Wilson die problem?

[shoots_5]

Ok, so I switched to the LE Wilson dies for my 260 Rem and the loading went really smoothly with the virgin brass. After doing some load testing I had almost all 100 pieces 1x fired in my chamber. I was going to do a bunch of loading tonight and ran them all through the neck sizer with the .288 bushing, trimmed them all to be uniform, deburred and chamfured and got them all prepped to load. Charged them all with powder and then went to seat my first bullet.....and the case wouldn't go all the way into the die! Now there is a visible step in the neck of the brass where you can see and feel where the neck sizer stopped. From what I understand this is what you want so that the base of the neck is expanded to fit your chamber which helps to align the cartridge more precisely in the bore. I believe the reamer the gunsmith used was a .299" neck. It basically feels like the cartridge goes in the die until it hits this bulge in the neck. So, I'm at a loss for what to do? I thought about forcing it in and trying to seat the bullet but I was afraid of getting a charged and primed round stuck in the die! Did I do something wrong? Or do I have to send my die in to have it bored out to fit my chamber? Help please! Oh, and this is seriously screwing with my plans to go shoot this load at distance tomorrow!!!!

Thanks,
Tim

 

[Desert Fox]

Call Wilson. You probably have to send your case to them. Sounds like you have an oversize chamber.

 

[shoots_5]

Thanks DF. I took a case and colored it with a sharpie to see where it was hitting and found it's not the neck area, it's just up from the head of the case. Any idea how long it takes them to remedy this problem? I'm leaving next Sunday for a trip back home and was planning on doing some shooting with my Dad while I was there at the 1000 yard range they have.

 

[Desert Fox]

If you are closer to your smith, have him run the reamer he used to chamber your rifle. Not sure how long it will take for Wilson to do it.

Do you have a conventional die? You can use the seater temporarily.

 

[shoots_5]

DF, smith is in Florida so that's not a better option.

I did get a hold of a very nice lady at Wilson though. She said to send it in with 2-3 once fired brass and they would match my dies to my chamber.... Free of charge! All they asked me to pay is return shipping. And she said it would only take a day maybe 2 from when they receive them to get it done.

Very happy with their customer service!

 

[BK]

If you want to borrow my .260 dies (thanks again, Joel!) let me know... better be quick before it gets buried in the storage unit, though!

 

[Guy Miner]

Wilson is just up the road from me. Passed Cashmere twice this morning, on my way to and from cross-country skiing outside of Leavenworth.

Glad to hear they're willing to work with you. Keep us updated will you? I use Wilson dies on three rifles, and their case trimmer on everything I load.

Guy

 

[shoots_5]

Thanks Kurt. I think I'll be ok. I've got 23 loaded rounds to play with a bit until the fixed ones come back. I should have them a day or 2 after Christmas so I should be ok. I should probably pick up a FL die at some point anyway as I'll likely need to shrink them down once in awhile.

Guy, I'll post an update when I get back from vacation and get to loading again. I'll likely be picking up a few more of their dies in some other calibers I have. I've been pretty impressed with their use so far compared to the "normal" dies. And their case trimmer is on my list of things to get....that thing looks pretty slick. I have a redding trimmer but it's a bit of a pain to adjust the trim length to get it set up.

On a side note, I'm kind of curious to see if I can't gain some capacity in my once fired cases since my chamber seems to be a bit larger. Might have to revisit using 4831sc and see if that solves some of my compression issues.