I resized incorrectly.

[burrhead]

“ And again, what about the dies where you can't remove the pin without removing the entire expander assembly? “

Scimmia, I've never seen a die set that won't allow the user to replace a bent/broken decapping pin but then, I have not seen everything. That said, if the OP has such a rare bird, all he has to do is raise the expander assembly to the point that the expander ball stops just below the case neck. The decapping pin won't touch the primer.

 

[Still Shooting]

I have on occasion needed to resize a few cases. I do not remove primers. I pull bullets with a collet puller, dump powder (and tap the case neck down against a hard surface to make sure all powder is removed), and the adjust the decap/neck size shaft up so the decapping pin does not touch the primer. The case is then resized, overall length gets miked, and if a little trim is required I do a re-trim. Cases can then be recharged and bullets re-seated.

I recently had to go through this exercise with 75 rds. of .351 Win. Self-Load; I had looked at the powder (A 2400) load data, 17.0 to 19.0 gr., and decided to load at 18.5 grains (the rifle needs a close to max load to cycle the semiauto action). When I fired the first few rounds, they didn't have enough charge to cycle the action reliably. So I pulled the bullets, dumped powder, resized with primers in place, then recharged at 19.0 gr. and re-seated bullets. Problem solved (photo attached).

 

[TheCracker]

I did the exact same thing once. Pulled every bullet, saved the primers and powder.

It takes a lot longer to pull and resize! Some lessons are learned the hard way

 

[glennv]

“ And again, what about the dies where you can't remove the pin without removing the entire expander assembly? “

Scimmia, I've never seen a die set that won't allow the user to replace a bent/broken decapping pin but then, I have not seen everything. That said, if the OP has such a rare bird, all he has to do is raise the expander assembly to the point that the expander ball stops just below the case neck. The decapping pin won't touch the primer.

I could have done this if I didn't ruin the die after getting a case stuck. I pulled the entire decapping and expander ball assembly and figured I could just use the resizing die to push the shoulder back the tiny bit I need. But will I have to resize the neck again? I full length resized before having to pull these cartridges apart. I just did a mock up with a bullet and they seem to fit fine. Or is the neck tension something that needs to be spot-on?

 

[cacoltguy]

For what its worth I still say just get yourself a body die and in 15 minutes you can fix everything. If the only problem is a headspace issue then I just can't see going through the headache of pulling bullets, dumping powder removing the decapping pin, re-re-sizing, then reloading all the ammo just to bump the shoulder back. The $30 for a body die would be a no-brainer as opposed to that routine IMO. Furthermore, for a bolt action, if the force needed to close the bolt wasnt very excessive I probably wouldnt bother doing anything at all. Without experiencing the problem though I cant make that call