DustBuster

Interesting... I have never come across any one of those three situations yet...I’ve have not yet reloaded twice fired brass... I’ve picked a few loads out to fine tune for accuracy sake, and I’ve seen with the twice fired brass now probably what is close to my chamber size... So hopefully when I get those twice fired brass reloaded with a little less shoulder bump, I will have the best solution for any future new brass I get. I have a WFinestTrimmer2 on the way. I have not tried to feel with a paper clip the thinning inside the brass yet, but am curious to see if I can detect it. Thanks for your tips shaffe48. I suppose by the time I burn through my bottles of powder I will be closer to understanding this fine art. I hear a Tumbler in the basement going on now, but it is filled with rocks and not brass yet so I am sad. In a few weeks I will see if I can get in on that action.

Correction to my previous statement... after thinking about it all abit more and rereading Shaffe48s statement about stretch at the casehead zone... I now realize... the lengthening of brass is not due to what shoulder position is chosen at the secondary sizing period, but has already been decided by the previous shoulder position and Firing of the round. That is why I was not seeing a difference between the brass growth with my two different shoulder bumps. I will need to fire the rounds again before I see a difference. I see it clearer now. Thanks

Yes, thank you Shaffe, and like 392Heminut stated, the brass growth is irregardless of shoulder setback. So far I haven’t seen a difference. Die set to the shell holder or some bit upward, doesn’t matter for the case growing and trim needs. And since I am a long way from needing optimum Case sizing for accuracy sake, I won’t be worrying to much. My chamber is tighter than the no-go gauge. I’m very glad I listened to advice here and found that out. Dealing with thousandths of an inch precision is a new world to me. The son of my boss is taking gunsmithing courses, and he told me his beard hair was exactly 3 thousandths, he used it as a shim or something like that. Haha

Good to hear from you experts. I made up a a couple of dummy rounds .003 under my fireformed brass, and they loaded and ejected without problem. I think they were even sized based on one of the smallest of my my fireformed samples. I think my 0.003 sized shoulder length is barely to the minimum of saami cartridge spec... 1.627”. I’m not concerned about sizing for better accuracy, more so for just finding the best overall way to do it for this one gun. I measured some of the cases I sized originally and they were .009 set back from the fireformed cartridge, which seemed a little much. I suppose the fireformed brass weren’t even totally tight in the chamber yet having been only used once. A little extra safety tolerance in there for this newbie as I’m learning. I like the sound of 98s method. Using the brass in the shell holder to set the die. Similar to what the bullet seating instructions tell me to do. Damn daylight savings, which now prevents me from getting out to shoot after work. It’ll be awhile before I can test out my range of loads. Happy Veterans Day tomorrow to you Noble Warriors

Yep, thank you Shaffe... I will have to make up a dummy round and see if it at least chambers ok. You are right that the neck growth is from the whole sizing process, decreasing the diameter of everything and is not just due to any setback. My home made comparator measures from just a bit too far back on the shoulder, according to minimum Sammi for 308 cartridges( 1.634 -.007) Mine measures from 1.624. I don’t think this matters too much for what I’m comparing... but I think I will make another one and try not to exceed the .400 diameter at all. Take Care

Hi Guys and Gals, I went to town on 100 cases, then realized maybe I’m squishing them down more than really I should. Ive read now thousands of words about this subject here and elsewhere. My necks on .308 pmc were stretching .0085-.0095 average; lubing the inside of necks and had the die set to 1/4- turn past contact with shell holder. The I decide to investigate about the large neck stretching. Last night I experimented by turning the RCBS die counter clockwise. I made myself a comparator for measurement close to the shoulder datum and began to experiment. I finally got it so instead of bumping the shoulder back .007+ (1/4 turn on die past contact), I was getting (-.003). Before I stopped at that I even got it down to only -.001 shoulder setback). I measured the over all growth each and every time and the brass growth was ALWAYS large, 0.0085 no matter what. Heavier lube on inside and outside of neck, slow pull out of ball thingy in neck. Seems like varying shoulder set back on these PMC cases does not matter as far as brass growth. Should I stay at -.003 setback from Once fire formed pmc brass? I was Factory ammo to start with on those cases. The factory setback vs fireform was about the same as my initial die setup( -.007+) It seems strange to me that varying shoulder setback did nothing for size increase of brass. Maybe all that it might change for me is accuracy +- or chambering issues.

