Let your rifle or pistol BE your GAUGE!

[Adam Helmer]

skeet,

Sorry if I offended you. I reread your post #2 and see nothing to indicate your friend loading 1,000 rounds Full Length resized the cases. His "checking the reloads in a .308" seems to me like he was only partially resizing the ammo. When I full length resize any rifle caliber, I never have a "need to check the ammo for fit." In my opinion the brass is overworked, but it will fit any rifle of that caliber on earth.

P.S. Sorry for the double post; my computer "froze up" and it indicated the prior post did not register.

Be well.

Adam

[Brithunter]

Problem is tolerances in chamber and amunition and it will happen at some pont that a chamber is cut with the reamer on the minimum and it will cause issues in reloading. Had this on a Century Arms P-14 sporter the new barrel they fitted is generous in the bore and grooves but minimum in the chamber. new factory ammo was fine but unles the cases came out of thet rifle they could not be resized to fit it. Another Century Arms P-14 sporter bought at the same time was fine and shot well at 600 yards on Bisleys Century range.

We tried 5 different dies sets of different makes and NONE would size cases down to chamber. As at that time I had 8 303 rifles keeping brass segregated was not really something that I wished to try and do so had the rifle rechambered to 303IMP.

Most of my 303's were sporting rifles and not milsurps and most had commercial production barrels on them.

It seems that many never give any thought to production tolerances and assume that guns and dies are all made exactly the same and there in lies the problem.

Another example of how this can lead to problems is my BSA 270 Winchester rifles of which I own 4 of different models and ages. The latest or youngest one is a 84 vintage CF2 model Stutzen with 20" barrel and full stock. This ones hammer forged barrel is tight especially when compared to the others and this causes higher pressures than the others as I discovered on the range one day when it blew the primer pocket of a once fired Norma case. The ammunition was fine in the other three older rifles they being a 1st Pattern Monarch and two Majestics dating from 1959-1968 as I recall. The early rifles had cut rifles barrels which were lapped at the factory ......................... yes BSA lapped their barrels back then!

It was a contract for barrels for the SLR I believe led to the purchase of hammer forging machines so later rifles have hammer forged barrels in the main.

The load was not a max load either but was a powder that was fairly new to me and my handloading. This was the only times an issue like this occured but it's one that i bear in mind when reloading rifle ammunition to this day. Not that I have loaded any for some years now but hopefully that will change in the coming new year.