.308 reloading

[Nipty]

Hey everyone, I am wondering I should be concerned. Last few months ( yes my job takes most of my time) I have been just brass prepping. Tumbler, rinsed, ultrasonic cleaner, rinse. Pockets cleaned and uniformly cleaned, chamfered (hornady whitetail) length checked. I finally stopped loading. 410s long enough to do some rifle. My Mossberg Mvp 7.62x51,(.308) page ten of mossberg manual states safe to fire. I believe I did everything correctly, primers seated just level or .00 something under. (I could check)It looks and feels like factory ammo primers. Did not have federal as the book says they used. I have cci and Remington lrp. So I loaded 3 with each. Loaded 43 gr of imr 4895 150 hornady spire points. My friend had my neck sizer die and punched out primers with that for me. I was not thinking and ran it thru them again (I know). Anyway I loaded one in rifle and well it chambered with more force then I am used to. Not full Hulk to close the bolt , but definitely more force then factory ammo. Is that normal? I used hornady lock and load kit to check bullet seat length it was between H.S.M. game kings .308 loaded and hornady whitetail . Figured that was a good place to start. Got a oal gauge and case coming. I am being ridiculous for worrying about the chambering? Or should I tear it down and wait for my fl die to return from rcbs. Shipped yesterday with 6.5 cm. One. 6.5 was marking up brass pretty bad. And the .308's vent hole was leaving quite an impression on the brass. Could feel it. I read a few books, not just the data lol. Been kinda studying for months on it. I just thought it would chamber easier since it came from that rifle. Thank you. sorry long post. Thank you for help & advice

 

[AJC1]

You have no headspace and your brass base to shoulder is long for your chamber. The only danger or damage could be galled locking lugs in your action and bolt. If you do shoot them use a good heavy grease to prevent damage. A couple isn't the end of the world but your process needs to change to control base to datum on your brass.

 

[Blue68f100]

Lever guns and simi-autos need to be FL sized every time to enure reliability in chambering. You can remove the deprimer pin in the sizing die if the primer is already installed when you size. For a lever gun and simi-auto's it's recommended that you move the shoulder back 0.002-0.003". Some case gauges only check shoulder position which is fine for your needs. Some are actually chamber gauges which will/can check for bullet contacting rifing too.

Make up a dummy round to test in your gun. This can be used for setting the seating die if you use different bullets. If it fails, paint the bullet and brass with a marker and chamber again, looking for rub marks.

 

[JFrank]

Time to full length size, can't do that with a neck die.

 

[Nipty]

It is a bolt action. Sorry. should have mentioned that. Every thing seemed to measure up ok. I will have to recheck my measurements. I must have made a mistake somewhere on the case. All the reading on fire form and same rifle neck size. I guess I assumed, bolt action it would be ok, given the overall and case preparation was done correctly. And seating bullet depth. I ll have to check case shoulder, webb and datum. And wait for f.l. die to return. Guess I ll take them apart. thank you. 2.15 50 my average on. CBC rds are as far out as 2.20! Hornady 2.13, hsm. 2.18

 

[FROGO207]

If the bolt face is square you should be able to remove the brass turn it 90* and put it back in the same chamber with almost no pressure on the bolt. Then you should be able to do this as well when neck sized only. If it is OK and then tight when inserting a finished round either you are collapsing the brass shoulder or the bullet is going into the lands and is too far out of the neck. Suggest you try full length resizing first to see if that ammo will fit. It should work easier if it is put together correctly.
Using calipers to measure multiple points of a factory round and your round to compare might help you find what is different along with coloring it with a magic marker and chambering. Look for rub marks where problem is as mentioned.

 

[stillquietvoice]

Did you trim after resizing in the fl die? The process can stretch the case some. How many times have your cases been fired? You could anneal before realizing again to soften the brass dome so it won't spring back as much.

 

[Nipty]

Once fired, from this bolt action. Only neck sized. Why I only did a few. The rager about neck vs full length lol. My die is at rcbs my fl. When it returns.. I may load the 3 I did run thru it. With the vent hole impression. To see how they chamber loaded. I have a few bullet pullers ,the hammer and die with collets. Measuring comparisons to Hornady ,HSM and Aguila ammo. Other then the case circumference difference. Kinda scratching my head here. Checked all the different places to measure from. Length should be good to go. Top & bottom of Shoulder to base, overall brass, overall bullet and with bullet compartor on mic. I just colored 2 of them. Gonna check them after work. Thanks again

 

[CMB]

This may be a stupid question but..... Do you have a load manual? Why are you comparing to other cartridges? Doesn't your manual give you the the tested AOL for that combination of powder and bullet?

