Quote Originally Posted by BillPa View Post
There are many thoughts, theories and ideas what causes the dreaded dounts. What befuddles me, you can have twenty sticks of brass, even our beloved Lapua using the same exact lot number of brass, sizing methods and tools some of the will develop donuts and others don't.

If donuts form I'll expand the necks all the way into and past the shoulder to push the thicker brass to the outside then turn it off just barely nicking the shoulder. That's where the little buggers like to hide. Don't go too deep otherwise you can run the risk of neck separations.



Bill
I sourced a small batch of Lapua .223 brass last fall. I was not real impressed with them but thinking I got the culled lot section as the cases provided a slightly smaller powder capacity than the majority of the other brass I've used. Norma was as consistent for group accuracy but maybe the brass is beyond my shooting abilities. I keep hearing Norma makes the Nosler brass, I paid a bit more for the Nosler brass than I could have gotten Norma or Lapua for but being prepped and ready to go, apparently you pay a premium price. I'm just trying to take as much out of the equation to get on track. This should be a simple fire form, much like the 7-30 waters I use but for whatever reason, I am having a bit of trouble with it. I'm just trying to determine if it is on my end or a minor issue with the components I have sourced to use. You bet I'll be keeping the donut theory in the back of my mind if the new batch of components don't solve the issue. I really think the undersized resizing die is the culprit. Every time I resize to .371 " body size, it has to fire form back to the .375" chamber size. If it pushes it back and forth every time, where else is the brass moving as well ? I have a way of getting around using the undersized die. When I first decided to start reloading again, I bought the lee classic loader. The hand loader kit using a reloading hammer to decap, prime, smack the case down to neck size and then to seat the bullet at the final stage .I've since moved to a press, die sets but kept the old system in the bottom of the gun cabinet. The body is not full length resizing or shoulder forming like the standard .223 die set and it is opened up so I can neck size an Ackley improved case with it. Not a permanent solution but works until I get the new components sourced....