Used wrong shell holder for resizing, priming.

[Reloader31]

Yesterday I resized and primed about 50 .300blk rounds. After doing so, I realized I had used my 9mm shellholder by mistake. I’m new to reloading, so I didn’t immediately realize there was a problem as I was doing the resizing. But now looking back I did notice there was some “wobbling” going on with the brass casings when I was priming them. The primers seem to have seated fine, but now I’m worried that I screwed up the case shoulders or something. Thoughts? Will these rounds be fine to finish loading, or should I decap them and resize using the correct shellholder?

 

[tangolima]

You are fine. Don't worry.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[hammie]

With rare exceptions, shell holders are cut to the same depth of 0.125 inches, plus or minus manufacturing tolerances. A different shell holder should not make any difference in the head clearance of your re-sized cartridge. (Again, within manufacturing tolerances.) Each of my die boxes contains the appropriate shell holder, even though it will mean duplicates for cartridges with the same head size. It just makes life simpler.

Uncommonly, some shell holders are intentionally cut at varying depths, which allows a handloader to better match the resized cartridge to the chamber's headspace. As an example, you could have a die reamed at maximum tolerance, trying to re-size for a chamber reamed at minimum tolerance (i.e. "long" die and "short" chamber). A shell holder of a non-standard depth could help with that problem.

Another tool you may want to consider is a case length/headspace gauge, particularly if you're re-forming .223 brass to .300 blackout. Midway USA has L E Wilson gauges (item #714043 at midway) on sale for 16$. Hornady also makes a similar product.

 

[rclark]

Each of my die boxes contains the appropriate shell holder, ...

Mine also. But I actually keep ''two' in each box. One for the press, and then one for my hand primer. As you say it just makes it easier.

As for above concern, no problem. Just try not to make a habit of it .

 

[markr6754]

I just went through a somewhat similar experience with .223 REM. Same stupid 9mm shell holder that seemed to fit quite well. However, in my case the shell holders were from different manufacturers. My problem was on the bullet seating side. Nearly half of the finished rounds would not pass my ammo gauge. It seems that there was enough wobble in the case that the bullet seated off center just a hair, and the bullet seated crooked, but not enough to see.
I was able to pull the bullet, dump the powder, resize without decapping pin, and reload the round properly and successfully. Thankfully I'd only completed 15 rounds when I discovered the issue.

 

[Nick_C_S]

Welcome to The Firing Line.

Like others, I think it'll be fine too. I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to chamber check them in you gun - make sure they fit correctly.

I believe the main thing here is to learn from the experience and figure out a way to keep it from happening again. (I've done it too.) For me, I keep the correct shell holder in the die box.

 

[Unclenick]

It should shoot fine, but if, as Markr6754 described, you had a wobble and the bullets were seated crookedly, the principal symptom will be resulting groups that are not as tight as they could have been. That won't stop you from getting trigger practice, though.

 

[gsh341]

Using the wrong shell holder can cause issues, but usually not serious issues. It is possible for a shell holder to be just a few thousandths of an inch different, which can affect shoulder bump and bullet seating, but that's about it.

Each of my die sets has its own shell holder for this reason. However, it's a single stage press and the shell holders are cheap.

 

[Unclenick]

The deck height is standardized at 0.125" above the shelf of the milled slot that supports the inserted case head rim and is usually consistent within 0.001". This does not include the Redding Competition Shell Holders that are intentionally too tall in five increments of +0.002", so their decks go up to +0.135" above the slot shelf in order to reduce shoulder setback by those amounts when the die is adjusted to meet their top decks. The overall thickness of the top flange that has the deck on top and the slot milled into it and whose bottom side rests on the top of the press ram is a nominal 0.250" high, but varies ±0.010" and can vary that much because you are expected to adjust the die setup to compensate for that variation. So if you want to be able to leave your lock ring in the same place and not have to adjust it each time you use it, then you do want to use it with the same shell holder each time, and keeping that shell holder together with the die then makes sense.

Issues with oversize shell holders are not only loose horizontal alignment but having enough grip on the rim of a case to pull it out of the sizing die. This is much more important with large bottleneck rifle cases than with handgun cartridge cases, though.

 

[jetinteriorguy]

I have dedicated shell holders that I keep with my sizing dies and seating dies. I also have a separate set used for decapping and any other general use.