Brass hard to resize

[M-61]

Ron, do you clean your cases prior sizing them?

Good question.
I have always put my brass in a tumbler first. I don't put dirty brass in my dies. The RCBS-2 lube goes on a clean case. (keeps the pad cleaner which at least looks better--the pad.)

 

[Milo 2.0]

Wow, last night I wiped the that royal case lube off and applied the Imperial wax, night and day. The Royal case lube works fine on any 308 brass that was shot in my bolt guns, that's why I used it with the Federal stuff. I was able to resize all fifty cases in less than 30 minutes. My first AR-10 would chew up LC brass so bad that it wasn't worth picking up off the ground. But this one, is very easy on the brass, in fact that Federal brass looks like it was shot from a bolt gun, that's why I picked it all up. And I would never use Lapua brass in any AR's. I have about a hundred pieces of LC Match brass I'm gonna try in this AR to see which is easier to resize after firing. I want a T-7 for the convenience of sitting up all the dies for a particular cartridge at one time and not having to flip flopping back and forth like I do on a single stage press.

...a 338 SniperTac sounds like a neat little toy

One other trick I forgot about is freezing the brass, then grab in quantities of 10 or less and be quick about it, running it though twice, once when warmed up.
Now I'm mad at myself, I just sized 500pcs of XC brass that gave me fits also, the cold may have helped. I reload in garage so 2 freezers right here, not sure if it'd be convenient for others.

 

[T-shooter]

An idea. Since .308 cases are tapered by .015", or little more to the shoulder, try locking a caliper at a few different sizes (.455/.460/.465) and see how far it will slide down the case until it stops, and compare cases from your bolt gun to the AR10. The AR case may be bulged a slight bit someplace down the body.


I have very limited experience with .308 Federal cases (from a couple boxes of factory ammo) but the few I have resize very easy shot from a bolt-gun. Used to use a Lee die a long time ago, now a Forster and Hornady Unique lube. I have over 1,000 Federal cases (bought new) for my AR15 and never had any kind of problem with any of them.

 

[KMart]

Good question.
I have always put my brass in a tumbler first. I don't put dirty brass in my dies. The RCBS-2 lube goes on a clean case. (keeps the pad cleaner which at least looks better--the pad.)

Agreed. The gas system will put a ton of carbon on the fired case and promote harder than necessary resizing

 

[savagedasher]

Ron what press are u using ? Larry

 

[RonS]

savagedasher, I'm using a RCBS Rockchucker. My Lee universal decapping die, I turned to pin down to use with my Lapua brass.

What I have observed in this AR's chamber that a fired case is approximately 0.005" larger around mid way of the case body compared to a fired case from my bolt gun. Is this enough to cause possible cases to be difficult to resize and/or stuck cases?

 

[alb]

I suppose it's possible that your gun could be over-gassed. Reasonably reliable symptoms of that would be the case shoulders being sort of ballooned or there being excessive rim damage (i.e., the extractor was pulling unusually hard on the rim due to the case still being swollen up against the sides of the chamber); both symptoms can be indicative that it would be better for the bolt to have been in battery just a bit longer.

 

[savagedasher]

savagedasher, I'm using a RCBS Rockchucker. My Lee universal decapping die, I turned to pin down to use with my Lapua brass.

What I have observed in this AR's chamber that a fired case is approximately 0.005" larger around mid way of the case body compared to a fired case from my bolt gun. Is this enough to cause possible cases to be difficult to resize and/or stuck cases?

Polish your dies I inside set the die where the press is cam overing get some Mobil one synthetic motor oil apply liberally of below the neck on my case. Problem solved Larry

 

[RonS]

I do clean the inside of my dies periodically but I'll think about polishing them. I might try a little dab of "Slick 50" or "STP" on the body of some brass next time. Are you old enough to remember the STP commercial, where the guy could not hold the screwdriver after dipping it into the STP...?

I don't think my AR-10 is over gassed, when I take the brass from the brass catcher it looks like it was shot from one of my bolt guns. I had said if it chewed up my brass like my old AR-10, I was going to try an adjustable gas block but so far it's doing great.

 

[M-61]

The "guy" was Andy Granatelli.

 

[Comrade Terry]

The "guy" was Andy Granatelli.

Geezer!

 

[RonS]

Yes Andy Granatelli...those were the days