Loading the 300 winmag

[Cascade Precision]

My search-fu may suck, I have been looking for many days at this and have yet to come up with answers.

Belted case preparation: I have read that after 2-3 firings, the area just above the belt expands, making loading and chambering difficult. Is this a real issue? What ways is there to combat this?

How is the accuracy affected from the virgin brass to once fired? Virgin brass is headspaced off the belt, but once fired I read that you need to bump the shoulder back .002, and therefore headspace off the shoulder. Virgin brass expands as much as .020 upon firing. This seems to me that the case volume now expands, and the chamber that the powder works in is already "fully" expanded and does not need to exert energy to stretch the case.

Case stretch of .020 seems like it would weaken the case.

Do these questions make sense? Or do I need to explain and reword my questions?

(Edit: My search-fu works a bit better on LRH site. I would still like your opinions on how to properly load this caliber.)

 

[jrob300]

Re: Loading the 300 winmag

Ogre,

Better SH search engine:

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=010955838166721108978%3Aqcbx5qqy10o&hl=en

To answer your question... If you're worried about case stretch, you can fireform your virgin brass by using a light load and *just* jamming the lands. This keeps the case head against the bolt face when the firing pin hits it. I have read of GS's cutting special reamers to tighten up the area in front of the belt to keep the case head against the bolt, too.

Having said that I've never bothered and have gotten a lot of life from my brass.

As far as stretch above the belt, my stock chamber allowed me to neck size only. *NEVER* sized the case body. My new barrel has a tigher chamber and for that I use the Redding body die. It works great for me. I bump the shoulder and size the body at the same time and then neck size with a Lee collet die. Use the search engine link I gave you and you'll find a bunch of different techniques used here.

I think the biggest issue with this round (and most) is don't push the shoulder back too far. If you do you will accelerate case head separation.



John

 

[Cascade Precision]

Re: Loading the 300 winmag

I knew there was a better search engine.

Thanks, my search-fu is renewed. Will reply again if I have questions.