First major boo boo

[bman73]

Today I went out to the range for some playtime and after the 3 round noticed a serious issue with my reloading, as the picture shows. I have after some use of the search function tracked the issue down to me bumping the shoulder too far. Don't know how yet but that is kind of immaterial at this point. What I was wondering is can I just pull the bullets and powder, then drop it back down to a lower charge and fire form the brass back to my proper chamber dimensions or have I just destroyed 150 bucks worth of brass? It is a 358 Norma mag, expensive to buy when I can find it so I would really prefer to salvage it if at all possible. Thanks in advance

P.S. am aware that I can use 338 win mag brass but prefer not to, my hunting partner shoots that and I want zero chance of either one of us grabbing the other guys shells by accident

 

[HARPERC]

The price of components makes it really suck to make a mistake. What's the history of your brass make, times fired, load, etc.
PS Prince George is always one of our landmarks when we head north. Great place B.C.

 

[Camshaft]

yea, pull the bullets, and reduce the load about 5%

 

[bman73]

The price of components makes it really suck to make a mistake. What's the history of your brass make, times fired, load, etc.
PS Prince George is always one of our landmarks when we head north. Great place B.C.

the one on the right is one of 20 that I just got last week, never been fired till today. The others I have had about 15 years and have been through 10 to 15 times or so now. If I lose them I guess it's kind of expected after this long. Still have 36 left of my original 50. My load is as follows

225 grn sierra game king
75 grns imr 4350
mv 2850 with less than 10 fps spread in a 10 shot group
federal 215m primer
norma brass

have been using this load for over 10 years now as it has been a consistantly accurate and not very hard on brass load, untill today that is lol.

 

[HARPERC]

If it was me I'd probably just shoot the new ones, and ditch the old ones. At the very least give the old ones a critical look for a ring where those 2 separated. Magnifying glass outside, feel for the beginning of a "crack" inside with a reshaped paper clip. It would also be a good time to start keeping brass in separate batches, if you aren't. Unless you resized new brass-the shoulder on the new cases shouldn't have issues. It would be interesting to compare your fired case, to your reloads and get a better idea if you really are pushing the shoulder as far as you think, or if the brass is just getting tired.
Good Luck

 

[bman73]

If it was me I'd probably just shoot the new ones, and ditch the old ones. At the very least give the old ones a critical look for a ring where those 2 separated. Magnifying glass outside, feel for the beginning of a "crack" inside with a reshaped paper clip. It would also be a good time to start keeping brass in separate batches, if you aren't. Unless you resized new brass-the shoulder on the new cases shouldn't have issues. It would be interesting to compare your fired case, to your reloads and get a better idea if you really are pushing the shoulder as far as you think, or if the brass is just getting tired.
Good Luck

I have been keeping the brass seperated, wanted to see if there was an accuracy difference between old and new. The picture is of poor quality, was taken with my phone in low light, but even the brand new one has a crack in it in the same place as the old ones did. I stopped shooting after only 2 of the new brass as I was worried about destroying all of my brass. Unfortunately I had FL sized even the new ones at the same time as I loaded the old ones. Got in a mood to reload and did 60 at one go. I have ruled out over charging the powder as I zero my scale every time I start a batch. I also weigh every charge before dumping into the case, I am actually so anal about powder charges I use a pair of tweezers to pull individual kernels of powder out of the pan to get every one the same. May not be needed but that is just the way I have always done it. I am wondering if seating depth would have any chance of doing this as well. I f I had seated the bullets too far away from the lands would that jump cause issues? My COAL is 3.285 I honestly don't know what I originally started with as i havn't moved the locking ring on the die for about 8 years. Just found what worked and never touched it again. This gun has only about 1000 rounds through it and I honestly have never pushed it too hard so I don't think it could be a throat errosion problem yet....................could it? Once again any and all help and advice appreciated. Thank you

 

[acloco]

Better to be safe than sorry. Pitch the brass and be done.

Unfortunately, would rather have you pitch the brass than the alternative of having your face/eyes/hands....let alone the scope/rifle/stock take the brunt of something ugly.

