Another beginner question. Once fired from different rifle?

[Swampcrawler65]

So after posting my other thread about using my Hornady brass or holding out for Lapua, I decided to use what I have.

Now. I have 60 ish cases fired through the rifle I’m going to be loading for (bergara BMP) and another bunch fired from my Ruger American Predator.

Using a Whidden FL die with bushing neck. Once that die is set up based off of the brass from the Bergara, will it resize the other rifles cases close enough to not matter on paper, or should I be just using the stuff from the Bergara till the other stuff has been fireformed in this chamber or?

Thanks!

 

[J McGriddle]

What do you mean by "Set up"? Are these custom dies from Whidden?

 

[Swampcrawler65]

What do you mean by "Set up"? Are these custom dies from Whidden?

Just meaning setting up the sizer to bump the shoulder back .002 from fired bergara case.

In other words if my die will push the BMP brass to the specs I want, will running the other rifles cases through the same die settings produce the same results?

Also I just measured a sample of 5 from each chamber. Head to shoulder, neck diameter and diameter at the web are near identical.

 

[J McGriddle]

I generally err on the side of caution and Full length resize any case that's been fired in another rifle. That's mainly because I don't want to jam an oversized case and get it stuck in my chamber. Others members might have more experience on this matter.

 

[918v]

If they are near identical then they will interchange.

 

[Swampcrawler65]

Thanks guys.

The die I’m using is an FL die with neck bushings. If I understand correctly, by setting up the die to push the shoulder back .002 from fired, I will be sizing the length of the case and neck, just not setting back the shoulder more than necessary?

If I’m understanding that correctly, then given that the two chambers are apparently pretty similar, the FL sized, shoulder bumped brass from either chamber should end up more or less identical as far as sizing goes?

I’m probably just overthinking. Odds are my first hundred loads will have something more significant than resizing variations wrong with them anyway.

 

[fxdrider]

If it were me, I'd make up a dummy round or two with the brass in question just to see if it will indeed chamber smoothly. If it feels like its requiring more effort than normal to close your bolt on it, then stop right there before it gets stuck. It may need to be sized slightly more.

You may already know this, but I'll say it anyway in case you hadn't thought of it - the other thing to be especially mindful of is the differing case capacities of the 2 different brands of brass. Lapua is typically relatively thick brass, which means less case capacity than some other brands, and so potentially higher pressures given the same powder charge. I haven't used Hornady, so I don't have a frame of reference for their brass, but you may want to determine if there's a difference between the two before using a tried and true Hornady load in Lapua brass. Best not to risk higher pressures causing problems in your gun.

 

[Swampcrawler65]

If it were me, I'd make up a dummy round or two with the brass in question just to see if it will indeed chamber smoothly. If it feels like its requiring more effort than normal to close your bolt on it, then stop right there before it gets stuck.

You may already know this, but I'll say it anyway in case you hadn't thought of it - the other thing to be especially mindful of is the differing case capacities of the 2 different brands of brass. Lapua is typically relatively thick brass, which means less case capacity than some other brands, and so potentially higher pressures given the same powder charge. I haven't used Hornady, so I don't have a frame of reference for their brass, but you may want to determine if there's a difference between the two before using a tried and true Hornady load in Lapua brass. Best not to risk higher pressures causing problems in your gun.

Absolutely! The stuff in question is all Hornady. If I decide to use Lapua in the future I’ll be going back to square 1 with load development.

 

[fxdrider]

Absolutely! The stuff in question is all Hornady. If I decide to use Lapua in the future I’ll be going back to square 1 with load development.

I see. I misread your OP. After re-reading it I see you're mainly concerned with the same brand of brass, but fired from different rifles. My bad. That's what I get for skim-reading.

 

[BearNaked]

Here is what I would do. find out which chamber has the shortest shoulder and set your die up to bump that one. The only issue is if there is a big difference between the two then you will have problems after about 5 firings since you are over stretching the case on every shot.

If I get brass fired from a different gun then I usually small base die resize it before using it in mine just to make sure it is all back to spec.

 

[Swampcrawler65]

Thanks guys. I ended up just throwing it all together. Measurements to shoulder, as well as neck diameter and he’s diameter between the two were so close that I could t tell if there was actually a longer one.

Set up to bump back .002 and everything chambers smoothly.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

As an ancient reloader, I think you've dealt with your problem effectively. I think the point here is to understand why we bump, how much is enough, and how to make that determination.

I'm guessing you have an admirable collection of measuring tools and are getting a rather significant amount of practice using them. When I was newer at this I did just as you.

Then I took a few steps back and gave a bunch of thought as to the whys and the hows.

We bump to A) allow the bolt to close without excessive drag, and B) only enough to achieve A) without inducing excessive case stretch. In essence, we could as easily use the chamber itself as the gauge, and treat the case as a go-nogo gauge. If it drags a little closing the bolt, we're golden, if it drags a bunch, we want more bump, and if it drags not at all, we can begin decreasing the bump adjustment until the bolt closure drag is where we want it.

