Tight chamber

[Coldfinger]

Remington 7 predator 22-250.
seems like the chamber is a tad tight. Runs Remington factory stuff good. Resized cases fit tight and leaving a ring on shoulder. Any ideas? The pics are Hornady new brass thru fl RCBS die. I do have a 22-250 reamer and t-handle if a slight touch up would do.

 

[David Emerson]

Remington 7 predator 22-250.
seems like the chamber is a tad tight. Runs Remington factory stuff good. Resized cases fit tight and leaving a ring on shoulder. Any ideas? The pics are Hornady new brass thru fl RCBS die. I do have a 22-250 reamer and t-handle if a slight touch up would do.

There are 2 ways to remedy this. Being the factory rounds are ok it seems like your die is a bit long. I think the easiest would be trim a little off the bottom of your resizer with a belt sander.

 

[DUSTY NOGGIN]

the contact on the outside corner without any wear on the center of the shoulder seems odd to me... usually you will see some contact at the shoulder angle at ot real close to the datum .. may retest with soot rather than sharpie

what i do see is contact at the trimto length , you sure it isnt hitting there ??? carbon ring

 

[jd5521]

Is the case mouth flaring a bit? Hard to tell.

 

[Coldfinger]

Length is a tad under spec so I didn't trim. Figured it grow a bit after firing. Am going to take a bit off die.

 

[Coldfinger]

Trimmed die, why didn't I think of that !!! Worked great thanks!!!

 

[Quarter Round]

I would try a lot of different ideas before touching the die or chamber. Shell holders are cheaper.

 

[HBoothe]

David Emerson said it: maybe die too long.

My story, short form: Radical Firearms (Latin for ***), 6.5 Grendel. Tough to chamber Hornady factory ammo. Gsmith touched up chamber, fixed. Still tough to chamber reloads. Die set properly, slight cam over on press. Not quite sized properly per case gauge (didn't have that when I started reloading this cartridge). Spun up on a lathe, trimmed maybe 5-10 thousandths off die. Works fine now.

So, the relevance in that story to your situation: could have been the chamber. Not being a Radical ***, not too likely, and chambers factory ammo fine. Resized cases not fitting, maybe die not set right (operator error, doesn't seem likely) or die a tad too long (more likely I would think). Minor trimming of the die should harm nothing. If it's a bushing die, you could remove the bushing, set the die to bottom out on empty, then try "sizing" a factory loaded cartridge to see if there's any resistance. That might indicate that the die isn't low enough to even contact the factory case. Not sure if that's really necessary. Just size a case and try to chamber it empty.

FWIW.

--HC

 

[Russ661]

I'll start by saying I'm not a smith so I could be totally off base here but it sounds to me like your rifle chamber is biased toward the short side of the tolerance. Not a big deal but if I was you I would have checked all my shell holders first (you have more than just the one, right?) looking for the shortest one in order to push the case shoulder back a tad further rather than grind on the die. Grinding the die obviously works but would have been a last resort for me.

 

[jd5521]

Are you running the same brand shell holder with the die or another brand shell holder?

 

[MZmoose]

It's the gun not the dies. I did some handloading for a friend's model 7 in .260 Rem. The chamber is tight and the throat was ridiculously short. Even rounds loaded to spec by the manuals were jamming bullets into the rifling. I had to seat the bullets so deeply that I would run out of powder space before I would get pressure signs with some powders. Really cut down on the rounds velocity. It did chamber the one box of Rem factory loads he had and showed pressure signs. I told my friend that it's such a headache to load for and not achieving that cartridges potential he should have it gunsmithed or sell it.

 

[koja]

Well,been down this road before with two remington sps and one cz american,out the box, surface rust in chamber,try your favorite way of polishing chamber.

 

[Coldfinger]

Are you running the same brand shell holder with the die or another brand shell holder?

Different shell holder. I trimmed the die mouth back and works great.

 

[Vettepilot]

But.... if a person encounters this problem, and either uses a "short" shell holder, or a shortened die, then the shoulder might be getting bumped back too far. Right?

So the correct fix I would think, would be to polish the chamber. (Well, check the shoulder bump situation before removing metal on ANY part, as the die or shell holder could have been manufactured out of spec.)

Same question when encountering chambering problems whereas it seems the case body is not getting sized down enough. (Usually remedied however by going to a small base die.)

?????

Vettepilot