What is your sequence?

[Walker1]

When reloading what sequence do you do it in? My Hornady book says to trim before resizing. Wouldn't that change the overall length? I have a RCBS prep station. What should I put in it and what order should I do it?

 

[gunpower]

When reloading what sequence do you do it in? My Hornady book says to trim before resizing. Wouldn't that change the overall length? I have a RCBS prep station. What should I put in it and what order should I do it?

Resize before you trim.If you trim before sizing, you will have all your cases at different lenghts.

 

[SBruce]

If I use once fired cases, I first sort them for neck or case wall thickness. Then I'll deprime (by hand) and uniform pockets and flash holes. Then I'll put a light chamfer on the necks (so they go into and out of the die nicely). Next, I'll clean and lube the neck and then neck size the case. Then sort for concentricity or "run out" on the sized neck (maybe not necessary if using a bushing die without the expander ball). Next, trim and chamfer again if needed or sort out extra long and extra short cases. Finally, I'll sort by weight (now that they are all the same exterior dimension due to being fired once and sorted well). I prime by hand and load.

If I am shooting a case that has been loaded more than once, it differs a little. I'll still deprime by hand, but then just brush the pockets clean. Next, lube and FL size the case (if determined necessary). Then tumble to remove lube and trim/chamfer (if necessary). Possibly sort for concentricity/run out on the necks, but sometimes the FL size process will throw alot of cases out of concentricity. Finally, prime and load.

I will neck size as often as I can. When the cases start getting hard to chamber or extract, then I'll FL size. These methods are due to standard press dies. Custom FL dies or arbor press dies or bushing style dies can let a guy get by with less "runout" sorting and then you could FL size every time if you wanted to. The custom dies or bushing dies won't stretch the case as much either. There are alot of different measurments that I make while handloading, but that's a long story.

I've seen alot of cases get stretched a good amount (.010") just by the sizeing process alone, especially FL sizing.........so as mentioned earlier; always size before trimming.

These are just my methods, they work very well for me although quite time consuming in the early stages of brass preperation and sorting.

 

[Walker1]

Thanks for the info. I thought I was to resize before trimming but wanted to make sure. I did not realize that there is less prep work with cases that have been fired more than once. I will have to make sure to separate those.

 

[SBruce]

Thanks for the info. I thought I was to resize before trimming but wanted to make sure. I did not realize that there is less prep work with cases that have been fired more than once. I will have to make sure to separate those.

There can be less prep work, assuming that the prep work was all done previously and that the cases have been fired in the same rifle thereafter. If you have a bunch of cases and some have been fired more than once, then you might be better off treating the whole lot like never fired or once fired brass. Especially if some were fired in other guns or their origin is unknown.

What I mean is; prep and uniform all of them. FL size all of them if any feel tight in the chamber. Uniform Pockets and Flash Holes on all of them, trim and chamfer all of them, ect. Then you have a whole bunch of cases that are prepped uniformed and ready to go. Once you find your "best load" then it's simple to charge em, seat bullets and have a whole lot of consistent ammo on your shelf to practice and hunt with.

 

[Nalgi]

I resize before I trim

for the reason you stated. resizing does lengthen the case. check for yourself

 

[Auto-X Fil]

For low pressure rounds like .308:

Run dirty brass through a Lee Collet die and reprime in the same step. Done. The Collet Die produces so little neck growth I can ignore it for many reloadings. I have no problem getting 0.5 MOA with dropping un-weighed charges and flying through brass prep like this, so why bother? I do use precision dies and a good powder measure that's always within 0.1 grain.

For 300 WSM and other rounds that won't feed unless full-length resized:

Lube
Resize
Trim
Polish
Clean out flash holes
Reprime.

 

[johnnyk]

For virgin brass I always de-burr the flash hole and full length resize them. For subsequent firings, Lube the inside of the case necks and then lube the outside. Wipe excess of neck/shoulder area to prevent dimples in shoulder area. Neck size enough to bump the shoulder for easy chambering. clean the primer pocket with the RCBS primer pocket brush. If needed: trim to same length then deburr in/outside of mouth.
Then I take a soft bristle nylon brush that easily fits in the case, but wide enough diameter to brush the inside of the case. I twist this brush back and forth about two-three swipes and this not only cleans out a lot of the carbon deposits inside the case but also removes most of the lube from inside the neck. I wipe this brush off after ever twenty rounds to somewhat "freshen" it up.
If the cases need annealing I will do it now and after they are dry I will bag them up and label them (Fired once, trimmed, prepped and annealled, etc). I keep notes in all my case bags so I know how many firings they're at and at what stage of prepping they're in.
I have a smaller bag inside of another bag. The big one for "stock" (i.e. 2nd firing). These get prepped, loaded and shot first. The small one for after they've been fired (i.e. now 3rd firing).
This system works well for me.
I try to buy my brass for a particular caliber at the same time so I can keep up with this info. I rarely use someone else's brass as I never know the level of use or abuse (hot loads).

"For 300 WSM and other rounds that won't feed unless full-length resized:"

Never heard of this.

JohnnyK.

 

[Auto-X Fil]

It's certainly not universal, but sometimes high-pressure rounds have issues feeding smoothly if not resized fully. This only happens in some of my guns, but it's really bad on my Savage 300 WSM.

Am I perhaps bandaiding the real issue?

 

[johnnyk]

I'm talking about the sequence that starts when the bolt is pushed forward and picks up the edge of a round in the magazine. The bolt pushes it forward, through the top of the magazine to the feed ramp where it begins entering the chamber.

 

[Auto-X Fil]

My issue is a tight bolt closing. Then, a nasty tight bolt when opening, even when a round with slightly more aggressively sized brass and the same load opens cleanly with no pressure signs.

 

[Walker1]

If brass has been sized and fired through the same rifle before does it have to be resized again? Here is what I mean: I started with factory loaded ammo. After first shot with them, I FL resized them just enough to bump the shoulder back .001. Now I am wanting to reload them again and put some in my rifle and they chamber and eject without any problems.

 

[SBruce]

If brass has been sized and fired through the same rifle before does it have to be resized again? Here is what I mean: I started with factory loaded ammo. After first shot with them, I FL resized them just enough to bump the shoulder back .001. Now I am wanting to reload them again and put some in my rifle and they chamber and eject without any problems.

You should be good to go, since you FL sized them and bumped the shoulder back. You may not have to FL size your cases (depends on alot of things), I've had a couple of different rifles that only needed neck sizing, and you can usually buy a neck only resize die. But unless you're shooting a tight neck gun and using "fitted neck" cases, you will have to size the neck back down after every time the cases are fired...........the FL dies take care of this, but sometimes work the case more than necessary.

 

[Trickymissfit]

I don't trim my cases unless they need trimming. I now the exact chamber neck length in each rifle I own, and keep a chart on each gun. I then trim at about .020" short of the max chamber length (some rifles have a neck that is .070" longer than the case!) I do full length size the case before trimming the case length. After decapping the cases I will then clean them up in a vibratory bowl, and after that give them a close exam. Once that's done, I then decide on what I'm doing next. If they were neck turned cases, I will leave the sizer ball off of the stem when I full length size the cases. Next I will neck size the brass if needed. I used to full length size the brass after cleaning, but had too much trouble with decapping pins.
After the above is done I prime the brass by hand or in my Forster press. From there I'm just like everybody else
gary