Are you beating up your brass?!
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Alex Wheeler
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The heavy bolt lift comes from the front ring of the action stretching and or lug seats compressing enough to allow the brass to grow longer than the chamber. Since brass yields sooner than steel the action will return to normal size after the pressure is gone but the brass does not. Depending on the action and brass, this does not mean its junk. It does not mean its grown in diameter or loosened up a primer pocket. Alpha is a good example. I have ran good brass up to heavy bolt lift many many many times and ran it through a fl die and its still going strong. So long as the primer pockets have not expanded you did not hurt it. Case web expansion is what ruins cases, that does not always occur when you get stiff bolt lift. But if your running cheap brass, Id agree. By the time you get to the pressure required to give stiff bolt you most likely have expanded the case head enough to wreck it. Just my experiance.
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