Reloading woes. Pressure too high? Pressure too low? I don't know!

[GaryB]

any chance you have a bad carbon ring built up in the neck area?

I can not see a ring in the neck area, but my eyes are not the best. I'll try to check it again with another method.

Lets cover all bases how far are you off the lands,
and has this barrel been on or off lately, and if it has what did you use to head space it.

Dean

The closest to the lands was .040. Barrel has not been off since it was installed

My guess is that the cases were too short (brass headspace too long (not barrel) from not being formed to your chamber). Round fired, primer starts to back out before case touches bolt face.
Load the rounds with the bullet jammed "into" the lands. That way the case can form to the chamber and no chance of the primer backing out.

Thank you, I will do that in the future. Now that I think about it I did full length resize that brass before loading.

I have a ton of LC '11 brass; is it OK to form that with the bullets into the lands? Maybe just a starting load?

I'm still a little worried about the factory rounds, but everything else fired fine without sticking the bolt. Maybe the heat.


Thanks guys for the suggestions. Much appreciated!
Gary B.

[cranebird]

I have a ton of LC '11 brass; is it OK to form that with the bullets into the lands? Maybe just a starting load?

I have very little experience in fire forming cases but I am thinking you would want to start with at least a middle of the road charge to properly expand and fire form the brass unless the jamming to the lands provides enough pressure on its own to properly fire form the case at starting load ? I've necked down and fire formed 30-30 to 7-30 waters and found the stouter the load, the better it seemed to work for me but that may have been pure luck and at that time I did not know about crush fit or jamming to the lands. Good luck and post your results. I am watching this as I just ordered a .223AI barrel and most likely will need all the info I can get. Lol.