full length sizing die won't go full length

[six-gun]

ok, new to reloading so please excuse the ignorance here. i have a hornady pro 7 press. i'm trying to reload my .303 brit. the problem i have is that i screw the die in til it touches the shell plate at the top of the stroke, then lower it and back it out a quarter turn (carbide die). then when i put the shell in and run it up, the press does not go to the top of the stroke. the case will not go fully into the die. there's over a 1/4 inch that is still outside the die. i took the die off, unscrewed the decapping pin and removed it, slid the case in the die, and it's hitting that lip inside 1/4 inch short of the case being completely inserted. the model number on the lee die says "303b". i looked it up to be sure and that does appear to be the .303 brit die it was sold to me as. everything else is fine. sizes neck right for a bullet, is the proper diameter for the case, but it's apparently not the right length. please explain to me what i'm doing wrong.

thank you,

[mapsjanhere]

Was this a new or used die? A piece of neck stuck in the die would give you those symptoms.

[six-gun]

this is used. i had considered that but if that's the case, the bullet seating die will fit properly. so i could see how far it goes in the bullet seating die and compare. i believe it left a quarter inch on the seating die as well but i don't know for sure if i tried that. i will try when i get home and post the results.

[wncchester]

"..i screw the die in til it touches the shell plate at the top of the stroke, then lower it and back it out a quarter turn (carbide die)"

No size die should be backed out a quarter turn from shell holder contact unless you are trying to "neck size" with a FL die.

Neither Lee nor anyone else I know makes a carbide die for the .303. In fact, if your die has a carbide sizer ring you have an incorrect die.

IF you are trying to FL size without lubing because you think you have a carbide die that allows that, you are incorrect. Much more likely you have the correct sizer die but haven't lubed it properly. ??

[six-gun]

i lubed the case just to be safe. and when this happened, i lubed it even more, to what i believe would normally be an excessive amount.

[six-gun]

let me clarify a bit more. they were bought used so it's very likely i'm mistaken on them being carbide dies. with the pin out, i can take the case i was just trying to size and slide it into the die. inside the die is a band. that band hits the top of the shell. you can hear it, feel it, and shine a light in the other side and see it. but it hits that band about a quarter inch before the shell is fully inserted. that's why i too thought it was possibly a piece of a neck in there. hope that helps explain it.

[PA-Joe]

It sounds like you are trying to use the seating die to resize. The seating die has a built in crimper to crimp the bullet into the case and you will see the lip.

There should be a dies with and internal spindle that will deprime the case as it sizes it. If the spindle is set too low it prevent the case from going all the way into the die. It should be set just enough to punch out the primer.

Also normally you screw the die to touch the shellholder then you lower the ram and give the die another 1/4 to 1/2 turn down (not out).

You may have also gotten a 303 savage die by mistake.

What type of dies are you using?

[six-gun]

it's not the bullet seating die. it's a full length sizing die. 2-die set, one is a full length sizing die with the decapping pin in it and the other is the bullet seating die. these are lee dies. the model number says lee 303 b. i also thought it may be the 303 savage dies but when i looked it up online everything said 303 b was 303 british. so i just don't know. i'm honestly to the point where i'm gonna toss the used ones and just buy a new set. least then if something is wrong i can call lee.

[Jim243]

Edward, A+ post.

Jim

[Edward Horton]

six-gun

I fire form my .303 cases using .312 pistol bullets and SR 4759






Don't forget the rubber o-ring, on an Enfield rifle you can have as much as .020 head gap clearance or "air space" behind the case with American cases with thin rims and a Enfield at maximum headspace of .074



With light loads the primers will back out and in the photo below you can actually see the excess headspace that the rubber o-ring is compensating for. You can buy new bolt heads "BUT" they are getting scarce and $$$ costly $$$ and the rubber o-ring is a lot cheaper.

NOTE: Wartime emergency allowable headspace was .084 and normal headspace limits are .064 to .074

[bassfishindoc]

Edward, your comments on never full size resizing military brass to SAMMI specs, does that apply to the M1 Garand or the M1903 Springfield or is that only an ENFIELd thing? Thanks

[six-gun]

edward,

thank you for that info. that sounds exactly like the problem i'm having. in fact, one shell, the neck was obviously pushed entirely too far back. wish i had a picture but i think i tossed that into the recycle bin already. anyway, that all makes sense. sounds like exactly the problem i'm having. i appreciate all the info. it'll be a huge help, especially when i buy some american brass. i'll be using your O-ring trick. and the illustrations are great. made everything more clear. really appreciate that info. My dad just bought one of the winchester M-1s...i'll be sure to pass that on to him as well. again, thanks a lot.

