Brass life when full length sizing?

The old way of sizing till a fired case would just cause some resistance as the bolt was turned into battery wasn’t horrible either but after learning to measure headspace it could be .005 or nothing depending on the dies, press, chamber.

Mccragen, it takes a little feel to feel the little dip or valley near the case head from the inside. Sometimes cutting a case in half will provide you with a picture you’re looking for.

I do like Scotty does......use about an inch long heavy steel spacer that I robbed out of an old dish network receiver long ago, it's the right size and chamfer to sit against the shoulders of 6mm, 06, 8x57 ect type cases. The length you come up with doesn't matter, it's just having an accurate number to compare against when setting your die. .002-.003 bump back is what I shoot for. Where that requires the die to be set can vary quite a bit between rifles.

I've never tried it, but I'm sure if you walked into a hardware store and looked at about a 3/8 copper bushing, you'd find it sits up against the shoulder of a lot of standard cartridges.


For bigger case necks like 35 caliber, I use a 45 auto case that I lightly chamferred the inside with a deburring tool to give it an angled edge to sit against the shoulder. How you get there really doesn't matter, what matters is having something that gives you an accurate length before and after.

I for the first time set the die up last night .010 from the base of shell holder to case size last night.
I have in the past allways had it touching like RCBS says for full length resizing.

Head space sizing will likely help delay case head separation.
Annealing not so much as you don't anneal down there.

I feel (opinion ) that squeezing the neck down in a full length die then drawing the mandrel back out exercises the neck area more than anywhere else on the case. Neck lube helps. This is where annealing will extend case life. The full length die also seems more apt to form the 'donut' than Body dies and Collet neck sizing