I’ve got two boxes of Hornady bullets to load up and they may be my last, Let’s Go Hornady, to the politically correct dumpster. Poo poo

Thanks Steve, yep I’m glad I bought it. I might have to buy a separate bowl for brass, so I don’t have to wash rock slurry out of it every time. I wonder what happens to the brass shavings or dirt, lube and grime? Absorbed into the walnut shells? I guess trimming may not be an issue with the rimmed straight cases... My 6 shooter cylinder won’t care at all, I suppose. I didn’t think about that. Thanks ShooterRex for pointing that out.,

( I’ve had the 80 cases sized and now some trimmed for about 4 days) Taking my sweet time. For now, with the batch of bullets I plan on doing, I think I’m for now stuck at 2.008” length, so Anything over that will be trimmed. The last batch of Hornady 150 gr bullets I did when I reloaded with my Dad, The cannelure was way longer than what the Trim To length came up to. So the longer necks than that seemed to come closer to crimp point. When I open up my fresh box of 165 gr Interlocks, I’ll see what they look like. I’ve got a Thumler Tumbler on the way for a birthday present for my rock picking Gal friend, and I might try to “test it out” and get rid of brass shavings inside with it, or I will just hit them with an air compressor. I lubed the inside of the necks like the RCBS manual said to but maybe I didn’t need to... I may not do that next time. Appreciate the product suggestion, when I expand to do more calibers, I will be getting something like the two you have posted about RCBS camlock Lever or this one, or maybe the Little Crow 2. I do have a .45 long colt pistol so maybe the RCBS would be more likely to be able to trim those also. That friggen tumbler cost me 350 because I got the industrial rock version.

Yeah, My WCT was 23 bucks. Different and slightly less durable no doubt. Next time I upgrade may have to go to Little Crow. For the time being mine seems decent enough.

I’ve seen those, this one I have is a slight different design by another guy Well, there was on mine, so maybe you have the WFT not the WCT. A slight design oversight or flaw, but I dealt with it. I think the WCT is cheaper cost wise... I’ll look at your link.

I hope you go easy on the tightness of that screw, not loose but just right tight. Yep I’ve only really trimmed once ever and I hated it as well. Nice work by the way on your car. Looking at that Mexican shop, it shows how they can be quite talented with the materials at hand. Nothing fancy down there tool wise. USA should only let qualified Body Shop dudes come north if they know how to work on those muscle cars 🙂

I’m taking my time to step into reloading. Under supervision, Ive reloaded about a hundred rounds, of 150 gr Hornady FMJ. That was not any kind of Bold statement; the font just happened to get set to bold. Now that I have about 300 empty cases, some powder and primers, I am about to embark on setting up a range of different powder and charges to see if I can make my unhappy barrel and precision a tad more content. Im going to try 165 gr Hornady Interlocks, pmc cases, Federal and CCI primers, and powder IMR 4064 and IMR 4895. The IMR website seems to give higher load data than the Hornady manual. The IMR Hogdon website just asks for bullet weight and doesn’t seem to be concerned about the actual bullet type. Maybe the weight of projectile is all that is needed for that aspect. Back to the topic: The trimmer I went with is the WCT found on E-Baye. I have not tried a Newer RCBS hand crank trimmer, with the cam Locking bar handle. The rcbs trimmer I used had a collet that didn’t seem to lock in the same place twice, so I found trimming to be difficult to get the brass to the desired length. So my WCT gets to play yesterday. I have 5 cases out of 80 that did not fit into the case gauge flush. These are my practice pieces. I find one that is 2.008 I set the WCT to that one and I label it with a sharpie. A little Allen nut screws tight to the end mill. I burn through bad case number #2. It is 2.0045 average. I burn through the rest. They seem fairly close to the same but lower than the 2.008 I set the WCT to. Maybe the end mill teeth reach out a little farther with speed and more pressure when actually cutting. Here is where my story gets more puzzling. I grab a good case that is about 2.017, which needed to be trimmed to make Saamii happy. I start trimming and it keeps trimming and it keeps trimming and then I look down and my fingers are gone! The blood is all over my drill. The Dewalt Trigger is too slippery to hang on to an my wrist is saved. Ohh wait, I just made that part up. The case is overtrimmed a lot though, and I know something is wrong. I look at the WCT and take it apart and notice there is a flat spot on the end mill for the Allen nut to lock Against. I orientate it “correctly” and try to set the WCT ( Worlds Cheapest Trimmer ) to a new length of 2.012, to see if it will cut consistent and also to see if it cuts low or higher than initial set. Well, the Allen screw went way deep into the threads and seemed like the flat spot on the endmill was too deep in there to have thread engagement. The set screw just kept spinning and spinning. I unscrewed it and it looked like the threads of the Non Metal housing were a little marred up now. PIECE of Crap! I thought to myself. I went to bed last night thinking of how to fix the set screw situation. I tried a hose clamp today around the polymer housing ( it needs to be polymer because otherwise it would be too hard on the brass, I imagine.) The House clamp worked, but fine tuning the trimming amount with my dewalt dril on the hose clamp bent the slots on the clamp and it was no longer any good. I then went to backup plan B and pulled out some Epoxy. I squeezed a good amount of epoxy into the set screw hole and tried to fill the flat of the end mill the best that I could. Before it was set up, I picked a case I believe was 2.012 to set the WCBT to. ( Worlds Cheapest Broken Trimmer) After about ten or fifteen minutes of holding everything as still to that 2.012 case, it seemed to be Set. So then, about 4 hours later, I go out to test the WCT out. I pick a case that is 2.018, and grind away at it. Measure it, and it’s 2.0095-2.010. I do about ten more and they are all within that range, maybe a 2.0105 also. I will do the rest tomorrow but it seems I fixed it good enough for my purposes. I wanted the cases to be a little longer than the Trim To length of 2.005. It’s fast, seems accurate enough and is stuck forever at 2.010. I go to bed tonight happy enough. I might even buy a WCT for my second caliber, 30-06... before I invest in a better trimmer in the future. To all a GoodNight and Goodnight to all, or something like that

