want to try seating the bullet and crimping separately. Seat all the bullets to your desired OAL; back off the seating rod; the adjust the crimp die to give the round a good crimp - it doesn't take much, so don't over crimp.
 
I would also make the caliper measurements all around the outside of a case neck that just came out of the resizing die. Perhaps half a dozen spaced evenly around the neck, and then average the result. That averaging is because necks are often slightly oval when there is no bullet in place. Make the measurement about where the middle of your bullet's widest part (the bearing surface) will be when it is seated, but not too near the mouth, which is often slightly distorted.

Next, prime and charge the case, but seat the bullet with the seating die backed out just enough to make no crimp at all and then make the same measurement. The second measurement should be at least 0.001" bigger than the first measurement averaged, but not more than 0.003" bigger in the normal scope of things. If it isn't, try again, but with the expander removed from your die. If it is too big, you will suddenly get a big difference in the before and after seating neck diameters. If that doesn't improve matters, either the brass is much thinner at the neck than usual, or the die dimensions are wrong.

If seating without crimping the cases sized with the expander in place causes you to stop getting loose bullets, then you have likely been over-crimping, which can cause the sides of the neck to pull away from the bullet.
 
GeauxTide said:
What are you shooting them with? If it's an auto, then Small Base dies are a necessity.
Click to expand...
I would say recommended, not "necessary" I am using standard full length lee dies for my 223/5.56 reloads. they have run without issue in 3 different semi auto guns.
 
GeauxTide said:
What are you shooting them with? If it's an auto, then Small Base dies are a necessity.
Click to expand...
Not always. Several people have used standard full length sizing dies reloading cases from semiautomatics without any problems.

You don't need to crimp case mouths into bullets. Commercial match ammo isn't crimped because it reduces accuracy. Neither was all the handloaded M16 ammo used in the 1971 national highpower matches when they were first allowed in NRA's competition.
 
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The resize is not working right in your 1 out of 5.

Why is the $64 question.

Check the case length, trim or get a trimmer to the same length.
 
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