6 PPC case life

[SKWERLZ]

How so please?

Because regardless of how careful you are with resizing if that first firing has excessive case growth case head separation will eventually happen.
I try to keep it under 5 thou and if it’s more I will jam the bullet or even better create a false shoulder to hold case against boltface.

 

[jimmymac]

We are talking 20 firings or 2000 rounds down range. That’s a lot of bang for the buck.

Since you are satisfied with die setup and provided the gun shoots good, the simplest solution to me is start retiring the brass sooner. I seldom run mine for that many firings but others do. I feel like my gun doesn’t group as well with old brass.

 

[CJ6]

We are talking 20 firings or 2000 rounds down range. That’s a lot of bang for the buck.

Since you are satisfied with die setup and provided the gun shoots good, the simplest solution to me is start retiring the brass sooner. I seldom run mine for that many firings but others do. I feel like my gun doesn’t group as well with old brass.

Yes ...I was expecting more as the primer pockets are still tight.

 

[jimmymac]

Have you ever compared the OD of a fired case to a sized case where the case wall transitions to the shoulder? You may be getting excessive sizing there even though your shoulder bump is good. Just spit balling here.

I still think you got your moneys worth out of that box of brass.

 

[Ccrider]

This is spot on:

We are talking 20 firings or 2000 rounds down range. That’s a lot of bang for the buck.

Since you are satisfied with die setup and provided the gun shoots good, the simplest solution to me is start retiring the brass sooner. I seldom run mine for that many firings but others do. I feel like my gun doesn’t group as well with old brass.

 

[powderbrake]

i agree with the oversizing comments.
I suggest the Wheeler method of sizing just until there is no resistance to bolt drop.
wheeler

 

[EGBrown]

Whether you realize it you are over sizing them. That’s really the only thing that will cause this and about 20 firings is when it would show up

I agree with Tim, failure above the 0.020 line is due to oversizing the brass when sizing the "body" of the case. A proper sized die will only size the case .001 at the 0.020 line of case.

 

[BoydAllen]

Fellows, a body die has a shoulder in it, just not anything to size the neck. If your chamber is on the small size for a particular die, by the time you get the bolt feel you want you could have bumped the shoulder too far. If you have not been checking bump with a tool of some sort when setting your body die, you really have no way to know if, or how much you are bumping your shoulders.