Hoping some of you guys have some answers.
Let me preface, I'm not new to reloading, I have been reloading for years. When guys in town have questions about reloading they ask me, so I'm going nuts!
I admit this is my first go around with lake city once fired brass. I'm loading .308, and have been using mostly Winchester and federal (as long as the primer pockets hold out)
This Lake city is mostly 2010 and 2011, obviously machine gun fired. I sized it first with my cheaper set of RCBS dies, trimmed to minimum, turned the neck.
Every case of the test ones it is really hard to close the bolt, it will close but not nice and easy like the Winchester brass. So I made sure that the die was setup right, checked that the shoulder was bumped back correctly (this is a FL sizer), and re tried. Still pretty hard to close the bolt. I then went through the whole process with some Winchester with the same setup, and the bolt closed nice and easy.
I next setup my Forster FL die and ran them through, same results.
I then ran it through my small base dies, same difficulty with closing the bolt resulted.
I then took a piece of this brass and made a 'perfect' dummy round. 2 thousandths neck tension, LESS than 1 thousandth bullet run out.
STILL HARD TO CLOSE THE BOLT!
I then took my calipers and tried to find where the measurements are different with this dummy round and a piece of the Winchester brass that had the same treatment that closes the bolt nice and easy. I couldn't for the life of me find a difference except the extractor groove is not as wide on the LC as it is with all military brass....
Anybody have any ideas before I lose all my hair?
Let me preface, I'm not new to reloading, I have been reloading for years. When guys in town have questions about reloading they ask me, so I'm going nuts!
I admit this is my first go around with lake city once fired brass. I'm loading .308, and have been using mostly Winchester and federal (as long as the primer pockets hold out)
This Lake city is mostly 2010 and 2011, obviously machine gun fired. I sized it first with my cheaper set of RCBS dies, trimmed to minimum, turned the neck.
Every case of the test ones it is really hard to close the bolt, it will close but not nice and easy like the Winchester brass. So I made sure that the die was setup right, checked that the shoulder was bumped back correctly (this is a FL sizer), and re tried. Still pretty hard to close the bolt. I then went through the whole process with some Winchester with the same setup, and the bolt closed nice and easy.
I next setup my Forster FL die and ran them through, same results.
I then ran it through my small base dies, same difficulty with closing the bolt resulted.
I then took a piece of this brass and made a 'perfect' dummy round. 2 thousandths neck tension, LESS than 1 thousandth bullet run out.
STILL HARD TO CLOSE THE BOLT!
I then took my calipers and tried to find where the measurements are different with this dummy round and a piece of the Winchester brass that had the same treatment that closes the bolt nice and easy. I couldn't for the life of me find a difference except the extractor groove is not as wide on the LC as it is with all military brass....
Anybody have any ideas before I lose all my hair?