Battle Of The Bulge

[Mr6.5]

So the story goes I bought a LOAD of 6.5-300 WBY Mag brass about half of it unfired, the other half fired. The new brass chambered as it should, the once fired brass (from someone else's rifle) would not. It had the bulge above the rim. I also have a .257 WBY mag that the brass is starting the bulge after 6 reloads, nothing else wrong with the brass, it has plenty of life minus the bulge.

I started doing my research thinking surely someone had already addressed this problem. I found someone had! Innovative Technologies sells a special collet die for $139.99 OK I thought I would just order one. The first issue is they say they have a 3 to 6 month backorder wait. The second issue is they use PAYPAL as their online credit card merchant. I believe PAYPAL hates gun owners and is 100% ANTI GUN. I REFUSE to ever deal with them, EVER. RANT OVER

After work this evening I went in the hobby machine shop and made my own. I used 17-4ph stainless, it took less than an hour to make. It works PERFECTLY! I fixed all my brass 6.5-300 and .257 it all chambers perfectly now. My design does not use a collet, simpler in design but effective.

Below are some pics of what I made.

This die ONLY sizes the base in front of the belt, where the problem always is.

 

[salmonchaser]

I'll buy one from you!

 

[Mr6.5]

I'll buy one from you!

I will happily make you one this coming weekend, I like doing this stuff

 

[JD338]

That's very cool.
Nice work Mr6.5!

JD338

 

[hoyt-6190]

Do you set this up like a normal sizing die?

 

[highoctane]

Why buy it when you can machine it yourself. I admire folks that have a skill set such as yours. Awesome stuff friend.

 

[Mr6.5]

Do you set this up like a normal sizing die?

Yes, first size it as normal then run it through this die and it is good to go.

 

[salmonchaser]

I bought one of the collet dies a couple years ago, my 300 HH was going through brass, the bulge, fairly quickly. Initially it worked great, then not so much, now it wants to ride over the belt. My 338 Jarrett gets quite a few loads out of a piece of brass but eventually needs to be sized as well. I’ve never had to worry about the 375 HH.
With 300 HH going for a couple bucks a piece on a good day I need as much life as I can get. Let me know what you need $ for the project.

 

[FOTIS]

Very nicely done!

 

[grry10]

Can your design work on non-belted cases that are bulged in front of the web?

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Necessity, the mother of invention. Well done sir.

 

[NYDAN]

Well, I always heard that "If you want something done right, do it yourself". Nice job. It is great to have skills and tools.

 

[Mr6.5]

Can your design work on non-belted cases that are bulged in front of the web?

Yes, but there is a qualification, All these Belted Magnum cases are based on the 375 H&H case, so one die covers them all. For this to work on NON belted cases they would have to be made individually and case specific due to the multitude of different size cases in the world. In theory one die would work for a particular case such as the .308 and all the renditions based on it like .243, .260, and 7mm-08 all use the same case, they are just necked to caliber...

As a note I have never known of case bulging issues on non belted magnum cases.

Actually now that I think about it I did have a non belted case (28 Nosler) that would ever so slightly bulge the case right ahead of the webbing. Turned out the issue was the chamber, it was cut with a used (EBAY) chamber reamer and had slop in the rear area., I bought a fresh sharp reamer cut the barrel chamber back and re-chambered and the problem was solved.

 

[SJB358]

I bought one of the collet dies a couple years ago, my 300 HH was going through brass, the bulge, fairly quickly. Initially it worked great, then not so much, now it wants to ride over the belt. My 338 Jarrett gets quite a few loads out of a piece of brass but eventually needs to be sized as well. I’ve never had to worry about the 375 HH.
With 300 HH going for a couple bucks a piece on a good day I need as much life as I can get. Let me know what you need $ for the project.

Your Larry Wills die with the collet isn’t working anymore? I have one, but I can’t remember the last time I used it.

 

[salmonchaser]

It works, as long as I’m careful. Not sure how it happened but it doesn’t resize to spec any more, about 513. When I resize them now on the wills there is still a little hitch when they slide into the go gage on the top of the Wills. When I first started using it they would slide in without that little bit of resistance.
Still waiting on my first cup of coffee, hope that makes sense. I also find it very slow and tedious an operation, though it does preserve cases.

 

[SJB358]

Yup. your description works for me. I bought it on a whim that I thought I was getting bulges, turns out it was a resizing error on my part and I haven't used it in likely 10+ years. I have moved 3 times since then and I haven't seen it sinch the latest move. I use to have his headspace gauge as well, thinking about that, I may have to give a look for it.. That sucker was really handy for setting up dies.

 

[grry10]

I've had it bulge above the web with my 338-06 Ackley Improved. It was Nosler 338-06 A-Square brass virgin brass that was fire formed and then loaded with 61 grains of Reloader 19 and 210 NPT. The load shot well and I had no issues with extraction and or primer flattening. I used that load to harvest a moose and two white tail and shot it a number of times on the range with no problems. When I went to reload the brass again, the cases would not fit in to my 338-06 Ackley Improved sizing die due to the bulge above the web. That was 50 pieces of brass that got tossed, so I know it can happen. I've not shot that combination again but have shot a number of different loads since with other fire formed brass, 338-06 A-Square Norma and Nosler 30-06 with no issue since. So I don't think that it was a reamer issue.

I also have a friend that had the same thing happen with a 325 WSM, but that was a new build. So, it might have been a reamer issue.

 

[Mr6.5]

I spent most of today working on improvements. I created a whole new die and it works even better than the previous.

Added a cutout so it now goes over the belt.
Added a taper
Make the sizer a little tighter
High polished the sizing area inside the die

Pictures of the new design below

 

[sako2]

I spent most of today working on improvements. I created a whole new die and it works even better than the previous.

Added a cutout so it now goes over the belt.
Added a taper
Make the sizer a little tighter
High polished the sizing area inside the die

Pictures of the new design below

Nice work.

 

[NYDAN]

Excellent work.