I have recently started having issues with seating 175smk using a redding comp seating die and would appreciate any ideas on how to resolve them.
To provide a bit of background on both myself and the issue, I work in mining and have moved all over the world starting in Nevada and bouncing across the Americas, Austalia and Asia winding up here in Northern Ontario Canada. Throughout this time I have managed to find a way to hunt and shoot. I shot IPSC for over a decade but have lately been mainly focused on hunting and now LR shooting. I shot a bit of full bore rifle in Aus which I really enjoyed and during this pandemic I decided to return to lr rifle. I have purchased and AI axmc(338L) and ax308 and am reloading for both. I live a good distance from any ranges with distances more than 200m so primarily shoot steel on crown land (public land) out to 500m. With the ground now frozen I can stretch that distance a good bit further.
The issue I am having is that I am struggling to seat the bullets straight in about 40% of my rounds. This is a recent development as I have loaded over 600 rounds of the same load without incident. Since developing this issue I have cleaned and re-set all of the dies I use and the press, a forster co-ax. I have not seen any obvious damage to the seating stem or sleeve. I have used the redding comp seater dies previously when I was actively shooting competitively so am somewhat familiar with the process, but am stumped here.
The details of the load are: Federal once and twice fired brass from gmm factory ammo, annealed, sized with a redding master hunter fl die bumping the shoulder 0.001” with the carbide ball removed, neck sizing finished with the sinclair mandrel with a case neck ID of 0.304”, trimmed with a giraud to 2.005”, fed 210m primer, 43.8gr of VV N150, 175gr smk at 3.2270” base to ogive. The powder is just below the body/neck transition so there is very little compression of the powder column. This load was consistently 0.5 MOA out to 400m -20 to +20 degrees C until this issue developed.
I am seeing a series of longitudinal scratches on the problematic bullets around 2-3mm around the circumference of the bearing surface. There is also a visible ring on the noses of these bullets from the seating stem. Neither of these marks are on the good cartridges. I also feel an increase in seating force with the problem cartridges. I have cleaned the seating die and found some accumulation of jacket metal but was quite minor. I have cleaned the seater as well as all the other dies and have reset them all, as well as cleaning and lubing the press again. I have not observed any obvious damage to the dies or parts of the press yet the problem persists. Is there anything I should be looking for? I have ordered a forster micrometer seating die but given the christmas holidays it may be a while before I see it. Any further ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated.
To provide a bit of background on both myself and the issue, I work in mining and have moved all over the world starting in Nevada and bouncing across the Americas, Austalia and Asia winding up here in Northern Ontario Canada. Throughout this time I have managed to find a way to hunt and shoot. I shot IPSC for over a decade but have lately been mainly focused on hunting and now LR shooting. I shot a bit of full bore rifle in Aus which I really enjoyed and during this pandemic I decided to return to lr rifle. I have purchased and AI axmc(338L) and ax308 and am reloading for both. I live a good distance from any ranges with distances more than 200m so primarily shoot steel on crown land (public land) out to 500m. With the ground now frozen I can stretch that distance a good bit further.
The issue I am having is that I am struggling to seat the bullets straight in about 40% of my rounds. This is a recent development as I have loaded over 600 rounds of the same load without incident. Since developing this issue I have cleaned and re-set all of the dies I use and the press, a forster co-ax. I have not seen any obvious damage to the seating stem or sleeve. I have used the redding comp seater dies previously when I was actively shooting competitively so am somewhat familiar with the process, but am stumped here.
The details of the load are: Federal once and twice fired brass from gmm factory ammo, annealed, sized with a redding master hunter fl die bumping the shoulder 0.001” with the carbide ball removed, neck sizing finished with the sinclair mandrel with a case neck ID of 0.304”, trimmed with a giraud to 2.005”, fed 210m primer, 43.8gr of VV N150, 175gr smk at 3.2270” base to ogive. The powder is just below the body/neck transition so there is very little compression of the powder column. This load was consistently 0.5 MOA out to 400m -20 to +20 degrees C until this issue developed.
I am seeing a series of longitudinal scratches on the problematic bullets around 2-3mm around the circumference of the bearing surface. There is also a visible ring on the noses of these bullets from the seating stem. Neither of these marks are on the good cartridges. I also feel an increase in seating force with the problem cartridges. I have cleaned the seating die and found some accumulation of jacket metal but was quite minor. I have cleaned the seater as well as all the other dies and have reset them all, as well as cleaning and lubing the press again. I have not observed any obvious damage to the dies or parts of the press yet the problem persists. Is there anything I should be looking for? I have ordered a forster micrometer seating die but given the christmas holidays it may be a while before I see it. Any further ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated.