[old_folks]

bassfishingdoc asked the question....."Edward, your comments on never full size resizing military brass to SAMMI specs, does that apply to the M1 Garand or the M1903 Springfield or is that only an ENFIELd thing? Thanks"

Edward_Horton's reply was......."Yes it applies, lets check a .308 - 7.62 NATO cartridge."

i bet to differ with the reply for several reasons. First of all, I do not recall the M1 Garand ever being chambered in the 7.62 Nato round, or the .308 cartridge. They were chambered for the .30-06 Springfield cartridge. I have personally full length resized military FA .30-06 brass, military LC .30-06 brass and fired them in a 1903A3 Springfield rifle, a 1917 Enfield military rifle with out any problems and have fired these fully length resized brass in commerical .30-06 rifles with out any problems.

While it may apply to other military rifles, it does not apply to the rifles addressed by bassfishindoc.

[Edward Horton]

old folks

I used the 7.62 - .308 as an example only because I had photos, the truth of the matter is all military chambers are larger than American civilian SAAMI standards for chambers.

What you missed was the fact that the military 7.62 cartridge was .0015 longer than the .308 and the brass cartridge case is more stoutly constructed. The 03 Springfield, M1 and M14 all have longer and fatter diameter chambers than their civilian counter parts.

Any time you fire an American civilian commercial cartridge in a military chamber you run the risk of distorting and warping the lighter and thinner commercial cartridge case. (Dreaded banana shaped case)

Therefore it does apply to bassfishindoc because my 03-A3 would warp and destroy commercial Remington cases when loaded to "normal" 30-06 rated chamber pressures. It also applys because the competitors who shoot at Camp Perry have the rifles re-barreled with smaller tighter chambers.

So remember larger military chambers are designed to shoot military grade ammunition that is constructed more robustly or in simple terms is MUCH thicker at the base of the cartridge and with thicker case walls.

Below are examples of .303 British military and civilian commercial cartridge cases.

The rims are thicker on military .303 cases, military .062, commercial .058, this gives you .004 extra head gap clearance and more room for the case to stretch and thin in the base web area.



The base diameter is .005 larger on the military cartridge case.



And the case walls are thicker on the military cartridge cases.



Below is a commercial .303 Winchester cartridge case fired in one of my Enfields.



This case stretched and thinned .009 at the base web area when fired in a Enfield with the headspace set at .067 on the first firing.



These lighter and thinner commercial cases were not designed to shoot in military chambers and if not properly fire formed they WILL fall apart when reloaded.

[old_folks]

Technicalities ... technicalities.....
More information than I needed or ask for.

[Uncle Buck]

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

[six-gun]

as the one asking the question, i'm very grateful for the technicalities. they are exactly the answer i was looking for and explain the problems i'm having. i'd rather have too much and have it in detail than somebody simply saying "that's wrong" with no explenation or examples. so please, feel free to post all the technicalities you want when i ask a question

and i too was going to point out that the M1 was in fact rechambered for 7.62 NATO. the U.S. Navy used it. I believe there was also a civilian version (since the .308 is such a popular round). so the statement that there is no M1 chambered for 7.62 is just blatantly wrong.

[Slamfire]

The 03 Springfield, M1 and M14 all have longer and fatter diameter chambers than their civilian counter parts.

The military M14 had chambers so long, that when a Bud of mine checked military M14's going to Iraq, they swallowed his commercial field gages. These M14 were fresh from the Anniston rebuild line.

The number of military full auto M14's in the hands of civilians is vanishingly small.

The vast majority of rifles out there are semi automatic only versions of the M14 such as the M1a. Civilian M1a's do not follow the military rifle headspace. My Super Match M1a's came with a tag that indicated headspace. My recollection was that headspace was 1.633"

When Springfield Armory rebarreled that rifle for me at the National Matches, the gunsmith used a Clymer reamer, not some military reamer. And he cut the chamber to gage minimum.

I recall the Marine Armorers telling my they cut their match M14's to 1.630"

As for the 03's/A3's and Garands coming out of the CMP. These are gaged with commercial "Go" and "No Go" gages. This is something I observed when I was a Volunteer.

I will agree that military chambers are fat. Commercial chambers are not necessarily, unless the manufacturer wants it so.

[Edward Horton]

When reloading each rifle will be different even on a new commercial rifle the chamber can be made on the "plus" side of tolerances dimensions or "larger" and your reloading die on the minus side of dimensions and "smaller".

With a full length resizing die and the above situation you would be "overworking" the brass and case life would be short unless you compensated for the differences.

On top of this you also have cartridge cases that can be "plus" and "Minus" and base diameters can vary greatly and still be within manufacturing tolerances.

Below two different .303 British cartridges fired in the same rifle, guess which case has a larger base diameter and thicker case walls?

[Slamfire]

With a full length resizing die and the above situation you would be "overworking" the brass and case life would be short unless you compensated for the differences

.

I agree with you on the British 303. I have a number of them. Each chamber is a shape unto itself. I gave up trying to determine headspace as all were larger than my headspace gages.

[Unclenick]

Slamfire,

Clymer actually makes a special M14/M1A match reamer that was designed to work with M852 ammo specifically. That round was the Lake City match load with the cannelure on the case and the Sierra 168 grain SMK bullet. I expect that is what was used on your gun.