Ok, good to know. Thanks 98. I will feel more confident now and lucky. My brother gave me a case of those Federals and only 300 cci200s. He had them sitting around for nearly 13 years and he never set up a station. I will try to burn up those and save the precious cci for him if he ever decides to reclaim his stock. On another note. I was witness to an old modified 2 position safety Mauser action misfire on a friends 30-06 When this person flipped the safety from the near vertical “Full” position to the fire position, it fired. A shock to her. Then I took the gun and pointed it safely at the target, loaded a round flipped the safety on. Then without pulling the trigger, flipped safety off and Bam! Someone may have filed some of the parts improperly. I took it to a local guy and he fixed it up for me, putting a different safety lever on the right hand side instead, and installed a new Timney Trigger. No matter what kind of gun, I learned to keep that sucker pointed always in safe direction for sure. I will keep that in mind when using these possible “soft” primers, or any primer for that matter.

PS. I just looked and saw a slamfire thread here, with someone using Federal 210m Primers, and people said it should not be a concern. Champion Primers are 210s? I will try those same tests that the other Slamfire Author did, to see if the primers leave a small dimple on a slamming bolt on a round in the chamber, for the heck of it. I also have a heavy buffer and powerful spring.

Hello Guys and Maybe a Gal or two I’ve read a few places of Federal Primers being too soft for SemiAuto Lr-308s. I have access to some Federal Champion Primers. Will these work especially if I always load the rounds from the clip... Or will there be a slight chance of Slam fire using these Primers? I am going to start learning to reload, especially if I ever get a 7mm-08 barrel to make a second build with or a 6.5 Creed. Seeing BeltFeds ammo price Shock makes me hesitate for sure on those calibers for a second build. May just have to reload for fun instead for a while. Sincerely, The Dust that Will not Bust

I took some pictures, one side’s gap is a little more than the other. The biggest gaps are at my radius points, but then on the verticals it is back to nearly snug.

My upper and lower purchased from the same company were pretty snug but with a hairline gap with the rear takedown pin in. Now that I’ve shot it more than 300 times, there is a little more gap near the back and even more sideways wiggle from the front pivot pin. I suppose the Cerakote is slowly wearing. I am not too worried about it since the scope is rock solid with the barrel and the upper. I suppose eventually I will try to shim the top part of the takedown pin hole on the lower with some thin epoxy or something to force the pin lower. Or a dab of epoxy on the lower side of the hole in the upper. From memory I bet my gap if spread open is at most 1/32”=.03125” at the rearmost. That’s way less than your .1 max. I will confirm tonight for the heck of it. The thing that bugs me about things loosening up is the sideways rotation on the front pivot pin, which causes the rear hole of the upper to sometimes miss the slot as I’m closing the halves after having them pivoted open. I have to not just blindly close the halves when the gun is on its side. Not that big of a deal for now.

