Hello,
I am amazingly rusty at reloading. Has been a couple of years since I reloaded for myself. I stupidly agreed to "dial in" a friends rifle. Rifle in question is a new 308 Winchester. After several attempts, I had it shooting .5-.75" with 168g Nosler Ballistic tips and Varget. This is a deer hunting rifle. The rifle absolutely hated Barnes bullets and anything under 165g. I went through 100 new pieces of Lapua brass to get me to this point. I did not resize the new brass. Just cleaned them up. Am using RCBS standard seating and full length resizing dies provided by friend. Now with resized cases the 168g bullets have initial resistance "hump", to get started down the neck of the case when seating. I used one of the bullet pullers that you hit like a hammer to pull a few of this load. It was much more difficult to unseat the bullet than usual. Shot a few of this new resized batch and my groups opened up a decent amount. I honestly do not remember if a short and stiff resistance is normal for seating bullets. I cleaned up the brass mouths with an RCBS case prep station. I have not used RCBS dies in over a decade. I was/am used to Redding S dies. Is this normal and just a variance or should I get a new set of dies? Sorry for the possibly stupid question but I do not remember stiff seating resistance. I very slightly lubed the case mouths when resizing but not when seating. Thanks!
I am amazingly rusty at reloading. Has been a couple of years since I reloaded for myself. I stupidly agreed to "dial in" a friends rifle. Rifle in question is a new 308 Winchester. After several attempts, I had it shooting .5-.75" with 168g Nosler Ballistic tips and Varget. This is a deer hunting rifle. The rifle absolutely hated Barnes bullets and anything under 165g. I went through 100 new pieces of Lapua brass to get me to this point. I did not resize the new brass. Just cleaned them up. Am using RCBS standard seating and full length resizing dies provided by friend. Now with resized cases the 168g bullets have initial resistance "hump", to get started down the neck of the case when seating. I used one of the bullet pullers that you hit like a hammer to pull a few of this load. It was much more difficult to unseat the bullet than usual. Shot a few of this new resized batch and my groups opened up a decent amount. I honestly do not remember if a short and stiff resistance is normal for seating bullets. I cleaned up the brass mouths with an RCBS case prep station. I have not used RCBS dies in over a decade. I was/am used to Redding S dies. Is this normal and just a variance or should I get a new set of dies? Sorry for the possibly stupid question but I do not remember stiff seating resistance. I very slightly lubed the case mouths when resizing but not when seating. Thanks!