Thread: BA13 case head separation

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings ebf,
I have a BA13 in .308 and have had no problems in spite of using fairly elderly cases. I keep my loads quite low as the rifle is a packable takedown for trips where the primary activity is not hunting. It seems from your description that you have set the shoulder back too far and the elderly brass has finished the job. There also seems to be a disconnect between your measured fired brass length and the no go gauge. The BA13 is a quite springy action due to its break open type, quite safe with factory loads but hot handloads or dodgy brass not so much.
Regards Grandpamac.

Yeah, I wondered about that. Using the hornady headspace gauge (0.400) that I did the fireformed cases with, I get 1.620 and 1.624 when measuring the gauges.

I got some once fired Federal brass from a friend last night. That measured 1.626, so will load a couple of those and see how they go (with body die adjusted correctly this time, haha).