Belted Magnum reloading

[psharon97]

I'm going to be trying the collet die from Innovative Technologies. I want to see if this will extend the life of my brass. Norma brass aint cheap, and I want to see if this will extend the life.

http://www.larrywillis.com/

[Robinhood]

That and setting your die up to bump shoulder minimally is the ticket.

[bigedp51]

You only need the collet die if your present die is not sizing above the belt enough. Meaning the case binds in the chamber just above the belt on chambering or extraction.

And as Robinhood stated let the case headspace on the shoulder and not the belt.

[Zero333]

I've been loading belted mags for many years. The Larry Wills collet is good if you want to use belted mag brass that was fired in a different chamber and will not fit your current chamber. Or if the Chambers Headspace is longer than optimum allowing the brass above the belt to bulge after repeated firings.

A Headspace comparator is what you want so you know exactly how far you're bumping the shoulders during Full Length sizing (I aim for 0.002" to 0.003" shoulder bump).

(click pic to enlarge)
3424

Here is a pic of a sectioned 300winmag piece of brass after 10 firings showing no brass thinning above the belt. This shows how important it is to know the exact shoulder bump on belted mags. If this brass was FL sized 10 times it would show significant brass thinning above the belt. This is Remington 300winmag brass in case anyone wants to know.

(click to enlarge)
3425
^^^^
Never mind the short neck of this brass... I cut it to make a chamber neck length gauge.

If anyone wants to know how to make your own chamber neck length gauge here is a link.....
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2015/06/how-to-craft-your-own-chamber-length-gauge/

[psharon97]

This is my personal experience. If you can take a caliper and measure the diameter of the cases I resize, vs brand new brass from a premium make (I use Norma as a baseline), I noted that there were about .002" larger in diameter just above the belt vs brand new unfired brass. This tool brought the brass back to proper SAMI spec. If your reloading method doesn't affect this, then you don't need this tool. This tool works as advertised and ensure that the brass I use is consistent.

[Bowguy]

I have used Larry's collet die for many years and find it to be helpful extending the brass life of the numerous belted magnums I own. Granted, it is useful only when the area not reached by sizing die has expanded where chambering becomes difficult. Mild loads would not generally be as much of an issue. Being able to increase the number time this brass can be reloaded soon pays for this extra die. Especially so if like me you shoot a lot of 7mm STW.