Bolt won't close on reloads

I'm reloading for a .223 and have a Redding FL neck die set to bump the shoulder 0.0015 so that I don't overwork the brass. The brass is Starline that has been fired in the chamber and reloaded a few times. I have a stainless pin tumbler that I use to clean the brass. It is decapped and then cleaned. This time after cleaning I ran it all through an annealing process on an annealer that I made. (that works great by the way) After I annealed the brass I ran it through the pin tumbler again so it would stay nice and shiny.

I decided to try a box of Hornady 73 grain ELD-Match bullets so I measure the distance to the lands and loaded one up then tried to chamber it and it would not go. The bolt stayed open as if I had a No-Go gauge in the chamber! Thinking maybe I got the numbers on the distance to the lands wrong I seated the bullet another 30 thousands deeper and tried again and it still would not allow the bolt to close. I chambered an empty case from the lot that I had cleaned and annealed and it worked fine. I loaded bullets into five more resized cases without powder and primer and none of them would let the bolt close.

Running my finger over the cleaned cases I discovered a slight lip on the edge of the case mouth. It was visible when held at just the right angle. Thinking that was unusual I ran a case by my chamfering tool and seated a bullet and voila, the round chambered no problem! To verify I took one of the previous cases that would not chamber with a bullet seated and I pulled the bullet, chamfered the case mouth, reseated the bullet and it too chambered no problem.

An internet search turned up the following info: https://www.varmintal.com/arelo.htm

Scroll down to the sections on "Neck Mouth" and "Polishing Brass". It seems that pin tumbling brass beats the case mouth and can, and does, cause a lip to form on the case mouth inside and out and can work harden the case mouth. (so much for annealing) I don't know if that means that I let the brass tumble for too long or if the Starline brass is softer than the other brass that I use.

I thought this was interesting and posted to let those interested know.

What type die are you using, a full length die or a neck sizing die

1. A standard neck sizing die does not touch the case shoulder or case body.
2. A full length die if not adjusted down far enough can squeeze the case shoulder forward and not chamber.

Below on the left a case that was wet tumbled for too long, and before tumbling the case had been trimmed to length and chamfered. On the right is a brand new case right out of the bag and tumbled at the factory.

https://i.imgur.com/CIxnlIW.jpg

Bottom line, trim your cases after wet tumbling or tumbling to remove dry media.

I'm using a Redding full length sizing die with neck bushing. Unless this rifle has a chamber that is shorter than my other one the cases are not long enough to trim. I tried and they don't even reach the cutting head on my trimmer. The lip formed from the wet pin tumbler is real easy to remove with the chamfering tool. I tried to measure it and it is about one thousandth for a total diameter increase of 0.002. It was hard to believe that would be enough to keep the bolt from closing but it is.

Great info. Thanks for the heads up

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Originally Posted by Idaho

I'm using a Redding full length sizing die with neck bushing. Unless this rifle has a chamber that is shorter than my other one the cases are not long enough to trim. I tried and they don't even reach the cutting head on my trimmer. The lip formed from the wet pin tumbler is real easy to remove with the chamfering tool. I tried to measure it and it is about one thousandth for a total diameter increase of 0.002. It was hard to believe that would be enough to keep the bolt from closing but it is.

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Question, are you using the Redding expander with your bushing die?

If the case mouth is peened it will create more drag and the expander "may" be excessively pulling on the necks and moving the shoulder forward.

big, I do not use the expander ball. I paid close attention when I set up the Redding die, in fact I have a second die for another rifle set up the same way. I know that the die can cause the case length to 'grow' by a few thousands before it actually bumps the shoulder. I witnessed that and kept adjusting my sizing die down ever so slightly until I saw the 1 to 1 1/2 thousandths of change in the case headspace. I'm starting to wonder if your comment, I think it was you, about chamber length could be on to something. I seriously need to measure the length of the chamber to see if this rifle has a short one. In order to do that I will need to order another tool. That may explain why the small rim that formed during pin tumbling is sufficient to prevent the round from chambering with a bullet seated into the case.
My purpose for posting this was to let others know that tumbling can put a lip on the case mouth that can cause a problem.
I appreciate your comments. Thanks

Another good example for my list of reasons not to tumble my brass. lol
I guess some of us like things being shiney and some of us just don't care.
I do on occaission use a mild Scotch Brite pad, but not on all and not very often.
But I do really like my RCBS case prep machine for cleaning the primer pockets and inside of the necks.
It will also deburr the necks after trimming, which are other jobs I hate doing.

Agree with yobuck, every piece of my brass is hand cleaned at least twice per reloading. Spinning the neck in a paper towel dampened with rubbing alcohol, you will "feel" the slightest imperfection/flaw. Some you wouldn't see by visual only. Every once in a while I may spin the case in 0000 steel wool to shine it up.
My cleaning/prep methods might not work for volume shooters but I am only shooting 1000-2000 rounds each year.

