hard to chamber rounds

[deerjackie]

my oal are fine but sometimes my rounds chamber hard any answers why this happens? 20 out of 100 chamber hard and all were same oal before and after bullet was seated.

[persistentprogrammer]

What type of action are you loading into? I had this problem with my bolt action 700 vs, the bolt face was building up with brass shavings because it has a fixed extractor.

[myronman3]

it could be that you arent setting the shoulder back enough, or bullets are seated too far out.  do you have this problem with factory ammo?    dont force the rounds in,  if  they dont want to go easy. set them aside.  my guess is the shoulder needs to be set back a little more.   take some of the cases that dont want to go, pull the bullet and dump the powder.   see if the case will chamber easily. if not,  deprimer the case and bump the shoulder back a little at a time (by screwing the sizing die in) to see if that remedies the problem.

   you could also go through your brass and see if there are some unloaded pieces that are giving you the same problem.  if so,  try setting the shoulders back on some of those. 
     
    let us know what you find.

[davem270win]

Be sure you're resizing die is set up correctly.
If you're loading for a pump or lever, you may have to invest in a 'small base' resizing die.

[IOWA DON]

There are several possibilities:
    1. If you are using a rifle with a break-over type action the cases may be stretching and full length sizing is required.
    2. I know of two bolt action rifles where the chamber was not square with the bolt face and if the used cases were oriented correctly, they would chamber. Otherwise full length resizing was needed.
    3. I had a 700 Remington in .17 Rem for which the neck of the chamber was too short to chamber factory (standard length) cases so I chopped about 0.60 off the necks of cases so they would fit.
    4. The cases may need neck trimming for length if they have grown too long for a good chamber.
    5. The necks of your cases may be too thick for the inside diameter of the neck area of the chamber. If so, outside neck turn or try a different brand of cases. This was a problem with a friends .22-250.
    6. Maybe the shoulder area of your chamber is dirty and the cartridges cannot move far enough forward, like a powder kernal got in there.
    7. I think with some loading dies it is possible to push the neck back when seating bullets so that the outside of the shoulder will bulge out. If so, the outside diameter of the case shoulder may be larger than the inside diameter of the chamber at that location.
    8. After about 7 reloads with some cases for my 7MM STW, just neck sizing, they got too hard to chamber. In this case, full length sizing got them back so they again chamber easily. This was in a 700 Remington action.
    9. That's all I can think of but there are probably other possibilities.

[jhalcott]

  Some times a case SHOULDER is expanded when the bullet is seated. There are MANY reasons this happens . What cartridge and load are you using. How many loads have been shot from this brass???

[Dave in WV]

Are you cleaning your brass? I know a guy that had the problem and even bought small base dies and cleaning the brass was what fixed it. Was all of the brass fired in your firearm?  Does it start to chamber ok and then get stiff as the rear of the case chambers? Did you check the case length ? If not they may need trimmed.

[beemanbeme]

We really need more info but if you are reloading this brass as a unit. That is to say, it has all been reloaded the same number of times, etc and only some of it is hard to chamber, I'm gonna guess that you are short stroking your press on some of the rounds.
  Exactly what are you calling "hard to chamber"?  Sometimes, if you are neck sizing, the case will get blown out enough that it is a very snug fit that requires a slight effort to break the bolt over into battery.  Are the cases that are hard to chamber within limits as to length?  And will a bullet slip into the neck of the fired case? 
If the cases are within length limits and a bullet will slip into the neck of the fired case and you are cycling the press fully thru it's cycle and you have chamfered the mouth of the cases and aren't collapsing the shoulders of the cases and it still take a little extra effort to close the bolt, I wouldn't worry about it. If it is a concern, run them all thru a F/L die and start over.