[Hog Buster]

Every now and again I see posts here regarding reloads that are hard to chamber in rifles. In most cases the reply’s concern full length sizing the cases and making sure of the shoulder set back. With a little down time to waste I’ve found another thing which just might cause hard chambering.

I took a hundred cases and full length sized them. Half were lubricated inside the neck with case lube (Dillon spray on a Q-Tip) and half weren’t. All were Remington 30/06 with 4 to 5 times reloaded. I then ran each empty case thru my Model 70. All of the ones that had inside neck lubrication chambered fine. The ones without inside neck lubrication didn’t fare as well. I found 9 out of the 50 that gave some resistance when closing the bolt.

This intrigued me so I tried the same test again with more and got pretty much the same results. 8 out of 50 un-lubricated were hard to chamber.

This led me to believe that while all the cases are being full length resized, the inside neck un-lubricated ones are being stretched a bit by the expander ball friction. Not much and not it all cases, but just enough to eliminate a little set back causing hard chambering with some.

I then took the 17 cases that chambered hard, resized them, with inside neck lubrication, and ran them thru my Model 70 again. They all chambered fine with no resistance. This leads me to believe that lubricating the inside of bottled necked case cases might be the answer to occasional hard chambering that I and others have experienced in the past.

While not too scientific, this test has taught me one thing, lubricating the inside of bottled necked cases necks is important. I will continue this process in the future.