Trimming some twice fired Starline and getting ready to trim the 400 new Norma I picked up the other day.
I do my own bedding. It is a bit more tricky on the flat-bottom actions, but not too difficult to not do it.
None of my three were bedded prior.
Matt just chambered, Cerakoted, and installed the barrels on my two FNs. At some point (next barrel) I'm going to have to have my firing pin bushed on my A1.
On my 700 SA, he is truing, tapping the rail screws to 8-40, pinning the recoil lug, and added the GreTan firing pin spring assembly I bought...in addition to chambering and installing the barrel.
I bought all of mine 6-8 years ago for great prices. About three years ago they all shot up and haven't come down.
Just remember that aftermarket support (bottom metal, magazines etc...) is non-existent these days. And those old factory DBM mags suck compared to their modern counterparts. Not a deal breaker, just a warning.
Loaded up some test loads using my new Lapua Small Primer 6.5 brass. My previous match load for my Bergara was a 140 VLD Target over 40.9 grains of H4350 using a Fed 210M about .057" off jam.
I loaded up 5 at .057" off jam (2.875" COAL), my current load, and 5 at .067" off jam (2.865" COAL) using the same 40.9 grain charge of H4350 and am using the 7 1/2 Remington's. I know these are hotter than the 210M's, but my 40.9 grain charge is well below max. I figure I might as well start with what I know works before I work up a new load.
I loaded up 5 at .057" off jam (2.875" COAL), my current load, and 5 at .067" off jam (2.865" COAL) using the same 40.9 grain charge of H4350 and am using the 7 1/2 Remington's. I know these are hotter than the 210M's, but my 40.9 grain charge is well below max. I figure I might as well start with what I know works before I work up a new load.
I might be reaching out for some help. I have been crushing necks sometimes when setting my Hornady 140 eld bullets. I can’t figure out what is going on. I’m using Hornady brass.
Two things come to mind for me.
One is neck tension. Hornady brass is about .001" thicker than most of the match brass I have used in 6.5 Creed (assuming that's what you are loading for). Too much, and it will crush the necks. I've experienced this when testing out the different bushings that came with my Forster bushing bump die. Most hand loaders like .003" neck tension, I prefer .002" in a bolt gun. Even with .005", I've never crushed a neck, so I would suggest measuring the outside neck diameter of a sized case. My Lapua ran over a 6.5 mandrel is .290" which gives me exactly .002"
Are you chamfering the inside of the neck or chamfering enough? Even though that bullet has a boat tail, it will crush a neck at times if no or not enough chamfering is done.
No chamfer virgin brass:
Just the right about in my opinion:
I loaded what I have already. I’m still learning how to reload. So I’m guessing I didn’t do enough chamfering on the neck. Im doing everything by hand. Plus for what I read. I thought I was supposed to just de burr the brass. I guess it I need to look into mandrill expanders also for neck tension.
The first thing to try is just back your seating/crimping die out a little to reduce crimp. Super easy fix if that's it, if not go from there.
They are not required, but they do allow you to control the neck tension you want. It's a deep rabbit hole.
I loaded for years just using a Full Length sizer or a Neck sizer. As long as I did the chamfering on the inside for virgin brass and doing both the inside and outside for fired brass, I had zero issues using factory FL dies. The Expander ball on the die going in and out, will clean up any dings in the case neck and set neck tension. I think I was getting .004" to .005" off Hornady dies, but I can't remember that number exactly, it's been a while. I was able to get some decent groups and decent SD's.