Something sounds dangerous here.

 

[stillquietvoice]

Why are you comparing to other cartridges? Doesn't your manual give you the the tested AOL for that combination of powder and bullet?

I've compared factory cartridges to reloads I have 3 manuals. Factory ammunition is made to fit all chambers to saami spec, that particular coal might work well in some guns but not others as far as accuracy is concerned. All rifles are different even the same model from same manufacturer so factory loads will shoot differently. Some rifles have longer free bore, or throat reloaders can and do adjust oal to get the best accuracy from their particular rifles. Book spec, saami is a starting point.

It's only dangerous if too short, increasing pressure or too long, jammed into the lands with Max loads increasing pressure. Either too long or too short can and has damaged firearms. One coal limiting factor is magazine length, bullet shape is another.

 

[jmr40]

There are minor differences in the chamber sizes in rifles. I have 5 different 308's. I size my brass to fit the chamber of the one with the tightest tolerances. If I don't, some of my loaded rounds will be a tight fit in 1 or 2 of my rifles, and chamber easily in others.

When sizing brass I will run 3-4 pieces of brass through the dies then check them to see if they fit the chambers on all 5 rifles. If they are tight on any one of them I'll adjust the dies to bump the shoulder back a bit more and then run those 3-4 pieces of brass through the dies again. Once they fit, then I proceed to run all of the brass through the dies.

This is after trimming if necessary of course.

I do the same thing when seating bullets. I don't worry too much about what the books say about OAL. The OAL in one rifle can be much different than another rifle. I'll seat bullets in 3-4 pieces of brass. I seat them just as long as possible to still fit in the magazines of all 5 of my rifles. I then check to see if they will chamber in all 5 rifles without the bullets touching the lands. If I bump the lands in any rifle I adjust the dies to seat the bullet a bit deeper. Only after everything checks out in all of my rifles do I proceed to finish loading that batch of ammo.

I sometimes measure my OAL, but don't load my ammo to fit a certain length. If it fits, it will work. I usually find my OAL is pretty close to the books, but usually a bit longer.

 

[lordpaxman]

Welcome to THR!
You’re getting lots of good advice above! One other thing you can try is chambering your neck sized cases before you charge with powder and bullet. That will also tell you if the cases already fit the chamber being fire formed, or if it’s something in your process during bullet seating, or too long a COL that may be interfering. Let us know what you find? Good luck.

 

[GHinNH]

You have no headspace and your brass base to shoulder is long for your chamber. The only danger or damage could be galled locking lugs in your action and bolt. If you do shoot them use a good heavy grease to prevent damage. A couple isn't the end of the world but your process needs to change to control base to datum on your brass.

View attachment 101337

 

[Howa 9700]

Not sure if this is the place for this, or if it rates it's own thread, but when I decided to resume reloading after a long break, my only goal was to achieve 1 MOA accuracy for the guns I'm loading for. Hunting rounds at 1 MOA. One of these guns, which happens to be a 308, comes with 1 MOA guarantee, their only condition was use of "premium factory ammo", whatever that is. GA Precision has 1/2" MOA in hunting rifles and in tactical lines, 3/8" MOA guarantee, conditional upon use of match grade ammo. Neither say anything about load development, changing seating depth, loading to lands, etc. Presumably ALL factory or match grade ammo is loaded to SAMMI specs.

So what occurs to me is if factory loaded to SAMMI specs works well enough to achieve these levels of accuracy, all I should have to do is duplicate the factory match ammo.

Not sure what all that entails, but presumably same bullet, launched at same velocity and same COAL and seating depth would be a start. Not saying accuracy can't be improved upon by doing all the other load development work, just not sure it is a requirement to get to good enough.

 

[Trey Veston]

So what occurs to me is if factory loaded to SAMMI specs works well enough to achieve these levels of accuracy, all I should have to do is duplicate the factory match ammo.

Not sure what all that entails, but presumably same bullet, launched at same velocity and same COAL and seating depth would be a start. Not saying accuracy can't be improved upon by doing all the other load development work, just not sure it is a requirement to get to good enough.

I do this for my carry reloads in defensive pistols. I use only Hornady XTPs or Speer Gold Dots and duplicate the velocity of premium defensive ammo that gets high marks for effectiveness.

You could do this for rifle ammo, but the hard part is figuring out what powder to use, since it has a greater effect on accuracy than velocity.

Ironically, the most accurate factory ammo I've found to be consistently accurate in all of my hunting rifles is Federal Classic. Cheapest hunting ammo you can find at Walmart and it is always the most, or nearly the most accurate ammo in my rifles. Weird but wonderful.

