Reloading for a stevens 200 7mm08. Loading a 120 grain nosler bullet. Seating at 2.77. Trimming brass to 2.025.

When i load the round i cant close the bolt all the way. I can chamber just brass and close the bolt but if i seat a bullet and try then no go.

Ive tried trimming the brass farther, all the way to 2.020 and sometimes they will chamber but not always.

I tried seating the bullet farther but that didnt help at all.

Thoughts?

You've got too much bullet hanging out of the case, jamming into the lands.

Cut the neck of a piece of brass, seat it long, chamber it slowly, it will be pushed back into the case, measure to the ogive from the case head. Repeat 5 times. You'll get an average, set your die to match where the bullet was pushed back to, try it again.

Either that, or you haven't fully resized the case. Dies can be tricky some times. Some will shape the case adequately when they just touch the case holder, others will require you to add 1/8 to 1/4 turn after touching to completely resize the case. Be careful when tightening down your dies not to damage your press; be very moderate and test the newly formed case in your rifle.

Which Brass?

So sized brass has no problem chambering but loaded rounds do?

Normally would expect what Fireman suggested and would be good to check for sure. when failing to chamber are an rifling marks being left on the bullet? In mine I usually load to 2.8 inches with Nosler bullets which will cycle in my rifles but not all chambers are the same.

Only time I have seen that issue with an of the 7mm-08s I have loaded for over the years was when brass was not available in the early days of the 7mm-08 and I was using 308 brass and having to neck turn due them being too thick.

Better get you a good bullet puller. I bet its your brass not sized right. I may or may not have done this myself.

Had same problem with some older 7.62 nato brass, so
lowered the sizing down a small amount, about .015 more,
seemed to help more, If your using FL dies sized them til
they touch the shell holder.
Try that and see what happens,

gud luck, hogflyer....

I believe the OP has said that his resized brass chambers properly, but when he seats the bullet, he finds resistance.

My first thought--like the other responders-- was that the brass was under-resized, but that is apparently not the case. The OP said that trimming the cases shorter didn't help, so the seater isn't crimping the case mouth.

The OP also said that seating the bullets deeper in the cases didn't help either, so adjusting the seater stem to push the bullets even deeper may not help.

It could be that the problem is with the seater body of the die, not the seater stem. The OP may have an issue with the seater die pushing on the case shoulder and bulging the case body, thus making the final product over-sized for his chamber.

I would carefully mike the case dimensions (you do own a micrometer?) at several places on the finished case to determine where the final product differs from the freshly resized case. That should reveal the problem. Lacking a micrometer, I would take a Marks-a-lot or Sharpie and color the entire case and bullet black. Then I would carefully chamber the black case and close the bolt. The pinch-point should be revealed where the black is rubbed off.

If he's sizing his brass properly, and trimming it properly, and seating the bullet properly; then we have to look elsewhere. It just may be that the seater die may have to be unscrewed/backed out just a tad, so the die body isn't ramming the case shoulder. Then, of course, the OP will need to reset his seater stem.

I have also seen one instance on a custom gun where the chamber neck area in the rifle was cut tight, to minimum specs. And the die set's finished product had a neck that was too large for the rifle's chamber. This required that the shooter neck-turn his cases in order to get them to chamber easily. I bet this isn't the case with the OP's situation, but if the Sharpie's black is rubbed off around the circumference of the case neck, then that may be the problem.

Lastly, I have personally bulged cases when I've heavily compressed a full case of powder. He should not be afraid of slightly compressing his powder charge, but a guy can overdo it if he's seating a long bullet into a full case of powder.

Trial and error measuring with his micrometer at every step in the reloading process should reveal the problem.

Dawaba has got it just right.

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't read the original post closely enough, and didn't realize the empty cases would chamber successfully.

Another thought: you're sure the bullets are the correct size?

I was witness to an accident once where a bullet larger than .308 was loaded into a .300 WinMag. The problem was found when attempting to load the round; it wouldn't chamber fully, but would chamber far enough to completely jam the rifle. The accident occurred when the bolt was pulled and there was an attempt to pound the round out of the chamber with a cleaning rod and a brick. The compression ignited the primer and blew the case out the back of the rifle, and into the fellow's hand, shattering it in three or for places. All in all, it was an event to avoid.

dawaba has a few things for you to check out, (a possible tight chamber and thick neck brass) and synceru possibly with the a bullet that might be larger than 284. Possible also, if you just neck sized but not quite down to the shoulder and then inserted the bullet to give the case neck more support and expanding it with a tight chamber might be cause of the bolt not wanting to close.

Looking at some load data on Hornady, 2.80" is max COL but most of the heavy bullets say 2.755" COL. You try seating it that COL? Make sure to remove some of the powder charge if you are close to max. Deeper seat = more pressure.

FiremanJG,
I don't understand what you mean by Cut the neck of a piece of brass[/i][/u]. Could you please explain more.
I am having some of the same problems when I try to make some varmint loads using a sabot and a .224 50gr TNT projectile for my 30-06. Doesn't seem to matter how deep or shallow I seat the projectile / sabot- some will feed, others- can't close the bolt.

I've had this problem. When seating the bullets and applying crimp the die was mis-adjusted causing the neck to push back Into the case and increased the shoulder diameter. I removed the depriming rod from the FL sizing die and ran the loaded round in just enough to fully chamber.
The easy check is to measure the shoulder of sized brass and compare it to one of the loaded rounds that won't chamber.
Good luck.
Paul

I don't have a picture handy but all he means is to take a properly sized piece of brass and cut 2 slits in the case mouth with a saw so a bullet can easily be adjusted for OAL.

In my opinion the op should definitely measure all the brass just because some chambered doesn't mean they are all sized correcly. Some of the brass could have been pretty close to in spec before hand, other than that most everything else hinted is good advice.

Seating depth thread will explain better what Fireman was referring to


http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3321311/1

Like stated, it sounds like the seating die body is down too far, and making contact with the shoulder, and pushing it back and the side walls out to make it not chamber. The only other option is the bullet is seated too long, which doesn't appear to be the issue.

dee and kmon1,
Thanks! Now it makes sense what he was saying. Guess I'm just a visual guy or (since I am from Missouri) SHOW ME

Set the shoulder back farther.

New to rifle reloading... But could you not resize the brass then try to drop it in the chamber? I would assume that would allow you to isolate when the problem occurs.

rest my sizing die, resized all the brass and everything is chambering like butter now.

didnt have the die set low enough.

i screwed it down till it hit ram then backed off half a turn instead of going in half a turn. after i reset it and went in half a turn they started chambering

I've done that before too.

That's a start. If you don't have the head space gauges and you're ever in Melissa, bring 5 pieces of brass, and your die over. I'll show you what head spacing can do for you. Measure to the shoulder of the 5, screw the die in the press, and onto a fired case, go 1/8 turn more, repeat until you've pushed the shoulder back. 002"-.003". Now you're not over working your brass, and you'll use all the powder charge energy down the barrel, instead of bleeding some forcing the brass a long ways to fit your chamber.

This exactly.
I've just started learning about this in the past year and really wish I'd been doing it a LOT earlier in my hand loading endeavors. MUCH better brass life and I've been getting OUTSTANDING accuracy results when added to doing the ogive measurement seating depth, much better than I used to.

Getting nerdy with it pays off.

Yessir!