[BumbleBug]

I recently bought a heavy 7x30 Waters contender carbine barrel to replace a light weight one in the same caliber. As usual, I began with lower pressure starter loads in the new barrel using brass originally fire formed in the old barrel. Cases were full length sized with standard Redding dies. Surprisingly, about 10% didn’t fire & some of the lighter loads backed the primers out & left them well rounded. I immediately remembered that I read somewhere that slightly lubing the case would aide in Fire Forming. After contemplating this for a while, I finally realized that safety trumps dollars & ordered 100 brand-new Win cases from Bruno’s (the only place I could find brass). Using my $.50 each cases, my scarce $.05 each primers, my $.28 each Sierra bullets, & charges of some older H322 powder my new cases cost me about $.90 each! I lost only 1 case during resizing. From here on my sizing will be to a snap-fit in the contender. If I wasn’t such a penny pincher & reloading snob, I’d buy a box of Federal factory ammo & test the new barrel with it.
Since the Waters headspaces on the rim, either the Contender is a bit loose (doesn’t feel like it), my new barrel has a larger chamber or my Redding dies size a bit short. I suspect the later, which no problem for a handloader