Your friend a site member?
Expander ball in wrong position
Sorry for the late reply. No, he's not. He is one of those guys who is semi retired but always on the run. No time for forums. But I think I figured out what is going on.
So I just got my hands on the dies and the loaded and fired ammo. In measuring from the base of the brass to the tip of the neck on loaded ammo, it varies by as much as 5 thousands. Could be a little less since I'm free handing it in the dial calipers. In measuring from the base to shoulder using the Hornady 330 gauge, the shoulders also vary by a few thousands. The trim length on the fired brass also varies and the brass is of different manufacture. Remington and Winchester.
The bullet seating die is shaped like the sizing die but I'm assuming a little less tolerance. The purpose being to insure that the brass is straight when seating the bullet. It is a regular seating die (and sizing die) rather than a micrometer seating die and it does not appear to crimp. The seating stem is narrow and capable of seating very pointed bullets.
What I think is happening is that the sizing die is short of bumping the shoulder. The result being that some of the brass gets stretched rather than sized and shoulder bumped. Then when the bullet is seated, the brass shoulder contacts the seating die shoulder and the brass is crushed ever so slightly at the neck/body junction. The result being that the brass will not chamber.
My recommendations to him will be:
1) Pick a brand of brass and use it exclusively rather than mixing brass.
2) trim and chamfer all the brass to the same length.
3) measure the base to shoulder on the fired brass then on the sized brass using the 330 gauge in the Hornady set.
4) adjust the sizing die until there is roughly 2 thou of shoulder bump and remeasure periodically.
5) measure everything again randomly following seating to insure that nothing has changed.
Does this sound reasonable?
