Fired brass fits in chamber - still bump?

[Evintos]

You're describing very extreme scenarios and user error.

Completely different conversation. You don't size your brass for negligence or broken rifles.

I don't. Some people do. Some people are abusive of their tools, others not so much or not at all. Extreme is relative. One person's extreme can be another person's norm. Some people do it for mental reasons (like SHTF or zombie apocalypse fantasies). Part of the conversation as it pertains to the various sizing methodologies that people use and are oddly passionate about.

 

[BuildingConceptsllc]

Ok, stupid newbie questions here, but here goes.

The OP is asking about bumping the shoulders back on his once fired brass, when he can still easily close the bolt on it. Several persons have responded that they FL size every time, but that does not necessarily mean you bumped the shoulders back, does it? Isn't that determined by the position of the FL sizing die in the press? Am I missing something here?

Others have posted about distance to the lands, but that is seating depth and not bumping the shoulders back? Again, am I missing something here?

Shouldn't you check the brass in the chamber and bump it back however many thousandths from the chamber rather than from where the shoulder is expanded to when it is once fired? It may not have expanded all the way up against the chamber at the shoulder area, right?

Please go easy with your answers. I am in the early stages of learning here, and a lot of my learning comes from reading here in the Reloading Depot section and asking these sorts of stupid questions when things are not clear to me from just reading.

Sounds like you've got it right to me. The only reason we bump brass is so it fits in the chamber , even if it has some dirt ect ,and we do it to a certain amount so we get consistent expansion every time. If the shoulder is still short of the chamber after firing, then the only concern is the neck to hold a bullet, OR/and, the body diameter of the case. You can size the case body and neck without bumping which is still FL sizing, it's just not bumping the shoulder, which, as you said, is determined by the die set up.

 

[memilanuk]

I'm a little confused about the mud comments, is there some match rule for PRS where you have to roll each round a certain distance on the ground/stomp on it before immediately loading it into your magazines for a stage?

Surely you are loading your magazines directly from an ammunition box?

Or is there a special rule you cannot clean your you brass to resize or bullet seat between competitions? If you get dirt on it it says with the brass forever?

Apparently that's the way some people roll.

The whole mud-fest thing, brass being bounced off stage barriers, stepped on, etc. all happens *after* it's left the freakin' gun, so... take it home, clean it, size it, move on

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

Gentlemen, thank you for answering my questions. I thought I had follow up questions, but all of the posts answered my follow up questions, too, as I read through them.

Thanks!

 

[Rio Precision Gunworks]

I don't. Some people do. Some people are abusive of their tools, others not so much or not at all. Extreme is relative. One person's extreme can be another person's norm. Some people do it for mental reasons (like SHTF or zombie apocalypse fantasies). Part of the conversation as it pertains to the various sizing methodologies that people use and are oddly passionate about.

LOL. No.....dropping your ammo in the mud and not cleaning it off is not "relative." It's literally negligence. Running a system that is not performing properly with the gas system isn't "relatively extreme," that's running a broken system.

Being hard on tools is fine, and sizing brass with enough room for the bolt to fall free will run in just about every environment you can name. Been there, done that. Worked behind a rifle for a long time.


If someone doesn't clean their brass or runs muddy ammo, the fix isn't sizing your brass shorter. It's cleaning the brass or wiping the mud off. At some point you cross the line from "relative" to wrong/negligent. If you size your brass another .001-.002 past falling free to feel better, that's fine. If you do it because you run trashed brass or don't wipe your ammo off it you drop it.....that's very bad. And you're likely going to have many other issues if you can't be bothered to not do those things. (by you, I mean this theoretical person who's showing a round coated in mud into their rifle chamber).

 

[Rio Precision Gunworks]

Apparently that's the way some people roll.

The whole mud-fest thing, brass being bounced off stage barriers, stepped on, etc. all happens *after* it's left the freakin' gun, so... take it home, clean it, size it, move on

It's literally being imagined. You'd damn near have to cover the case in gritty mud and shove it in the chamber to have issues. Not to mention, you're introducing moisture into the chamber that's going to give you way more problems than the dirt part.

Anyone claiming you need to have more room than provided from a free falling bolt, I promise has never run a rifle in harsh conditions. If they had, they'd understand that it still chambers fine with some dust/dirt, and you better keep non compressible things (fluids) out of your chamber at all costs.

 

[FredHammer]

Does not brass fire to fill the chamber, then "shrink" (Springback) about .001? So if one is using the .002" bump from the fired brass they are actually .003" from chamber wall?

In the last year or so I've set my chambers up to only fire the brass .003-.004 longer and I reset the brass to new virgin length. Eliminates the whole second fireforming load development powder charge tweak. I lose my primer pockets way before I see any other detrimental effects from shoulder stretching.

