Bullet seating question

Scott A

Beginner
May 29, 2005
15
0
I ran into something today that I've never seen or even heard of. I couldn't get my RCBS seating die to seat a 115 BST in a .257 Roberts cartridge. I finally got it seated after REALLY torquing it. But then the loaded case would not chamber in my rifle (it had done so with no difficulty before seating the bullet). I tried another and the same. And another. I concluded that in forcing the bullet to seat that I set the shoulder back. So I tried seating a 115 Partition and it went in perfectly with no difficulty at all. Did this happen because the BST are so long? Could I expect the same problem if I attempted to seat Accubonds or Hornady SSTs? Thanks.
 
How compressed is the powder? This has happened to me before in my 378 WBY when I was seating a 300 gr Barnes X with 133 grains of H870.
 
It wasn't very compressed. 46 grains of H4831 loaded to a COL of 2.900"
 
OK--Pull the bullet and just try just the case and steel wool the case. If you can feed in there--Look where the marks are on the case. Then try another sized--none loaded case.

You coule have compressed the case when loading the bullet.
Of the shoulder or neck of the riflle chamber are not cleaned enough.

I ran into this with a cousins rifle when he didn't clean the chamber/neck area good enough on his .30-06. Got a miltary chamber brush for 223 and put a cleaning pad on it--after that loaded like a champ. But I figured it out by using steel wooled brass and paying close attention to the marking where on the brass..

Hope this helps.
 
The BT should load for the .257 Rob.

The problem most people run in to is the ogive versus the length of the round. You don't get the proper push in a magazine and the bullet falls into the case.
 
Sorry I just don't understand where this problem is?

"Scott A" says he can't seat a 257 BST but can seat a 257 Partition? Their the same diameter unless he accidently grabbed the wrong slug.

I don't see that whether is this a compressed load has anything to do with it, and his overall length is a bit long but he don't say that he can't chamber the load only that he can't seat the bullet. It doesn't sound like an oglive issue either and if the Expander Ball can go through the neck it shouldn't be a cleaning problem. So none of those issues seem to be a likely culprit.

Sounds to me like the problem is in the resizing of the case and whether or not the Expander Ball of the die is leaving the case with the right final dimension. Or if he got a mis-marked box of slugs from Nosler, which I surely would not expect.

Yes if the bullet would not go into the case neck, the pressure might push the neck down into the case and this would affect the case shoulders but i would expect the whole case to be deformed.

"SCOTT A" did you ever find the solution?

I've loaded hundreds of Nosler 115gr BST for my 25-06 and never had any hint of your issue. In fact the only problem I've ever heard of using this slug was someone who was using the wrong bullet seater plug and was deforming the plastic tip.
 
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