Chambering issue......mystery

OK guys help me out. I put a 20 VarTarg together with a Savage target action and a Benchmark barrel. I put the barrel on myself. Took it out to break the barrel in and get the scope on and it shot fine. It actually shot a .284 four shot group in the first 10 shots; shoot and clean, shoot and clean, 3 shots and clean. So I have two different powders I am working up and NONE of them will load. The bolt will just not quite close! OK, so I check the case length and the clean cases will not close. I trimmed 2 cases down a bit, same length. One will close and the other will not let the bolt close. OK, so I run it through the full length resizer and the bolt will close on it. I run a loaded bullet that would not load and now it will let the bolt close. I have a 3 piece Redding bushing die set. I unfortunately mixed the new unfired but neck sized brass in with the once fired cases. I do not understand what I am doing wrong. Seems like the new and once fired cases should both work fine. Any ideas as to my mystery?

How did you headspace the barrel? Go/no go gauges or brass?

Sounds like your fired brass has stretched and needs FL sized to bump the shoulders back. If I recall, the vartarg has a slightly different shoulder angle compared to the parent 221 FB case.

new brass will be clean inside. Your die may be a bit bigger then what your chamber is set at. Your new brass is a different shape then the fired brass?

Paint the outside of a loaded round (or...preferrably, a fired shell without primer/powder)....with a black sharpie. Let the ink dry and chamber a round. That will tell you the story.

When you headspaced the barrel, did you use a Go-gauge?

uj

Check to see that the case mouths are not hitting the top of the seating die. If they do, the case will bulge just below the shoulder and prevent them from chambering fully.

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Originally Posted by dcloco

Paint the outside of a loaded round (or...preferrably, a fired shell without primer/powder)....with a black sharpie. Let the ink dry and chamber a round. That will tell you the story.

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-Yep, Id do that on one of the rounds that will not chamber, and it'll tell you where the case is hitting.

-One other quick thing to check. Take one of the rounds that wont chamber, back the front action screw out a bit, and see if it will now chamber. Might not be your issue, but it happened to me with my 6br.
I was asking everybody why my fireformed brass would not chamber. I completely bottomed out my die to size the brass, still didnt work. Tried another die and still didnt work. Tried different brand of brass and still didnt work. Reset the headspace 3-4 times cause I thought I had it too tight.
I never thought of it being an action screw that was too long because the bolt closed fine(with no restriction) with an empty chamber and with new, unfired rounds in it. But the fireformed rounds wouldnt close.
Ends up that when I closed the bolt the bolthead was riding on the action screw, but it was just a hair long so it still allowed it to close. With the new brass there was still enough room in the chamber for the brass to rise up and allow the bolt to close. But with the formed brass there was no room in the chamber, so the case and bolthead had nowhere to go. Felt just like it had a no-go gauge in it. 5hrs later I shortened the action screw about a 1/16th and havent had a problem since.
Just somehting quick to check before you beat youself in the head trying to figure it out.

Your necks are too thick.

Thanks for the help guys. I used a new piece of brass that I ran through my dies for the go gauge and put some tape on the end for a no-go gauge. I tried backing out the action screw and that did not change anything. My once fired empty brass will chamber. I coated a case with a sharpie and it was rubbing at the top of the shoulder. A new piece of brass would not chamber, ran it through the full length resizer and it would chamber. I did not think that the angle on a new 221 FB brass would be different than the 20 VT chamber. I must have ran all my original brass through the full length resizer. Thanks again for the help, I learned a good tip on coating the case.