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Originally Posted by yobuck

Another good example for my list of reasons not to tumble my brass. lol
I guess some of us like things being shiney and some of us just don't care.
I do on occaission use a mild Scotch Brite pad, but not on all and not very often.
But I do really like my RCBS case prep machine for cleaning the primer pockets and inside of the necks.
It will also deburr the necks after trimming, which are other jobs I hate doing.

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Yep, I'm into shiny. I like the brass clean when I anneal it and as it tarnishes from subsequent reloads and firings it tells me that it's time to clean and anneal again.

My case prep machine is my dewalt drill. Chuck up the brass and run it past the chamfering and deburring tool and spin it into a steel wool cup to smooth the edges.

By the way, I had a load for 60 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips today give a standard deviation of 3.4. WooHoo! A load for 73gr Hornady ELD-Match bullets ran a 1/4 inch group of four rounds but the 5th dropped out to 3/8's of an inch. I'm learning.

I have been wet tumbling thousands of brass using steel pins and never noticed any damage to the lip of the neck.
However, I have found that a slightly misadjusted seating die can form a slight ridge on the lip of the neck that could cause a ragged edge when a bullet is seated.

The only time I have seen nicks like that shown in your picture on the lip of my brass is occasionally when an ejected brass pops off the shooting bench and hits the concrete on its lip.

After depriming, I clean & size, then rinse the lube off the brass and dry the brass.

Then I chamfer after I the brass is checked for length to see if any need trimming.
So I think I would see neck damage from wet tumbling when I inspected and checked the length before I chamfer the brass. I haven't found any yet.

I wet tumble my cases "BUT" it can pound the case mouth and it is made worse the longer you wet tumble.

The fix for this is to trim and deburr your wet tumbled cases each time you tumble. I started wet tumbling after my sons talked dad into getting firearms that throw perfectly good brass away and makes you go look for it. Meaning I got tired of my AR15 cases scratching my dies and cases. These cases that were bouncing on the ground can pickup dirt and grit that can get embedded in the sizing die. And wet tumbling scrubs the cases clean of any embedded dirt and grit that scratches your cases.

And there is a second problem with wet tumbled cases when the case mouth becomes peened and not trimmed and deburred. On many resizing dies there can be a rough edge at the neck shoulder junction left over after factory polishing. This area of the die will pick up brass from the peened case mouth and soon you will have brass rubbing on brass and scratched necks. And brass can also build up on the bushing in bushing sizing dies or titantium nitride (TiN) coated pistol dies which is strange.

Below in several forums many reloaders were complaining about scratched necks. And the die will need to be polished to remove the brass from the neck shoulder junction of the die.

This happened to me and I used a snug fitting shotgun cleaning mop chucked in a drill and used J&B Bore Paste, automotive rubbing compound, etc applied to the mop to polish the die.

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n...assRCBSDie.jpg

If you're experiencing peening of the cartridge case mouth, did you try increasing the amount of tumbling media, or decreasing the number of cases? As you load and start tumbling your cases, media moves into the cases and is not available to cushion the cases from banging into each other. The secrete is to find the best balance of water, media or size of media, cases AND tumbling time. Sometimes less is more when it comes to tumbling time.

As for the burr problem that cropped up, sounds like you have a very tight "no neck turn" chamber. Like you, I anneal and go through the whole clean, trim, chamfer cycle about every third time for my 6BR.

For my bolt action 223's, I only neck size and never get more than a slightly snug chambering round. Almost never trim, or anneal, and still shoot sub half minute groups, but I'm not a competition marksman.

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Originally Posted by Texas10

If you're experiencing peening of the cartridge case mouth, did you try increasing the amount of tumbling media, or decreasing the number of cases? As you load and start tumbling your cases, media moves into the cases and is not available to cushion the cases from banging into each other. The secrete is to find the best balance of water, media or size of media, cases AND tumbling time. Sometimes less is more when it comes to tumbling time.

As for the burr problem that cropped up, sounds like you have a very tight "no neck turn" chamber. Like you, I anneal and go through the whole clean, trim, chamfer cycle about every third time for my 6BR.

For my bolt action 223's, I only neck size and never get more than a slightly snug chambering round. Almost never trim, or anneal, and still shoot sub half minute groups, but I'm not a competition marksman.

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You are correct, this rifle must have a tight neck. I'm not a competition shooter, just a varmint shooter who does not like to miss. Small targets at 500 yards. My other 223 shoots 1/2 inch groups at 200 yards. I think that is 1/4 MOA. I just finished pillar and glass bedding the action on the #2 rifle today in a new Boyd's Pro-Varmint stock so after it sets up for a couple of days I'm going to head to the range with more test loads. I'm looking for bug holes.

