Hi all, I am a new member here, and have a reloading issue. I recently bought a T.C Compas in 300 Win Mag. Loaded up 50 rounds of Hornady brass w/ 168 GR Hornady A-Max bullets over IMR 7977 ranging from 75.5 - 80 GR to try to find a decent load for my new rifle.
Range session was great, no issues what so ever. So I decided to load up my fire formed brass. To have a custom round for the rifle. The once fired brass chambers in the action freely, bolt is not tight at all, feels great. (BRASS LOOKS GREAT)
I decided to neck size only, as the brass does not seem to need a bump back. (Note that I have never neck sized before, always have FL sized all of my loads) I only have a lee Pacesetter die set. I set the FL die up by backing it off the fully raised ram about 1 1/2 turns. I fine-tuned the adjustment to make sure the die was not touching the shoulder by smoking the neck and shoulder of one piece of brass and running it through the die until I could see that it was just above the shoulder.
Issue that I am having is that raising and lowering the lubed brass through the die is hard/ very hard, Some easier than others. It seems to be when the neck is being sized. Normal / slightly above normal friction while the neck passes over the expander ball/rod.
The big issue is that about 1/2 of the 20 cases that I have attempted to neck size have split just above the belt. The splits range from 1/4-1/2 way around the case. What is going on??? I am assuming that I have the die set up wrong. But from what I have read and videos that I have seen, this should work.
I have also FL sized a few cases that seem to work ok. Still a lil bit of friction on the up & down but not nearly as bad, and no split cases. Possibly some minor case bulge aboothe belt.
Sorry for the long post but I need some help on this. Feel free to ask any questions, and Thanks in advance.
Range session was great, no issues what so ever. So I decided to load up my fire formed brass. To have a custom round for the rifle. The once fired brass chambers in the action freely, bolt is not tight at all, feels great. (BRASS LOOKS GREAT)
I decided to neck size only, as the brass does not seem to need a bump back. (Note that I have never neck sized before, always have FL sized all of my loads) I only have a lee Pacesetter die set. I set the FL die up by backing it off the fully raised ram about 1 1/2 turns. I fine-tuned the adjustment to make sure the die was not touching the shoulder by smoking the neck and shoulder of one piece of brass and running it through the die until I could see that it was just above the shoulder.
Issue that I am having is that raising and lowering the lubed brass through the die is hard/ very hard, Some easier than others. It seems to be when the neck is being sized. Normal / slightly above normal friction while the neck passes over the expander ball/rod.
The big issue is that about 1/2 of the 20 cases that I have attempted to neck size have split just above the belt. The splits range from 1/4-1/2 way around the case. What is going on??? I am assuming that I have the die set up wrong. But from what I have read and videos that I have seen, this should work.
I have also FL sized a few cases that seem to work ok. Still a lil bit of friction on the up & down but not nearly as bad, and no split cases. Possibly some minor case bulge aboothe belt.
Sorry for the long post but I need some help on this. Feel free to ask any questions, and Thanks in advance.