 

[memilanuk]

This is beginning to remind me of the old arfcom threads, where guys would take whatever Aimpoint red-dot clone, mount on their gun, stick it in the freezer overnight, then literally hammer-toss it across the parking lot - onto asphalt - to see if it 'held zero'. Just stupid, for stupid's sake.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

In the last year or so I've set my chambers up to only fire the brass .003-.004 longer and I reset the brass to new virgin length. Eliminates the whole second fireforming load development powder charge tweak. I lose my primer pockets way before I see any other detrimental effects from shoulder stretching.

Set your chambers up? What does this mean, like a custom cut chamber?

 

[Evintos]

LOL. No.....dropping your ammo in the mud and not cleaning it off is not "relative." "Clean" is relative. Some people out in the world think 1 shower a week is "clean." Or the thread (forgot which one) where the guy doesn't clean his brass before sizing and was wondering why he was having issues. It's literally negligence. Concur, negligence and abuse, but that's just my opinion. Running a system that is not performing properly with the gas system isn't "relatively extreme," that's running a broken system. Over gassed "for reliability" which is really just improperly timed semi-autos is common and I would say a norm. Broken? Not exactly.

Being hard on tools is fine, and sizing brass with enough room for the bolt to fall free will run in just about every environment you can name. Been there, done that. Worked behind a rifle for a long time.


If someone doesn't clean their brass or runs muddy ammo, the fix isn't sizing your brass shorter. It's cleaning the brass or wiping the mud off. At some point you cross the line from "relative" to wrong/negligent. If you size your brass another .001-.002 past falling free to feel better, that's fine. If you do it because you run trashed brass or don't wipe your ammo off it you drop it.....that's very bad. And you're likely going to have many other issues if you can't be bothered to not do those things. (by you, I mean this theoretical person who's showing a round coated in mud into their rifle chamber). He's oddly passionate about it (and not very diplomatic) but it's not like he's advocating sizing brass to dimensionally smaller specs than virgin. At least not that I saw. Is his methodology optimal, perhaps not. Is it wrong? Not necessarily.

Set your chambers up? What does this mean, like a custom cut chamber?

You can do it either custom cut or headspace adjustment with a barrel nut setup. I don't recommend it unless you know what you're doing. If you're on Reddit, one of the common advices you'll see given is to set headspace on a barrel nut setup by setting it relative to factory made ammunition. Just be aware of the potential issues with doing so.

 

[Fig]

I FL the same every time, and anneal after every firing, and after about 14X I start to toss pieces out (mostly from the necks getting thin and cracking rather than problems with the body). This in a 6X47L run gentle like. IMO the reason to anneal is to get more brass life than anything to do with precision. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is what it seems like to me. If I only got 5X out of my cases I would feel like there was something wrong.

 

[FredHammer]

Set your chambers up? What does this mean, like a custom cut chamber?

I use headspace gauges on the barrel nut types. I set them so the bolt just clears the go gauge.
If I have a prefit made, I send them the gauge and request the same.

 

[supercorndogs]

If your necks split at 5 without annealing there is probabley something wrong. Either with the brass, or chamber.

 

[Rio Precision Gunworks]

This is beginning to remind me of the old arfcom threads, where guys would take whatever Aimpoint red-dot clone, mount on their gun, stick it in the freezer overnight, then literally hammer-toss it across the parking lot - onto asphalt - to see if it 'held zero'. Just stupid, for stupid's sake.

Yea, at this point, apparently you can use the term "relative" and consider everything normal. I could say I normally like use too much solvent or other things and I sometimes don't get the chamber dried out, so that's normal for me and I should load my ammo with a very light charge so I don't hit pressure. Seems like an everyone wins, everyone gets a trophy mentality. It's "relative" so it's not wrong.

No. You're doing it wrong and negligent.

 

[Evintos]

A person advocating their way is the right way is no different than the other guy advocating their way is the right way. Insert whatever reloading processes that have advocates (neck turning, mandrel, neck tension/interference fit, bullet jump/jam, primer seating depth, primer crush, annealing, so on and so forth) and it'll all be relative to their experience. Relative is relative, there's a meaning to the word. You could live in Antarctica where the summer temperature never rises above 32*F and think 0*F is warm. You can live in an area in the middle of the Sahara Desert where it never gets below freezing and think 80*F is cold. That's relative because there is a basis for comparison. Do I know what one guy faced that lead him to advocate his position vs what another guy faced that lead him to advocate his position? Hell no. Nor do I care.

Lack of optimization in reloading is neither right nor wrong. Right or wrong in the reloading game is safe or unsafe. Anyone who reloads will have made adjustments to their processes at one point or another or will do experiments for reasons of curiosity. A bunch of people gonna say do it their way so you don't have to experiment. I say be safe and have fun with the experiment, you'll learn more (like what works and doesn't work for you and your stuff).

Let people know the pros and cons of all the options available and let them decide for themselves which route they want to go. It's not that serious ("the internet is serious business").