7mm-08 bulging neck base???

[hector615]

Need some help on this one. I recently bought a Stevens 200 in 7mm-08 to make a build gun. i reloaded some new brass (Winchester) with different loads and such trying to find the sweet spot as usual. But when i finish with the reaload and try to chamber some of the shells it causes the base of the shoulder to doughnot or bulge. It doesn't do every shell like this but they are tight. New factory ammo doesn't do this.

I can't figure this one out. I'm using regular RCBS dies to reload with.

Is it my dies shoving down on the shoulder making the rifle bulge the shoulder or is the rifle headspace just off enough to cause this.

Any thoughts???

[Graybeard]

Are you sure it's not happening when you seat the bullet? If the case is too long for your die setting that will happen as you seat the bullet. I guess it might also could happen when chambering a round if the case is way longer than the chamber.

[hector615]

It could be.

One thing i didn't mention was, if i resive .308 brass in the 7mm-08 dies, i have no problems. I don't know if this is because the .308 brass is thicker in the shoulder area and neck, not letting it shove down or if the 7mm-08 brass is thinner in these areas.

It makes me wonder if the sizing ball is to big pushing down on the brass and the rifle finishes it off , making the doughnut effect.

I wonder if i could just get a bullet seating die and not resize once fired brass. Do you think this might work?

[burntmuch]

Could it be when your pulling the Decapper-expander back up its pulling on the neck. I had that problem when loading Lake City brass. I had to take the decapper out . I had to decap with a Lee Loader decapper.

[trotterlg]

I think GB has the answer.  When you set up your seating die, use your longest brass, with no bullet raise teh ram and screw the body of the die in until it touches the neck, this is the point that the seating die will start putting a roll crimp on the case.  Back the die out a quarter turn and lock it down.  Now adjust the bullet seating depth with the seating depth adjustment.  Here is an excellent (bad) example of what happens, this is a 17 Remington.  Larry

[DANNY-L]

May not be the problem but thats why I trim all new brass to the same length.

[Mule]

Two things come to mind.

Check your case length, you might need a trim.

In a light recoiling bolt gun such as yours, crimping is not necessary.  Back the seating die off and seat the bullets without a crimp.

[hector615]

I took the seating ball out and just sized brass without it. Put some bullets in the resized brass and the rolling of the shoulder seems to go away.

So it may need trimming more than i thought or the expander ball is to big.

I tried raising the die up a not to push down on brass. It had same effect with the exapander ball in.

I'll try to post a picture of what it does.

Thanks, for all the comments!

[DEACONLLB]

I have had the same problem in all the cal that I reload. I trim all brass to the factory length every time. I think it has to do with the way I am seating the bullet and bullet not lining up with the neck. I use the chamfer tool on each case, make sure that the shell is all the way in the shell holder and seat bullet slow and I also have the seating screw and die set so the ram does not go all the way up and bump the die but if I hurry and seat the bullet fast then once in a while I get a shell that will not chamber.

Deaconllb