Small Base Die???

[41mag]

I have several rifles in several same calibers. Some calibers of which I have MIL SURP cases for.

My question is, can I use say the .308 SB die to body size .243 cases and then run them through a Lee collet die for final neck and shoulder sizing, and similarly run 25-05 and 270 cases through an '06 SB die and do likewise?

I have a couple buckets of .243 brass which is mostly once fired, some has a few loads through it. Some of it after standard sizing and loading, will chamber in all three of my rifles and some won't. I simply want to size all of what I haven't already loaded to minimum size so I don't have to sort through it all and devide it accordingly when I get ready to load a few boxes of ammo. I do not load to BR standards in any of these rifles as the developed loads shoot very well. I just hate it when I finish a box and several of them will not chamber in the rifle they were loaded for.

Same goes for the 25-06 and 270 cases. No telling how many I have of the .270's but I know it is close to a full 5gal bucket, with several gallon bags of it that I use for hunting loads. With the 25's, I have three full gallon bags of and one of them I know was once fired from a rifle that the reamer did a number on the chamber. They are great cases but will still not chamber after standard sizing in either of my rifles. Not that I will be using them for anything great but the way things are I hate to toss them simply due to sizing issues.

Is there something that would prevent this from working, or should I just go ahead and go for it? Right now with the abundance of surplus cases I have in 30-06 I will have to get a SB die for that anyway, and I already have the .308, so at most I am looking to get a couple sets of Lee dies to add to them. From what I have gathered the Lee Collets are good for holding tolerances in the right places so figured they would be the cheapest route to go.

If you have any suggestions one way or another please feel free to throw in on this, as it stands now however I have a LOT of brass that is just gathering dust. My only thought of issues would be the shoulders being set forward when going through the larger caliber SB die, and then not being able to set them back with a standard for caliber die. Still, I am not sure it wouldn't work out fine either.

Thanks, and post up your thoughts on this.

[mo]

Don't know if you're suppose to, but I've done that same thing before, Just take out expander ball.

[gray wolf]

Did I miss something in your post??
Just wondering why a standard f/l die will not get the jpb done.
Most of the times a S/B die is used for semi autos. Just asking.

GW.

[41mag]

Grey Wolf,

The 243 cases will fit fine from a standard FL die in my Mod 70. however I have a Sako Forrester and a Rem. 760 in which some will and some won't. In the 760 most that will, are still tight, and some still hang sometimes in the chamber 3/4 or so in.

The 25 cases I have issues with even after being FL sized will still not chamber in either of the 25's I have. The chamber they were fired in was reamed with a brand new reamer which was on the very outside of the specs, and they are belled out similar to the way some mil surp are after being fired in a machine gun. Even after FL sizing they spring back enough to hang up in the tighter chambers.

Here is a run down on the 25's expansion ring area sizes before and after sizing,
New case - .464"
Remington - fired .469", sized .467"
Ackley- new .465", fired .469", sized .468"
Others- fired .474", sized .470" (same die used on the Remington's cases)

As for the surplus cases, I learned long ago some will work, and some won't and the best thing is to just size them small to begin with and do away with the worry. I had some 308's loaded up for my Ruger Compact and when I hit the woods I found on the third shot into a pack of hogs, that the bolt would not close, not only that but I had shoved it hard enough trying, that I had to head to the barn and use a cleaning rod to help get the shell unstuck.

I am just asking to see if anyone knows of issue that might arise from this type sizing, since I already have the 308 SB die i figured I would give it a while, and I would hate to chunk the 25 cases if this won't work. They are hard enough to size in a FL die, as it is. I darn sure don't want them stuck inside my tight chamber on my custom rifle.

[boomtube]

"My question is, can I use say the .308 SB die to body size .243 cases and then run them through a Lee collet die for final neck and shoulder sizing, and similarly run 25-05 and 270 cases through an '06 SB die and do likewise?"

Yes. For the smaller cases it will be the same as if you had a SB body bump die.

The Lee Collet Neck sizer doesn't affect shoulders.

[cabelas90]

I don't see how this will work for any of the cartridges listed as the sb parent die for lack of better term has a shorter shoulder than the rest.
for example
Shoulder lengths
30/06 - .125
.270 - .208
25/06 - .238
.308- .152
.243- .244
It appears to me that the parent die and the metoned catridge's all have the same shoulder angle but if you size the .270 with the sb 30/06 die wouldn't you crush the shoulder a few thousandths?
Please correct me if my theroy is wrong as im pretty new to reloading and I just useing info from my reloading book. this is just how it makes sense to me.
Thanks Zach

[boomtube]

"Please correct me if my theroy is wrong as im pretty new to reloading and I just useing info from my reloading book. this is just how it makes sense to me."

You are THINKING, and that's always a good thing, but you are wrong. Actually, the shoulder length, as such, doesn't come into play here because the shoulder angle and the body-to-head length is the same for those cartridges.

It's correct that using the larger cartridge die will leave a small portion of the shoulder and all of the neck unsized, but that's true of bump dies in general. In this instance, both the lengths of the shoulder and neck are automatically "compensated", or corrected for, since the neck simply contacts the shoulder at the correct diameter on the shoulder slope. A small portion of the shoulder will be unchanged but that will rarely present any real difficulty in chambering and that's the core issue.