I wish I could have ordered the tuner Brake with the right length threads. I’ve shot through it already, 40 rounds, and it seemed fine. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but I just got to thinking about gunk and debris hanging out there every time I cleaned the rifle. Build up of brass shavings likes to accumulate in the lugged chamber area of the barrel, so maybe it will clog up the front also. I bought these speedy little lug sponges, and an air compressor can blast the stuff out too. Im experimenting and still learning about it all. My older brother said he’d give me his unopened new rockchucker... I eventually will be trying to reload abit. I have 8 jugs of powder and a whopping 200 primers. Tuning my bullet loads will be the ultimate proper way to get the rifle to shoot well. The front end of this barrel will nicely become lighter as I shuck Ol Harrels Tuner!

Two snapshots here, Crown and most of the inside of the Comb_nut_wash, and then of the shaped washer and the start of the muzzle device shaft. With this stuff inside the device, I have gotten rid of a huge void and expansion chamber which maybe would just collect more dirt and debris and change the flow of gases. Don’t know if it was worth doing or not. I either am going to use a bit of blue loctite which I have or rockset which I’d have to order. For now I’m going to leave the thing attached.

Looks like wmv wont work, have to convert it to this phones format

I have two PNG pictures a WMV movie and a JPEG to try and upload. First I will upload the HandDrawn JPEG. It shows the crown of the barrel, the bore, the outline of the Combo Nut-Washer I ground to fit the crown and the inside of the extra threads of the TunerBrake. It also shows the extra filler washer.

Congrats Mustache. Before I baked my 6066-T6 aluminum upper, and froze my 416R steel barrel, I tried to do the math on the thermal expansion/contraction of those materials. I think you find the thermal expansion Coefficient, multiply it with the Change in Temp, and multiply that with the number of interest( diameter). I believe Most of the help in mating the two is due to the growing of the aluminum, with a teanie, Tiny, bit of help of shrinkage of the steel (almost negligible). It’s a friggen sick feeling to try and put the ol Faxon Barrel into the hole, before Temperature Therapy, and it only goes in a painfully tight 1/16” of an inch, rubbing off the Teflon. I’m sure you felt the same shock. Happy results. When your all done @mustachexpress let us know how that Barrel and you shoot.

Ok. Tomorrow I will take it off, for the dual purpose of putting some blue thread locker on it and will take pictures of the two filler things I made and of the borescope pictures. One other note about this spiral Brake is that it does indeed send dust and debris flying when shooting prone. I wish Harrels had sold a version with side ports only but they only have that for 5.56. I’ll add some picture tomorrow

Update: Spiral Muzzle/Brake Tuner from Harrels definetely does reduce recoil more than my cheap KaK compensator. Noticed it after my first shot. Then, as I got used to it, I guess I didn’t feel anymore that it kept the kick from happening, but I think the barrel flung around less after each shot. I fiddled with some of the Settings.. but then ran out of ammo (40). Didn’t see huge changes between the four different adjustments I did to the movable collar weights. They act as a lock Nuts against eachother. After five shots, they tended to loosen up despite having been tightened as hard as my hand strength could manage. Gonna have to come up with a solution to that beside using channel locks. One other thing I noticed, which others across the world have also noticed about muzzle devices of various sorts, is the fact that some devices threads are longer than the barrel threads; to accommodate different barrel length threads of all sorts. With my new Brake Tuner, there was almost 1/4” of void after the barrel crown to the end of the Brake threads and the start of the Brake. Not sure if this causes problems or is negligible to the shot gasses, but bugged me a bit. One solution of course would be to grind off the excess length of the Brake. I opted to just fill the void with carefully a crafted washer and once of those nuts with a washer built in. I drilled the nut with a 11/32 bit, giving me an inside diameter >.002 bigger than .308. I shaved down the corners of that nut-washer and the nut fit into my recessed flat barrel crown. This nearly filled the void but another washer ground to the right dimensions and shape fit tight against the Brake almost perfectly reducing the void. I screwed the Brake back on and torqued it as tight as I could, and sent the borescope down to confirm the fit. I hole powder residue will fill the small connections and the gas will now I hope will have a more streamlined exit towards the ports. I’ll keep a wary eye on the Brake. A little lock tight might save me from having the brake loose up, a washer or nut tilting , and my head getting blown off with a muzzle that explodes. I’ve shot more the 300 rounds with this new gun, and probably will have to shoot at least a hundred more just to fiddle with this tuner to see if it helps my shooting any using non-worked up loads. My shooting technique is something I also need to Greatly improve. Holding the trigger after each shot, squeezing ever so slowly, etc. Maybe( probably) all this time shooter error is a huge factor in the wide groupings I get with this gun. It may be way more less forgiving than my 30-06 bolt action. Stay Tuned: no pun intended, I might see no good changes with this thing and toss it into the recycle bin.