03-25-2017, 04:44 PM
As a background, I have been reloading since '69, and I reload for all my rifles, handguns, and shotguns. On the rifles and handguns, I separate my cases between those I use for hunting only, and those for practice. My 556 and Grendel have not been a problem. However, I recently ran into a problem with my 7mm Valkyrie practice cases. Some of the cases will not resize and set the shoulder back and chamber properly. the base case is 6.5x47 Lapua and they are 2 years old. I annealed the cases in 2/15 and 2/16, but I don't know how many times they have been fired since the last annealing. Out of a box of 45, I have 23 that sized OK after setting the die a little deeper. The remaining cases would not chamber in my rifle. So I thought that they needed annealing. After annealing the remaining 22 caes, and resizing, only 4 would chamber. I use Tempilaq for temp control. Thinking I may not have annealed enough, I annealed again, giving them an extra second under the torch. I again resized and tried to chamber the brass to no avail. I measured headspace before and after sizing, and the cases showed little, if any, change. I don't have any split necks, case stretching, chewed up rims or loose primer pockets. My load is 38.5 gr of Leverevolution behind a 140 gr SGK, with a Rem 7 1/2 primer. The last time out, I ould only chamber 4 rounds from this box. I shot a 1.93" group, with the first round out of a cold clean bbl being a flier. The remaining 3 rounds grouped at 0.797" at 200 yds. So what is going on here?
Life is too short for cheap rifles, cheap bourbon, or cheap women.