I have Lapua brass and a separate Redding FL neck sizing die set up for it and Starline brass with it's own Redding die. Both only bump the shoulders 0.0015. This issue with the peened necks was a new one for me so I thought I would share it. If nothing else I hope that reloaders will learn to try a new round in the chamber before they load up a 100 of newly sized cases. I know I sure will.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

You are correct, this rifle must have a tight neck. I'm not a competition shooter, just a varmint shooter who does not like to miss. Small targets at 500 yards. My other 223 shoots 1/2 inch groups at 200 yards. I think that is 1/4 MOA. I just finished pillar and glass bedding the action on the #2 rifle today in a new Boyd's Pro-Varmint stock so after it sets up for a couple of days I'm going to head to the range with more test loads. I'm looking for bug holes.

I have Lapua brass and a separate Redding FL neck sizing die set up for it and Starline brass with it's own Redding die. Both only bump the shoulders 0.0015. This issue with the peened necks was a new one for me so I thought I would share it. If nothing else I hope that reloaders will learn to try a new round in the chamber before they load up a 100 of newly sized cases. I know I sure will.

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It's not a question of (must have), it either does or it dosent.
For an easy check, take a fired case (unresized) and insert a bullet tip first into it.
If it just falls into the case then its a typical factory chamber which makes neck turning just a waste of time.
Snug neck would be with very slight resistance, and tight meaning it wont go in, means a trip to a good gunsmith or turning the brass.
Id personally pick the good gunsmith route and have him make it a snug fit.

I think your neck peening is because you are annealing first and then putting that softened brass in the pin tumbler.. Try cleaning first and then annealing. After, if you need those cases shining bright dry tumble in corn cob. You should always pin tumble cases while they are still work hardened to avoid beating the hell out of them.

Paddy, I do it the way you stated. Clean first, then anneal, then resize. I don't know if I ran them too long or what. I just posted this as a lesson learned for others.

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Originally Posted by yobuck

It's not a question of (must have), it either does or it dosent.
For an easy check, take a fired case (unresized) and insert a bullet tip first into it.
If it just falls into the case then its a typical factory chamber which makes neck turning just a waste of time.
Snug neck would be with very slight resistance, and tight meaning it wont go in, means a trip to a good gunsmith or turning the brass.
Id personally pick the good gunsmith route and have him make it a snug fit.

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Thanks for the tip. I will check that out.

Below on the left is a case that was wet tumbled too long, I fell asleep and it tumbled for over six hours. Before the wet tumbling this case had been trimmed and deburred so you can see the pounding the case mouth took and the peening. The case on the right is right out of the factory bag and you can see the effects of factory tumbling.

The cure for wet tumbling is to trim and deburr the cases after each tumbling. I now have a timer on my tumblers and even after one hour of wet tumbling if you have a magnifying glass you will see dings in the case mouth. You can even ding up the case mouths after dry tumbling in a media separator because their is nothing to cushion the brass from hitting each other. So remember to use the "genital" separating cycle. :rolleyes:

https://i.imgur.com/CIxnlIW.jpg

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Originally Posted by bigedp51

Below on the left is a case that was wet tumbled too long, I fell asleep and it tumbled for over six hours. Before the wet tumbling this case had been trimmed and deburred so you can see the pounding the case mouth took and the peening. The case on the right is right out of the factory bag and you can see the effects of factory tumbling.

The cure for wet tumbling is to trim and deburr the cases after each tumbling. I now have a timer on my tumblers and even after one hour of wet tumbling if you have a magnifying glass you will see dings in the case mouth. You can even ding up the case mouths after dry tumbling in a media separator because their is nothing to cushion the brass from hitting each other. So remember to use the "genital" separating cycle. :rolleyes:

https://i.imgur.com/CIxnlIW.jpg

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biged, you posted this pic early on in this discussion and it is quite telling and much appreciated. This issue has not cropped up for me before with either Lapua or LC brass. This batch was Starline so I will have to watch to see if it is just related to the type of brass or if it was because I tumbled it too long. Thank you very much for your input.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

biged, you posted this pic early on in this discussion and it is quite telling and much appreciated. This issue has not cropped up for me before with either Lapua or LC brass. This batch was Starline so I will have to watch to see if it is just related to the type of brass or if it was because I tumbled it too long. Thank you very much for your input.

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I have found this happening mostly when I tumble annealed brass that has been trimmed and chamferred. After annealing it is relatively soft compared to not and after trimming and chamferring, the mouths are pretty thin at the edge and will peen easily.

Well I have no idea, so I will stay out of this one, good luck !!!