Lake City 308 brass rezing problems

[titus123]

Ok so I have been buying Ultramax remanufactured ammo< for the brass> and while it cycles thru the chamber fine in it's factory state, once its been fired, resized,trimmed, cleaned etc. only about half the cases will chamber in my rifle. It's a Remington model 700 sps varmint. The dies I'm using are Hornady full length sizing dies. My question is is it the brass, the dies, or the chamber in the rifle. Has anyone ever experienced this before. As a side note the Hornday Match grade brass I have been using doesn't seem to have this problem. Any insight would be greatly appriatted.

 

[fdshuster]

First area I would look at would be headspace. Using the Stoney Point, now Hornady gauge attached to a good dial caliper, I'd measure the case headspace length, as it comes out of the chamber, after hand punching the spent primer out. Write down that dimension, taking several readings from different cases. Then, full length size and measure that headspace. If you want just a little resistance on bolt closing, the way I like em), I keep the 'as fired' headspace length, or you can adjust the sizer so the dimension is .002'/.003' shorter: your choice. All brass is not 'created equal', so there can & will be small differences in as fired headspace lengths, and you experienced a few cases that were just a few thousandths longer than those that chambered normally. The other, second area I would look at is the case head diameter. If it is as little as .002' larger, it will prevent bolt closure & that's the reason for small base dies. A standard FL sizing die will not reduce the case head diameter. Additional comment: made after reading your title 'Lake City 308 brass', missed it since LC was not mentioned in the posting. That brass may very well have been fired in a full-auto military weapon, and that makes it more likely that your problem is in the rear, case head area. 'Machine guns' are notorius for having large, over-size chambers. If this is the problem area, you will need a small base die.

 

[Winchester69]

Mark a resized LC case with a felt marker. Chamber it and see where the interference is. I'm wonder if you're using the same die setting as with the Hornady brass. LC brass is thicker and tougher. You may be experiencing more springback with the LC. If that's the case, or if you see interference, re-adjust your die and see what results you get. If you require different die settings, using shims under the die will simplify the job.

 

[shootsanything]

Both of the previous posters have great ideas. You may find that once or twice fired mil stuff has very hard necks and your expander button may be pulling the neck up so much that you are increasing the head space. Both Frank's comment about using the Stoney Point tool and 69's comment about using a pen will find this. A really good check is to re size some with out the expander in the die and see if those close in your action.

If this is the case I have found the fix is to not oversize the neck - this way it will not have the chance to pull the neck up when the button comes back through. This is why I love Redding dies with a bushing - I can choose how much to re size my neck.

The other fix I have used,assuming this is the cause) is to lube the expander button. I hate doing this since I end up having to clean the lube out of the case.

 

[spclark]

Could possibly be your chamber dimensions.

I've lately found LC match brass, fired in one of my Palma rifles, tends to need a small base die to resize properly.

Otherwise, using just a Redding full-length bushing die, I can size it to chamber OK but about half the rounds are a B*^CH to get extracted when fired, even with moderate loads.

The difference at the case head, between the Redding-sized and the small base sized, is only .0015' but it makes a difference.

 

[titus123]

First off I like to thank all of you for your input. And a special thanks goes out to Shootsanything. What I found after trial and error< using you guys' ideas> was that certain pieces of brass were not resizing completely, due to neck harding. But that brass marked LC 03, LC 04,and LC LR had no problems at all. So after taking Shootanythings advice i tested my finding by lubing the expander ball and all resized with no problems. Thanks again to everyone who responded.