 

[FROGO207]

^^^^^^^^^^ Some fall into a pile of---- manure and step out smelling like a rose with a complete makeover!!! If ones rifle shoots well with an inexpensive factory round lucky you! On the other hand personally I would try and see what I could do to improve on the factory fodder. It might just surprise you. At least in an emergency a box of factory will work good enough if needed though.

 

[lightman]

Your choices of powder type and bullet weight are great choices in the 308. For safety sake, re-measure the overall case length and confirm that its under max. Also color the ogive of your bullet with a sharpie and confirm that you are not jamming it into the lands. Often touching the lands makes for accurate ammo but too much can cause hard chambering.

That your ammo won't chamber easily in the rifle that fired the cases is a little bit of a mystery. I would wait on the full length die to arrive before loading any more. You can compare your difficulty of closing the bolt to factory ammo. For safeties sake, be cautious chambering and extraction loaded rounds.

 

[Howa 9700]

To clarify, I wasn't suggesting one ought to shoot factory, only that I've come to realize that some factory ammo loaded to SAMMI specs can be and is remarkably accurate. The fact that some guns come with impressive MOA guarantees requiring use of factory ammo backs that up.

That being the case, if one can duplicate that level of accuracy with reloads and do it within SAMMI specs, that may not be a bad thing. Something to be said for keeping it simple.

 

[Dale Alan]

I would not use 1/2" and 3/8" as gospel . Also , it states "Match Grade " ammo...no mention of factory . That whole idea is painted with a broad brush , Say if a guy can't shoot for crap , what's he do send it back and they shoot a 3/8" group with "match grade " and send it back saying everything is cool on our end . I guess if a guy never wants to see his full potential he can just use factory ammo accuracy as their goal for the reloads . Myself, I want to leave nothing on the table . I have also found I can make more accurate loads than any factory round I have tried so far . I will admit I can barely beat Norma .223 loaded w/ 77 SMKs , and that's with 3 different rifles . That really shows just how good their factory load is , because I have all the advantages of tweaking the load for each rifle that they don't.

 

[Nipty]

Thank you all. Yes, safety is top priority.Onje of the many reasons I joined. To learn from those who know. Yes I have quite a few books on reloading. Hornady 2,4,9. Nosler 1,4,9, Sierra Bullets Reloading Manual(Seriously all the covers say)Lyman no cover but its old, Speer 12. I have read some of each,some more then others. Overall length was good. Case over all under max. The diameter is what appears to be the issue. Girth. Compared it to most of the factory ammo I shoot in it for ,well to know. Their overalls. Prior to my rifle fireforming it to its chamber. Trying to learn. I most certainly will not shoot something if i do not feel its safe. I colored 2 rds this morning before work with a sharpie. Just chambered them.. The scratches are a whisker under the shoulder and almost to to the webbing. So yes. i believe, take them apart and full resize is in order. Trim, Etc. Thank you again , everyone. Safe to resize with primer in? Hate to just push it out ( does not sound safe either) I know just a primer.. but.... I really do appreciate it! I have 3 i did resize. When i can , going to check length and see how they chamber (empty)

 

[lordpaxman]

It’s safe to resize with a good primer, just take the decapping/depriming pin out first.

 

[Nipty]

View attachment 101337

The attachment will not come thru. Says error

 

[stillquietvoice]

@Nipty how far are you from binghamton NY, I have 2 sets of 408 win dies odour would like to use one of them until yours comes back.

 

[FLIGHT762]

Wait for your F/L die to arrive & F/L size those fired cases. You should be measuring the base to datum length from fired cases to your F/L sized cases so you can properly set up your F/L die to not over size ( push the case shoulder too far back than necessary, usually .002".003" on a bolt gun). This is a common error new reloaders overlook. A properly sized case will chamber easily every time.

 

[Random 8]

This is normal with neck sized brass. I've been doing it for many years to feed my bolt guns. Some say you need to bump the shoulders back, but I believe that applies more to tight match chambers. I've been firing Neck sized only (NSO) brass in various military and hunting rifles for over 30 years, including specifically .308 Win caliber. The brass fails before the shoulder gets too long. I tend to use it as a loading expedient for practice ammo. No case lube/removal required for neck sizing (although an occasional bit on the expander ball may be necessary, depending on your brass and dies.)

There are allegedly accuracy enhancements with NSO brass, but I've only seen a noticeable difference with oversized military chambers and rimmed cartridges.

Edit to add: I do absolutely resize all ammo intended for hunting. Tight brass to chamber tolerance is not a good thing when reloading for a rapid follow up shot in inclement weather. I'd rather have the rack from that buck on the wall than my memory...lesson learned.