Greetings All,
A miserable day in HB today. Yes we do get them. Firewood collection and lawn mowing is on hold so I have been having a play with the Redding shell holder sets and comparator that my son dropped off on Sunday. For some reason for which I am unable to account I have more than one rifle in a number of calibres. To date I have been neck sizing to reduce case stretching but have become convinced that minimal full length resizing together with frequent annealing would be be a better way to go.
First cab of the rank was the 6.5 x55. I have a Tikka and a M38, the latter with a miss matched bolt. I started by measuring the case length to datum for new Lapua cases, full length sized and fired cases for each rifle. I had suspected that my die set was oversizing the cases and this was the case. Some time ago I had adjusted the FL die so that sized cases would just chamber without resistance in my T3. This measured with a shoulder bump of 0.05mm or a little over 0.001 inches. My son does not have a shell holder kit for this head size so I will go with my die setting. The M38 chamber is about 0.12mm longer than the T3 but is only fired with light loads and the cases seldom need FL sizing so I will persist with neck sizing for this one.
Next was the .223. Again there are two rifles a Tikka T3 and a Remington VSSF. The VSSF has a slightly shorter chamber and fired cases from this rifle will chamber in the T3 but not the other way round. I rounded up some old .223 cases that had been fired in my Brno before it was sold and worked my way down through the shell holder kit measuring the lengths as I went. It turned out that the T3 chambers cases freely with the + 0.002 inch but not the + 0.004 inch shell holder and the VSSF needs the standard shell holder. The reduction in length to datum was right around 0.05 mm or 0.002 inches so right on the button.
Tomorrow I need to be close to the phone so it's the .308's turn.
Regards Grandpamac.
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