Resizing Fired Cases to Reload – The Real Gunsmith

we're gonna talk about resizing fired cases to reload and talk about what people or to determine this whole thing free sizing most people don't have any idea what really Olek resizing really entails or how to adjust the dye I'm going to try to describe how to properly adjust the die for full increase sizing the reason that I'm talking about this and because I've determined over nearly a lifetime of loading ammunition that the average guy doesn't know how to justice die and one of the main reasons that he doesn't know how to justice die is because the reloading manual that he's read has misinformed him how to size his case tell you to put your put your you're fired case the shell holder raise the ram line your you're loading press and run the case run your loop case up in your die you see anyway I want you to adjust your diet to where when the Rams all the way up before you put a case in that the die is screwed down against the show holder well that's exactly where the problem starts you don't screw the die clear down against the show holder you need to screw the die down to the show holder and back it up back it up at least a quarter per turn now take your loop case and run it into your diet and you can feel you can feel when you've adjusted your die to the proper point when it's just barely starting to touch the shoulder because you picked up a little bit of resistance when you feel that size case the shoulder touched the shoulder and the die and take that case out of the die and you try it in the rifle that it was fired in and if the case is fired properly the case won't just fall in the gun and at this point it's not gonna fall in anyway because the die is not just a down that far you gradually work the die down until when you put that size resize case in your rifle and you close the bolt on that case you turn the bolt down about two-thirds of the way down and if you feel that case just start to snug up in your rifle that is a properly sized case if you've sized your case to where it falls in the rifle now all you've done is push the shoulder back on that case and the next time that you fire it then it's got a stretch out to fill the chamber again and the next time the shoulders push back and the next time you fire it is pushed out again this is a perfect recipe for case head separation I've read in in gun gun magazines you know that sizing case is the only problem I encountered with section sets caliber let's say a 300 Winchester Magnum because there was an article written about this a few years ago lit by about the third or fourth firing that the guy was getting case had separations well that's because he's just a real order he's not a hand loader like myself a hand loader is an experienced an experienced professional that's advanced weight class just simply assembling some some ammunition improperly so that properly sized case needs to be sized to fit the rifle that you're sizing the cases for and that's how it needs to fit that eliminates any any issues eliminate stretch and you'd have quite a problem in the field if you oversize your cases and by the time you're out hunting say the third or fourth firing that case separated out there when you shot at an elk or deer or whatever in the mountains and you got a separated case you got a half of a case up in the chamber another part of the case in the bull face you're sunk unless you've got a broken broken case extractor it's extract one of those cases out your rifle so I'm going to go further and describe a few things here if you if you run your ram up i'm your press and ring your die down against your shell holder and grab the case and lube it and run it in there and if you bend down to look you can look between the top of the shell holder and the bottom of the mouth of the die there's a space there and it's somewhere between about five and seven thousand actual space right there well that means that you've got some room some room for adjustment there and what what this amounts to is when the press is under load it holds the RAM down further from the mouth of the die than it did by just simply running the RAM up screwing the die down to the shell holder lock it down there this is the amount of adjustment that you've got beyond that measurement there so you've got a ways to go and anyway as you as you run a fired cartridge case up in the dye it sizes the OD of the body it sizes it at the shoulder it sizes it at you know right at the the shoulder body Junction it sizes it all the way back we're talking to say they've about 300 Winchester sizes and all the way back nearly to the belt that's what will freely go in the chamber and sizes your neck down so it's gonna hold the bullet another time and when this condition of sizing goes on you push to the wall in at the same time you're pushing the wall the case in you're lengthening the case from the head to the shoulder so basically what you've got to do you've got to properly adjust that die just as I described to you is the proper way don't size your ammunition back to original factory dimensions because cases clearer chamber on an average between a headspace gauge and an actual version case most cases will clear a chamber by somewhere between about three and five thousandths of an inch well that's a terrible situation if you if you allow that to happen more than that one time when you fire that virgin case