OK, now let's up the ante. I have six rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO. If I did the above using all six rifles as my gauge, I'd probably be heading off to the giggle huts before long (BTW, one of my more ancient nicknames was 'Gig').

I have a SAAMI 223 spec case gauge, which serves as my analogue chamber.

I set up my single set of F/L dies so that all the cases I resize to fit that gauge precisely. By happy coincidence, all my loaded ammunition fits all my chambers nicely, because they are intended, by definition, to accept cases sized precisely to 223 SAAMI spec. "Those things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to each other" within acceptable variances.

So, are we losing anything by doing things this way? Probably, but I find that what differences may be occurring do not appear to show up in a detectable manner on the target. I'm giving this method a pass, because if it's wrong, it's not wrong enough to show anywhere that's actually important to me.

So what's actually important here, is there a lesson to be learned, and what might it be?

You be the judge.

Greg

 

[Swampcrawler65]

As an ancient reloader, I think you've dealt with your problem effectively. I think the point here is to understand why we bump, how much is enough, and how to make that determination.

I'm guessing you have an admirable collection of measuring tools and are getting a rather significant amount of practice using them. When I was newer at this I did just as you.

Then I took a few steps back and gave a bunch of thought as to the whys and the hows.

We bump to A) allow the bolt to close without excessive drag, and B) only enough to achieve A) without inducing excessive case stretch. In essence, we could as easily use the chamber itself as the gauge, and treat the case as a go-nogo gauge. If it drags a little closing the bolt, we're golden, if it drags a bunch, we want more bump, and if it drags not at all, we can begin decreasing the bump adjustment until the bolt closure drag is where we want it.

OK, now let's up the ante. I have six rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO. If I did the above using all six rifles as my gauge, I'd probably be heading off to the giggle huts before long (BTW, one of my more ancient nicknames was 'Gig').

I have a SAAMI 223 spec case gauge, which serves as my analogue chamber.

I set up my single set of F/L dies so that all the cases I resize to fit that gauge precisely. By happy coincidence, all my loaded ammunition fits all my chambers nicely, because they are intended, by definition, to accept cases sized precisely to 223 SAAMI spec. "Those things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to each other" within acceptable variances.

So, are we losing anything by doing things this way? Probably, but I find that what differences may be occurring do not appear to show up in a detectable manner on the target. I'm giving this method a pass, because if it's wrong, it's not wrong enough to show anywhere that's actually important to me.

So what's actually important here, is there a lesson to be learned, and what might it be?

You be the judge.

Greg

Very helpful bit of insight there. From a not-yet-ancient reloader, thanks!

 

[lash]

Greg is right on. With negligible differences in measurement like those, you full length size all of them to .001"-.002" shorter headspace than the rifle that you intend to use the rounds in and call it a day. Not much different than starting with brand new brass.

 

[TN Shooter]

As long as you are FL sizing I don’t think it will make a difference that the brass was 1x fired from a different chamber. With that being said, make sure you are able to bump the shoulder back to the same length as the sized brass that was fired from your chamber.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

After I posted this yesterday, I also responded to a topic about making .260 brass out of .308. Now, I don't do that for exactly the reasons already enumerated in the thread, but then I also introduced a bit about how I neck down 7mm-08 brass by running it partway through the .260 F/L die, leaving the aft half of the neck at the original diameter of the 7mm-08 cartridge.

My reasoning is as follows.

The wider, resized rear half of the neck fits snugly into the chamber, maybe centering the cartridge more positively within the chamber. It does not interfere with chambering. I also find that the fired case has a very narrow line of carbon staining at that point of the neck (but nowhere else aft of that line) where the resized portion transitions into the wider, unresized portion. This is probably telling me that the process also helps the neck seal better.

This is technique that was brought to my attention by my Elder Brother Bill, now gone to a better place. He used to shoot alongside BR shooters in the 60's back when F/L dies were just about the only kind of dies regularly available. They were using this technique as a means to manage (i.e. selectively reduce) neck tension, and resizing longer and shorter portions of the neck intending to increase and decrease neck tension in this manner. I make no attempt to control neck tension in this manner (because it does not take into account neck work hardening), but I do believe that there is some reduction in it (and have found that when I don't need to account for cartridge/magazine shift during recoil, lower neck tension can aid accuracy).

Anyway, I pass this on in the hope that it may prove helpful to others here, perhaps allowing some more versatility to be derived from the basic F/L resizing die which is all I have ever used in all of my handloading.

I once had a precious opportunity to discuss case resizing with G. David Tubb.

We found consensus that small primers really aren't a big help after all, because simply adjusting the powder charge accomplishes essentially the same thing; and that he prefers to F/L resize, and not have the case firmly gripped by the chamber, but have some small wiggle room.

Greg

 

[BurnOut]

As the others have mentioned, I'll take brass that was fired in another rifle, and run it through the same prep process as I do any other brass (for a given rifle)... FL resize with the die set the same, expand the case mouth with the same expander, trim it to the same max length, etc...

The only added step for me is taking belted cases and checking them against the Larry Willis collet die to verify that I'm in good shape just ahead of the belt. If not, through the collet die they go.