I built an AR in 6.5 grendel a year or so back, long story short it turned out the barrel was bad so the end of last summer I bought a different barrel, I didnt have much time to mess with it after the barrel swap other than get a quick decent load worked up for hunting season, I havent messed with it after that until now that the weather is getting warmer, I had a bunch of brass that had been run through the old barrel, then resized and some reloaded and run through the new barrel, the brass from both the new and old barrels were mixed together and Im now resizing the whole lot and finding some brass are running through the die ok and some are running though the die hard and coming out with a prominent ring around the base, theres no other damage to the brass during resizing, Im using a lee resizing die and Im thinking the problem brass is what was run through the new barrel and this new barrel might have a chamber that isnt the same spec as my die and after the brass fire formed to the chamber its now causing this problem during resizing, I didnt have this resizing problem with the old barrel and its the same brass, anybody have any opinions or suggestions on whats going on or what to do about it?
The ring is from your resizing die . I had Lee dies and they did leave that ring on some brass , sometime it maybe due to having brass from more than one manufacturer . I am now running Hornady dies except for crimping .
No it is not necessarily the Lee die. If some cases that you think were fired in the other rifle run fine through the die it is not the die. If the cases from the new barrel are the ones that you are having this problem with then the chamber on this barrel just may be out of speck and too large. If you have not sized all the cases yet measure the case web of each. This will tell you which is causing the problem. If your case web is significantly larger than what the Speck says it is you chamber.
The Speck is .441 at the web. I measured a factory Hornady 123 SST round and it is .437 at the web. I measured a case that I have FL sized in my Lee die and it is .440 I measured a case fired in my Oden Works barrel and it is .441 and I measured a case that was fired in my Bear Creek Arsenal barrel and it is .4405 . This will give you a good idea of what you should check.
As far as Lee dies go from my experience over the past 41 years of hand loading there is not much difference between any of the dies. I have used about all makes. Yes some have different features and some look better and cost more but a lot of what I hear people say is about like "my Ford is better than you Chevy" kind of stuff. You can get a lemon with any of them. I have had more problem with RCBS than any make. In my experience I can load ammo using Lee dies that is just as accurate as people using other brands and I have proved it on the line in matches. If you do find that your Lee sizing die might be too tight contact Lee and they will replace it.
DJS Wrote:I built an AR in 6.5 grendel a year or so back, long story short it turned out the barrel was bad so the end of last summer I bought a different barrel, I didnt have much time to mess with it after the barrel swap other than get a quick decent load worked up for hunting season, I havent messed with it after that until now that the weather is getting warmer, I had a bunch of brass that had been run through the old barrel, then resized and some reloaded and run through the new barrel, the brass from both the new and old barrels were mixed together and Im now resizing the whole lot and finding some brass are running through the die ok and some are running though the die hard and coming out with a prominent ring around the base, theres no other damage to the brass during resizing, Im using a lee resizing die and Im thinking the problem brass is what was run through the new barrel and this new barrel might have a chamber that isnt the same spec as my die and after the brass fire formed to the chamber its now causing this problem during resizing, I didnt have this resizing problem with the old barrel and its the same brass, anybody have any opinions or suggestions on whats going on or what to do about it?
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It's the Lee die, replace it with a hornady, rcbs,Redding or foster. Throw away those ringed cases and move on and enjoy your rifle.
It will save you money, headache and brass in the long run to get rid of the Lee die.
My view is that the brass that is hard to size was from the old barrel and the Lee die is not helping things.
I would get rid of the Lee sizing die and buy any of the major brands of sizing die other than Lee. I bet they will size down the blown out brass without a hitch.
I would not get rid of the hard to size brass until I got another sizing die.
Also, most here recommend a spray lube. I prefer Dillon but I also have a case of it. Others like the Hornady One Shot. Either one is fine.
While you are at it, do yourself a favor and throw away the Lee seating die too. It will loosen up on you as you use it. The crimp die some guys use and others don't. A decent sizing die means you don't need a crimping die.
1Shot Wrote:No it is not necessarily the Lee die. If some cases that you think were fired in the other rifle run fine through the die it is not the die. If the cases from the new barrel are the ones that you are having this problem with then the chamber on this barrel just may be out of speck and too large. If you have not sized all the cases yet measure the case web of each. This will tell you which is causing the problem. If your case web is significantly larger than what the Speck says it is you chamber.
The Speck is .441 at the web. I measured a factory Hornady 123 SST round and it is .437 at the web. I measured a case that I have FL sized in my Lee die and it is .440 I measured a case fired in my Oden Works barrel and it is .441 and I measured a case that was fired in my Bear Creek Arsenal barrel and it is .4405 . This will give you a good idea of what you should check.
As far as Lee dies go from my experience over the past 41 years of hand loading there is not much difference between any of the dies. I have used about all makes. Yes some have different features and some look better and cost more but a lot of what I hear people say is about like "my Ford is better than you Chevy" kind of stuff. You can get a lemon with any of them. I have had more problem with RCBS than any make. In my experience I can load ammo using Lee dies that is just as accurate as people using other brands and I have proved it on the line in matches. If you do find that your Lee sizing die might be too tight contact Lee and they will replace it.
the problem right now is that I dont know which brass is which as far as which was shot out of which barrel, I dont like to name names but the first barrel was a BCA, I actually had 2, long story short I was a victim of BCA's 6.5 grendel barrel issue they had a while back, I sent the first one back and got one back not much better than the first, I ditched it and bought a grendel hunter barrel, the lot of brass involved here was fired and resized at least a couple times with the old barrel then some resized and shot in the new one which was a load testing ladder, which a few were max or near max powder charges, I then threw the whole bunch into the polisher and then went to resize them and ran into this problem, it looks like my die is trying to resize to around 4.40 judging from the brass thats running through the die ok, the majority of whats left of the fired unsized brass looks to be 4.43, but theres a few thats 4.38 +/- a touch and a couple as much as 4.45, I do have one fired brass that came out of the first BCA barrel that I kept just to future reference the damage the chamber was doing to the brass, that one measures 4.40, Im not sure whats going on here and would almost have to reload and fire some rounds in the new barrel to be sure of whats coming out of that barrel, but I have a set of hornady dies ordered so I think Im just going to see what happens with those first
thanks for the replies guys, I've thrown this question around a few places now and hornady dies have come up more than once, I have a set ordered, we'll see if they help, otherwise its back to square one...
I will assume it's the die, since I have gone through hundreds of Hornady Grendel cases with LCD, Forster and Redding dies, FL and Neck and never had that issue.
