New here with a question about my 12 VLP .243

Hello all,

Just itchin for the weather to warm up so I can get my new 12 VLP .243 out to the range. Our local range in on the divide so snow is a bit of an issue :o

I am new to reloading and would like a little feed back. I have some old (45+ years) new and fired winchester cases. These were my dads and I do not know how many times the fired cases were reloaded. They were shot out of a winchester model 88 lever action. I took some measurement listed below:


.454 dia. at the shoulder out of the Hornady manual
.470 dia. at the base of the body

.447 dia. at the shoulder new factory round
.466 dia. at the base of the body

.448 dia. at the shoulder new case FL sized
.467 dia. at the base of the body

.451 dia. at the shoulder fired case FL sized
.469 dia. at the base of the body

The problem that I am having is that the fired case is VERY tight to close the bolt but yet the measurments are less than the standard for the .243 out of the manual. You ca see that there is a slight increase in size from factory round to new sized case to fired sized case. The measurement form the base of the case to the shoulder is the same for all three cases.

At first I thought that maybe my die was defective but the cases are all less than spec? I am wondering if it is the rifle, this is all new to me so any input would be great. Looking forward to learning here ar Savage Shooters.

Aaron

Fred's rule of thumb: new rifle, new brass. New barrel, new brass. Something that old is questionable, why aggravate yourself.....start from scratch.

+1 on Freds comment=get some new brass!!
I reloaded for my Dads 99 Savage in 243 but had to keep the brass seperated as once fired in the 99 it would not go into the Ruger or Savage 243.

It did not take long to come up with the new brass idea ;) What I would like to know from you Guru's is that the "standard .243 case" seems so much larger than the other case measurements I came up with. A standard case would never chamber in my gun?

I will assume that my model 12 is tightly cambered to begin with? Will this mean that a new factory round will fit "snug" and that it will not expand very much? Will it extract tight?

Thanks much for the input, sorry that this should maybe be in a reloading forum?

the length from the base to the shoulder is an important measurement. this is a little harder to measure. this come about because of different head spacing. rcbs makes a precsion mic set to measure this. I know this from loading for 4 different 243s at a time. my ruger 77 heavy barrel is .007 less than new brass. I'am not sure why as I bought the gun used.i have to use small base dies on brass not shot in this gun before.I have a savage 10 that after being fired measure +.001 and a model12 that is -.002. so I need to set so I keep brass seperated for each gun.