Edward,

Some well done posts. I've got a couple of points that occur to me to bring up. Before that I’ll point you to the board's new policy on posting copyrighted materials, here. This unfortunate turn of events on a number of boards seems to have stemmed from this attorney intentionally surfing the web seeking quoted newspaper stories for the purpose of suing the sites that leave them up.

One point I wanted to mention has to do with your description of the .308 case vs. 7.62×51 NATO headspace dimensions. Your measured 1.5 mil headspace difference is actually in the noise, as a larger sample of different makes will reveal. For example, after reading your post I went to the basement and pulled a round of Sellier & Bellot .308W headstamp that measured the same as your 7.62 NATO round, or -0.0005" under chamber headspace minimum (as compared to a good quality .308 headspace GO gauge). I also found a round of FNM 83 Headstamp NATO ball (complete with crosshair symbol) that was -0.003" below the gauge together with others in the box that range from that up to -0.002”. I have others I could measure, but that illustrates my point. 7.62 NATO ammo tolerances are not as well standardized as one might hope. This archive article at cruffler.com makes an interesting read on just how variable it turns out to be.

7.62 NATO and .308 Winchester, both being copied from the U.S. developed T65 ammo, have the same new manufacture case dimensions. Only the chambers differ. SAAMI gives those dimensions with respect to a 0.400 shoulder datum (OD the case and ID in the chamber, of course). The case is given as 1.6340" +0.0000" and -0.0070", so 1.6270" to 1.6340". The chamber, via gauges, is given as 1.6300" +0.0040" and -0.0000 for new chamber GO and NO GO gauge dimensions, respectively, and 1.6380" for FIELD REJECT. So, 1.6300" to 1.6340" is the normal new commercial chamber headspace range.

You will have noticed the above allows for up to 0.004" interference fit between a maximum spec new case and a minimum spec new chamber. Hatcher observed long ago that mere manual chambering of a .30-06 at a rapid fire pace in the 1917 Enfield bolt action could easily push the case shoulder back 0.006". That's because there is room for the case to widen in the chamber when it is squeezed between the shoulder and bolt face. The bolt has lots of camming strength to do that with. SAAMI has apparently decided their tighter chambers were good for 4 thousandths of shoulder push-back at least.

The military, on the other hand, has to worry about full auto function. They decided not to allow any interference fit at all, so they set their minimum headspace 0.005" ahead of the SAAMI chamber minimum; that way they've always got at least 0.001" clearance from a maximum dimension case, not that anyone makes those on purpose. The military doesn't reload its cases, so they don't care about head separation except at the first firing, which your .308 in a .30-06 chamber demonstrates does not happen easily. Additionally, they make their chambers wider, again to promote easy feeding and minimize jams, even if the gun gets sand and grit in it. Indeed, the FIELD REJECT gauge for the 7.62 NATO round is a whopping 1.6455”.

I think the commercial makers and government contractors have all caught the concern about easy feeding because you never see new commercial brass over SAAMI chamber minimum that I've measured, and usually it is closes to the 1.6280" number you found. Still, it'll have some variance.

With regard to the O-ring trick, it should be mentioned that you can't do that with a rimless case. I'm not convinced it's needed, anyway. As long as you fire your first load at a pressure too low to stick the brass to the case wall against stretching the head back, the whole case will back up like a piston at firing and the shoulder will be blown forward. I've done this successfully using IMR's recommend 70% fill starting load of Trail Boss with a light bullet in both .308 and .30-06 with the little 100 grain half jacketed plinker bullets in them. I should think it would work the same with the .303, but haven’t tried it with that round, specifically.

[Unclenick]

Ed,

You don't need to convince me on posting material. I don't run this board. I'm just making you aware of the new blanket policy before a moderator objects. I consider it a terrible inconvenience myself, as I used to link to images and quote whole paragraphs (or even two) all the time. I agree there should be an exception spelled out for government publications. Perhaps the “free and unrestricted reuse” is implicit there.

Since Robert Burns is one of my ancestors on my mother's father's side, I understand the Scottish fighting sentiments by inheritance.

You are correct the case walls will be gripped above a "certain pressure". My point is, don't load to that pressure. Typically, though it varies some with the powder pressure curve timing and with how thin the case walls are, a load that peaks much below about 30,000 psi won't stick the average case to the chamber hard enough to stretch the head back before the whole case backs up. This is how .45 ACP cases shorten with each load cycle rather than stretching. The case expands, backs up to the breech, fills out fat, then the brass is further flowed rearward by the die during resizing. An overbore case reasonably may be expected to require a still lower pressure to back up, but the Trail Boss and other light loads with light bullets are probably running way down in the teens somewhere.

A lot of the old time wildcatters used to pre-form cases by loading fast powder into a case and putting cereal on top of it and a cover wad to prevent spilling, but that's all. No bullet. The reason was the same. They wanted shoulders blown forward without introducing a stretched pressure ring. So, that's another method you can play with. Even a couple thousand psi will fill a shoulder out. Not sharply, but the basic length will be there. Figure that if it's enough pressure to resize, it's enough to move the shoulder forward.