Can't close the bolt

[shaneman153a 39]

Well I usually turn to Arfcom for all my reloading questions because there are generally 14 people waiting to answer questions as they pop up.

 

But I figured I'd give my home forum a shot, since I've never even been in this sub-forum!

 

So here's the scenario:

 

I have a remington 700 in 7mm Rem Mag and I just got some new bullets (BC .625 ) and a freebore gauge to play with today. I loaded up eh, 14 rounds seated .010 off the lands, and on my last 2 rounds, I couldn't close the bolt.

 

So I posted the question on arfcom, where a guy suggested that I dye the round and see where the high spot was. I didn't have dye so I used ye' old sharpie (worked great) and the shoulder was the only spot with the marker worn off. Then I looked at the other non-painted round and couldn't believe I didn't see it sooner.

 

Here's what I'm workin with:

 

 

Kinda hard to see, but the shoulder is bulged way out. I went and reloaded 5 more to see if one of the dies fell out of adjustment, but they turned out fine.

 

How the hell did that happen?

 

Shane

[IndyArms 10,186]

Is it possible you did not pull the handle ALL THE WAY when you full length resized those shells???

 

I would pull the bullet with a kinetic hammer, recycle the components, and full length resize the brass again and see if that doesnt take care of the problem! Cause it SHOULD!!

 

If THAT does not cure the problem...

 

[shaneman153a 39]

Bah.

 

I loaded 5 more yesterday to see if it would do it again and no dice.

 

So I loaded up 15 today to test some loads, and on my last round I noticed that 8 of them were like this. I forgot to check them before resizing to see if they were like this prior to going through a die. I backed the sizer out a 1/4 turn and we'll see what happens.

 

thanks Indy

[IndyArms 10,186]

Were you running the die too close to the ram, causing the brass to deform cause you were "shoving" them in too far... therefore allowing the shoulders to stop and the rest of the brass below to keep moving those extra few thousandths, giving you your bulge?

 

It happens.

 

I tell ya whats REALLY shitty is trying to load stick powder in .458 socom, and then seat a bullet... dont work... you wind up with a SLIGHT bulge you cant even see... and because the bullets headspace on the shoulder... they wont chamber... talk about a pain in the balls!

 

I whooped that issue though... changed to spherical powder ( Win 296, thanks to Tony Rumore's excellent suggestion! ) and no problems SINCE!