rg1911,
By all means, feel free to send me some samples of these and I'll be happy to take a look at them. Bad timing here, as I'm leaving for the High Power Nationals at Camp Perry on Friday. I will still have email, but will be pretty busy during the matches, so please be patient. You can PM me, or reach me at the address/phone number shown in the profile. Haven't heard of any specific problems with primer pockets, and these things are checked and gaged very closely during production. There's also the possibility that the primers are varying a bit, as well, and you may have run into an undersized lot. When we're talking about tolerance stacking, a little here and a little there can lead into some very noticeable situations, and I wonder if this may not be one of them. Either way, I'll be more than happy to take a look at them and help figure out what's up. If there's a problem, we'll make it right.
As to the shell holder issues, this is one that I hear quite often. No, the brass most likely isn't out of spec, and you're probably dealing with a tolerance stack issue. We DO tend to run our stuff at the outside limits of production tolerance, and this is intentional, and by design. We do this to assure functional reliability, even when dealing with chambers that are on the "generous" side. The problem that we do occasionally encounter, is what you're seeing here. This almost always comes down to a shell holder that was cut to the minimum, or small side of the tolerance range by their makers. In that situation, it is not only possible, but fairly common to have interference from cases that are within spec(albeit on the large end of the range) when they're used in shell holders that are running towards the minimum (small end) of their tolerance range. The solution here is a different shell holder. I've seen many instances wherein another shell holder, of the same size and by the same maker, would accept those cases that were giving fits in the other shell holder without a hitch. You might try that, or another make of shell holder and see if that doesn't alleviate the issue. You may also try a different size shell holder, say an RCBS #11, where the nominal "accepted" size is a #3. That particular combination works in most cases, though the respective shell holders are very nearly identical in size, differing only a few thou from one another. Give it a whirl, and if you can't get it resolved, let me know.