will fit the chamber but don't ever size the case back to that point again in case you're just creating a problem for case for case separation automatically at that point people think well I've got a headspace problem yeah you sure do have a headspace problem it isn't your rifle it's you you size the case wrong you created the headspace problem with how you're sizing your cases in you're reloading die it's just plain and simple I have loaded I've loaded ammunition for about 58 years and I've loaded for about 250 different cartridges I specialized I specialize in in precision of reloading and so forth along with my precision rifle building and these these details you need to pay attention to it I have occasion to talk to people just time after time and we we get into these discussions and right off the bat I know that the person doesn't know how to while I'm falling sizing my case well tell me about what you're doing while I'm pushing my shoulder back you know by I've got I've got a you know gauges to be able to measure my cases and I'm pushing my shoulder back two or three thousandths well that's just exactly what not to do yeah that only has to be adjusted to where the key fits the rifle as I have described it closes up with just a little bit of snugness just before the bull is all the way down that maintains minimum maintains no spread no no no stretch and a mate maintains that minimum headspace dimension adjusting it down further all you're doing is creating headspace and creating a problem for yourself now we're gonna kind of jump from that we're gonna talk about next sizing cases you can buy next size dice for for many many calibers people think that you know that maybe it's better to next size their cases well yes and no the first thing you've got to understand is that that case is only being contacted on the neck and sizing the OD of the neck and in instances depending on how it dies are made you've got an expander ball and most instances that's the case you've got an expander ball and then you you hold the case you know out of the die and back over the expander ball you've got an excise case well the thing that you don't you don't understand is that case is not supported by the body when you're fooling sizing a case as I've described to you the case is being aligned automatically by the body of the case and the body of the die it's lined up for the neck and everything else there's not anything true to line a case up in your die if your neck sizing only unless you have a specially made die that fits right down to the virtually almost of the dimension of the case so that there's no misalignment there's no misalignment you know off of off of the center line and this is what creates some of these accuracy problems because an unsupported case body in an excise day is going to give you an out of out of center line to the case sized net you load ammunition that way you got something that's perfectly flat you know a flat tabletop flap a piece of glass or whatever it might happen to be a Formica count or something like that take that round in your hand and roll it over the counter and you can see that bullet if things aren't all right you can see that bullet will wobble like this is your Ola back and forth it's gonna wobble you can see it there are fixtures that you can buy that have indicators and so forth you can spend the case you can you can check it that way but just a simple way is what I've described and you can find out if you've got you know a die that's doing the job for you and doing it properly or you've got a condition like I said its size the the neck of the case only off of center lines in the body of the case and so forth you're not going to have truly a core rounds that way you can check any of your ammunition just as I have just described to you to see if it's fine and if you've got if you've got a properly built rifle like a rifle it comes out of my shop properly chambered everything's right you've got reloading dies and you're loading your ammunition and you're adhering to to the proper practices as I've described and you're getting say half-inch and under groups you know that the rifle is working you know that what you've done in the way the loads are working and you know that your dies that basically certifies that those dies are working and they're giving you the accuracy level that the rifle is put is is capable of delivering for you so that's that's that's basically it on on sizing cases and so forth I might add that that I I I really don't do anything else to a case a virgin case are the mixture of the case mouth is is divert I don't mess around with primer pockets you know I'm not shooting precision best-dressed we're talking about we're talking about just a hunting rifle I was pursuing precision benchrest I go to every detail that there was to see that I could obtain the utmost level of accuracy but that these these these guidelines are the best guidelines that you can possibly have to properly size your cases and know that everything is working right you

Channel: The Real Gunsmith

Views: 88,261

Rating: 4.908226 out of 5

Keywords: the real gunsmith, randy's custom rifles, gunsmith, rifle building, reloading, ammunition loading, loading ammo, reloading ammo, long range shooting, long range hunting, reloading dies, hornady, winchester, lapua, remington

Id: yDE84oOuz0c

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 14 2018