Bolt closes tightly?

[cdschoonie]

I’ve come across an issue I am totally stumped on. While chambering my reloads in my Savage 111 300 win mag, the bolt closes really tight. I tried factory loads, it closes smooth, very noticeably different. With the factory, I can close it with my thumb and index, with the reloads it takes all fingers.

I have mic’d literally every possible place on them that I can think to measure. The only spot that has a difference, is base to shoulder. On the factory ones I have (Norma), they measure on average 2.197. On the reloads (mixed headstamps) they average 2.224. Surely that doesn’t make much difference?

Any ideas?

 

[JEVapa]

Check the case length as well (base to mouth) and make sure they're trimmed. That shoulder dimension difference can be an issue if your chamber is on the tight side (like a match chamber). Neck dies and the like will not reshape the shoulder in many cases.

 

[cdschoonie]

Base to mouth is same. I should’ve added that I only used a FL resizing die.

 

[JEVapa]

Hmm...Are you running it all the way to the base? The shellholder should barely touch the die base when the ram is all the way to the top. It sounds like a headspace issue at the shoulder, and not the neck. Take a sharpie or better, a dry erase marker and mark the entire shoulder. Chamber it all the way and extract and see what the marks look like or what the shoulder looks like. You may have to run the case into the die several times depending on the manufacture and how annealed the brass is.

 

[MacFromOK]

I have mic’d literally every possible place on them that I can think to measure. The only spot that has a difference, is base to shoulder. On the factory ones I have (Norma), they measure on average 2.197. On the reloads (mixed headstamps) they average 2.224. Surely that doesn’t make much difference?

That's a .027 (27 thousandths) difference. Quite a bit on what's supposed to be a fairly precision fit.


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[cdschoonie]

Ok, I’ll try that

 

[cdschoonie]

That's a .027 (27 thousandths) difference. Quite a bit on what's supposed to be a fairly precision fit.


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That would mean the brass is stretched, aka over used, aka trash?

 

[JEVapa]

That would mean the brass is stretched, aka over used, aka trash?

No, not really. The brass expands normally, but if your die isn't resizing the shoulder correctly you can have issue. If this brass is reloaded several times, it'll be work hardened and needs to be annealed, dirty dies or too much lube on the shoulders can cause issues, or your die setup is too short to size the case properly. I'd check die setup and make sure the case lube is dried and run several through the die 2-3 times and check them again.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

My FL die needs to slightly cam over when ram is raised up to the top.
YMMV

 

[JEVapa]

My FL die needs to slightly cam over when ram is raised up to the top.
YMMV

Yup. I lock it in so it's just kissing the shellholder or a tiny bit of cam.