bakereloadprune
Well-Known Member
Hello forum. I'll preface this post to say that I've gone through numerous threads on this forum (and a few others) with similar issues and significant feedback from forum contributors - it's not my intention to ask anyone to repeat what they have said before, but perhaps provide a little further guidance and/or suggestions to my situation. I appreciate this topic has been asked and I may not be in a position to resolve this easily without outlay for further equipment.
In a nutshell I have a Howa 1500: I've reloaded .223 magtech once-fired brass which was originally off-the-shelf magtech 55gr FMJ (which chambered smoothly in my Howa without problem). I took 30 of these once-fired cases. I prepped the brass by depriming, ultrasonic cleaning and neck resizing with the lee loader. The length of the brass (only full case) was checked against the factory with calipers, the sierra manual and saami. Then on to priming (flush), charging and seating a 53gr sierra matching HP with flat base, matching the overall length of the factory magetch ammo.
At the range, about 30% of these reloads had stiff bolt opening and/or closing (none that were fine closing the bolt had issues opening & extracting, if that makes sense). By stiff, the bolt went down a small fraction and then I needed to give it a way more force forward to close it. Similar to opening - something I've not experienced before and I don't think acceptable (even grazed my thumb on the scope rings trying to open the bolt a few times). No visible witness marks on the cases of the fired cartridges. Accuracy was fine, near MOA groups at 100 yards and probably would be tighter for a better shot than me! Since firing, I've not cleaned manipulated the cases, other than to inspect and size them alongside the original factory rounds (live) and fired cases. I can't pick up any differences (but I'm unable to measure shoulders and necks consistenly with just a caliper (right?).
Clearly, any force needed to close or open the bolt is not good. Anything that impedes safe operating is not good, further damage to my bolt/chamber is also not acceptable, simple as that. But since these rounds were first-fired in my rifle (without issue) and then neck-sized, I thought there would be no issue and straightforward. Ideally I thought I would be able to get started with the Lee Loader and over the months & years ahead, progress to a more dedicated press-setup if reloading was for me, In parallel I hope to enter stalking and developing competencies to support it.
Some thoughts/ideas/next-steps I've picked up from reading prior posts, in order of likelihood...mixed with a bit of personal preference:
- My rifle chamber is dirty and needs a good clean. Honestly, I've just been running VFG felts and nylon brushes down the bore and giving the action area a bush and a wipe, not realizing the chamber gets dirty. A flashlight down there shows some waxy like deposits where the shoulder of the round sits. But I look back at all the factory ammo that is chambered without issue. Is it really the chamber? [I plan to do this]
- If I were to reload the same way again but try to chamber each round directly after cleaning (unprimed/charged/bullet-seating), that would be able to identify the outliers. Could I then colour in the ill-fitting cases with a permanent marker and then see where the issue is after chambering>extracting? This is diagnosis, but not fix! [I plan to do this, unless feedback suggests not to]
- Magtech (CBC marks) brass is not good and should not be reloaded. I'm on the fence on this one, happy to get 50-100 premium unfired cases to close the issue if thats the problem. [open option perhaps]
- My technique is poor. I can't see how/where. everything is flush and the overall finished round length is the same as the factory (granted I am not measuring anything other, as I don't have anything more than a set of standard calipers e.g. comparator).
- Neck sizing is insufficient and I should FL resize. I don't want to believe this! Perhaps my chamber is close to the margin and not liking the rounds the loader is delivering? Is the "hammering" of the bullet seater changing the shoulder or neck that much?
I realize after all this typing (thank you if you are reading to here) that there's a mix of diagnosis vs solutions in my thinking above. I don't want to be a cheapskate, but I simply started reloading to build up a new skill and try out different loads, rather than increasingly eeak out incremental gains over performance (I have a feeling this stage will come in time). Any guidance that anyone can give me to be most efficient at getting reliable and more importantly safe loads in this early stage of my reloading journey is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
BRP
In a nutshell I have a Howa 1500: I've reloaded .223 magtech once-fired brass which was originally off-the-shelf magtech 55gr FMJ (which chambered smoothly in my Howa without problem). I took 30 of these once-fired cases. I prepped the brass by depriming, ultrasonic cleaning and neck resizing with the lee loader. The length of the brass (only full case) was checked against the factory with calipers, the sierra manual and saami. Then on to priming (flush), charging and seating a 53gr sierra matching HP with flat base, matching the overall length of the factory magetch ammo.
At the range, about 30% of these reloads had stiff bolt opening and/or closing (none that were fine closing the bolt had issues opening & extracting, if that makes sense). By stiff, the bolt went down a small fraction and then I needed to give it a way more force forward to close it. Similar to opening - something I've not experienced before and I don't think acceptable (even grazed my thumb on the scope rings trying to open the bolt a few times). No visible witness marks on the cases of the fired cartridges. Accuracy was fine, near MOA groups at 100 yards and probably would be tighter for a better shot than me! Since firing, I've not cleaned manipulated the cases, other than to inspect and size them alongside the original factory rounds (live) and fired cases. I can't pick up any differences (but I'm unable to measure shoulders and necks consistenly with just a caliper (right?).
Clearly, any force needed to close or open the bolt is not good. Anything that impedes safe operating is not good, further damage to my bolt/chamber is also not acceptable, simple as that. But since these rounds were first-fired in my rifle (without issue) and then neck-sized, I thought there would be no issue and straightforward. Ideally I thought I would be able to get started with the Lee Loader and over the months & years ahead, progress to a more dedicated press-setup if reloading was for me, In parallel I hope to enter stalking and developing competencies to support it.
Some thoughts/ideas/next-steps I've picked up from reading prior posts, in order of likelihood...mixed with a bit of personal preference:
- My rifle chamber is dirty and needs a good clean. Honestly, I've just been running VFG felts and nylon brushes down the bore and giving the action area a bush and a wipe, not realizing the chamber gets dirty. A flashlight down there shows some waxy like deposits where the shoulder of the round sits. But I look back at all the factory ammo that is chambered without issue. Is it really the chamber? [I plan to do this]
- If I were to reload the same way again but try to chamber each round directly after cleaning (unprimed/charged/bullet-seating), that would be able to identify the outliers. Could I then colour in the ill-fitting cases with a permanent marker and then see where the issue is after chambering>extracting? This is diagnosis, but not fix! [I plan to do this, unless feedback suggests not to]
- Magtech (CBC marks) brass is not good and should not be reloaded. I'm on the fence on this one, happy to get 50-100 premium unfired cases to close the issue if thats the problem. [open option perhaps]
- My technique is poor. I can't see how/where. everything is flush and the overall finished round length is the same as the factory (granted I am not measuring anything other, as I don't have anything more than a set of standard calipers e.g. comparator).
- Neck sizing is insufficient and I should FL resize. I don't want to believe this! Perhaps my chamber is close to the margin and not liking the rounds the loader is delivering? Is the "hammering" of the bullet seater changing the shoulder or neck that much?
I realize after all this typing (thank you if you are reading to here) that there's a mix of diagnosis vs solutions in my thinking above. I don't want to be a cheapskate, but I simply started reloading to build up a new skill and try out different loads, rather than increasingly eeak out incremental gains over performance (I have a feeling this stage will come in time). Any guidance that anyone can give me to be most efficient at getting reliable and more importantly safe loads in this early stage of my reloading journey is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
BRP
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