 

[Loner]

You can size the neck up to .35 or 375 with a ball expander and then resize, head spacing
off the ring you leave near the bottom of the neck. I've done it with 22-250 brass and
it worked fine. I used a 6mm ball expander.

 

[Apex Custom Rifles]

What action are you using this on. I know you said you had 1,000 rounds on it, but I guess there's always a chance of set back if it's an older Mil-surp receiver.

If not, I would back off on the FL die or just go to neck sizing, with the occasionoal FL if need be.

 

[bman73]

What action are you using this on. I know you said you had 1,000 rounds on it, but I guess there's always a chance of set back if it's an older Mil-surp receiver.

If not, I would back off on the FL die or just go to neck sizing, with the occasionoal FL if need be.

it is on a mauser 98, but the barrel was a custom made one and the bolt face was opened up when I had the gun built that 1000 or so rounds ago. The last batch that I shot out of it 3 weeks ago showed absolutly no sign of head seperation at all, thats why I'm pretty sure that I did something different this time. Just driving myself batty trying to figure out what it was and how it happened so I never have to go through this again. The worst part about this for me is I was pretty proud of the accuracy I was getting, I thought I was getting pretty good at this reloading thing. Has definately knocked me down a notch or two for sure

 

[HARPERC]

Your load doesn't look too hot, reviewed my Nosler book, and it's not a minimum load, but your velocity is where it shoud be.
1000 rounds doesn't seem like much-I played with the long magnum Ackley version in .358, and got that many. A borescope would help define this a bit better. I don't think being worn would cause this kind of problem.
The old brass giving up, doesn't trouble me, but brand new brass, in a cartridge that has a belt for headspace even if you pushed it back sizing it, should just fireform. I wouldn't expect it to last doing that, but once?
I'd pull everything at this point, but is there any possibility of a powder mix up? If you've got something to measure with, compare loaded and fired dimensions against what saami states. A trip to the gunsmith to check things over, seems in order.
Just thinking with my mouth open, but it was fine last batch 3 weeks ago, and has suddenly had a major change. I'd check everything, but I'd triple check powder.

 

[bman73]

Your load doesn't look too hot, reviewed my Nosler book, and it's not a minimum load, but your velocity is where it shoud be.
1000 rounds doesn't seem like much-I played with the long magnum Ackley version in .358, and got that many. A borescope would help define this a bit better. I don't think being worn would cause this kind of problem.
The old brass giving up, doesn't trouble me, but brand new brass, in a cartridge that has a belt for headspace even if you pushed it back sizing it, should just fireform. I wouldn't expect it to last doing that, but once?
I'd pull everything at this point, but is there any possibility of a powder mix up? If you've got something to measure with, compare loaded and fired dimensions against what saami states. A trip to the gunsmith to check things over, seems in order.
Just thinking with my mouth open, but it was fine last batch 3 weeks ago, and has suddenly had a major change. I'd check everything, but I'd triple check powder.

Powder was even from the same can, had 12 from a new lot that I had seperated as I am always leery of mixing lots just in case 1 is hotter than the other and didn't end up shooting them today anyways. After seeing the 2 brand new ones cracking as well I just called it quits for the day. It did kind of rattle me to see a case come out in 2 peices to be honest with you. It was a first for me and all I could think about was the worst case scenario of the action blowing up in my face. Not too sure if it could of or not but the image did get stuck in my mind. I am in the process of trying to find a neck sizing die so I don't do this again, the only one I have found is the Hornady and it's on backorder only from wholesale sports. Any suggestions anyone?

 

[bman73]

Okay so I have now backed off my die, took one of the .338 brass I have laying around that had already been through this gun 2x now, used a candle to soot the neck and ran it through the press. It looks okay to me but I also thought it was okay before as well. Here is a pic of what I ended up with, let me know if it looks like I might still be going to far with it or should I give it a try at this depth?

 

[HARPERC]

I'll keep watching hoping you find it, maybe it will be obvious to someone and they will kick in. So far I haven't told you anything you don't know, and I'm at the end of my meager skill set.
I hope you find it in a hurry I know some bear units open about this time, and the others real soon. Good luck