Vettepilot555
Member
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2018
- Messages
- 138
My sister bought me a bag of "once fired" 30.06 brass at a yard sale. It looked really good, so I decided to process it. So using my Lee full length sizing die, set as instructed, I resized the brass. (I set the die a little less than 1/4 turn down after the shell holder touched the die.) I figured I would full length size them, shoot them in my gun, then just neck size them afterwards.
Using my comparator, new rounds measure 2.44", and brass fired in my rifle measure 2.48". This used brass measured around 2.49 to 2.50 before I sized it. So imagine my surprise and consternation when I measured the brass after full length resizing to find it 2.30"!! (Yeah, I foolishly sized the whole batch before thinking to measure it while sizing.....)
Now I know what the future cure is; DON'T FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS! Seriously, in the future I will set the die short, and then measure and set, measure and set, and measure and set until I get the die set somewhere reasonable.
But! What about this brass? Is it ruined? If fired, it will have a headspace of about .018". Too much to be safe? (If I do shoot it, I will anneal it before finishing loading them.) Also, I had read that the Lee full length sizer die was made to do a minimal sizing, so what happened here?
Thanks for any input,
Vettepilot555
Using my comparator, new rounds measure 2.44", and brass fired in my rifle measure 2.48". This used brass measured around 2.49 to 2.50 before I sized it. So imagine my surprise and consternation when I measured the brass after full length resizing to find it 2.30"!! (Yeah, I foolishly sized the whole batch before thinking to measure it while sizing.....)
Now I know what the future cure is; DON'T FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS! Seriously, in the future I will set the die short, and then measure and set, measure and set, and measure and set until I get the die set somewhere reasonable.
But! What about this brass? Is it ruined? If fired, it will have a headspace of about .018". Too much to be safe? (If I do shoot it, I will anneal it before finishing loading them.) Also, I had read that the Lee full length sizer die was made to do a minimal sizing, so what happened here?
Thanks for any input,
Vettepilot555