Is there such a thing as too much bump?

[fguffey]

“Just remember a 5 degree turn on the die is about .001" for your 14 tpi dies”

in the absence of a degree wheel or an index that coverts degree to thousandths or as you say suggest, make a wild guestimate, when making wild guestimates the guess can be verified, I am the fan of standards, transfers and verifying.

Make a guess, adjust the die, secure the die to the press with the lock ring ‘THEN!’ verify the adjustment with a feeler gage, or use the feeler gage to make the adjustment.

Or, keep making adjustment with out a plan until something works, then measure the gap between the bottom of the die and top of the shell holder, the measurement should give the reloader a starting point when sizing cases for the next session.

Stretching cases as when pulling the neck when the neck sizing plug is pulled through the neck when the ram is lowered? Then there is keeping up with two thought at the same time. If only a reloader could measure the length of the case from the head of the case to its shoulder before lowering the ram? I can, I have and I do, stretching the case when pulling the sizing plug through the neck has another effect, when the case neck is sized down the neck gets longer, when the sizing plug is pulled through the neck the neck gets shorter, on the Internet the neck gets thicker and or thinner.

There is something about sizing a case the reloader does not understand, methods and techniques should not be about who's methods and techniques, I am not vain, I do not care who’s methods and techniques are used, I am not the fan of wild guestimates in degrees, and fractional turns of the die, I am the fan of verifying with standards and transfers.

In the event a reloader attempts sizing a case and finds the case will not chamber excuses should be eliminated:

The deck height of the shell holder is .125”, if it is not, get your money back or learn to deal with a shell holder that is not prefect. Start with a shell holder that has a deck height of .125”, then adjust the die to the shell holder or add the proverbial 1/4 turn after contact, lower the ram, place a case in the shell holder then raise the ram. STOP! do not lower the ram. Rotate the shell holder and align it so it can be removed from the ram and case at the same time. Remove the shell holder, remove the die from the press with the protruding case. Turn the die over and measure the case head protrusion from the die. If the shell holder pushed the case into the die and the case was sized the protrusion should be .125”. If the press, die and shell holder configuration did not size the case because of the cases ability to resist sizing exceeded the ability of the press to overcome the resistance.

Getting the die, case and shell holder back together is a matter of aligning the shell holder to align with the ram and case, do not forget to rotate the shell holder to lock it in place.

Then there is the thickness gage/feeler gage method: Again, raise the ram, STOP! If the case is not being sized the part of the case that is not stuffed into the die will be hanging out, the part of the case that does not get stuffed into the die will prevent the die from contacting the shell holder. When the die does not contact the shell holder when the ram is raised causes a gap, Again, when a case whips my press, die and shell holder I can tell by ‘how much’ when I measure the gap with a feeler gage, Redding lost the feeler gage as a thickness gage, the feeler gage is a standard, the feeler gage is a transfer, I am the fan of transfers, standards and verifying.

F. Guffey

[30Cal]

A semi-auto will usually digest stuff even 2 or 3 thousandths too long. Not so sure about a leveraction.

I don't think your variance is excessive. More consistent/better lube might tighten it up some, but I wouldn't sweat it as long as they all chamber without a fight. Ditto the remarks by FLIGHT762 on the expander ball dragging inside the case neck. IME, that causes a lot of variance.

I wouldn't size them any more than 0.005" (fired length minus resized). If what you are making now chambers, I'd just leave it alone and keep pulling the crank.

[huckberry668]

Lever action... is this a 30.30? If so it head-spaces on the rim of the case not the shoulder (tatum line) of rimless cases. The 'headspace tolerance' is measured from the breech face to the bolt face.

If it's a 30.30, bumping the shoulder is only to ensure it chambers w/o effort. There isn't much of a concern with case head separation from brass bumped back too much. Every chamber is cut different so the starting point is your 'fire formed' brass from that gun. Measure the shoulder to head length with a comparator. It should chamber fine as long as you bump the shoulder at least .001" shorter than fire formed brass.

[BLR81]

Clip
I wouldn't size them any more than 0.005" (fired length minus resized). If what you are making now chambers, I'd just leave it alone and keep pulling the crank.

That's the point of my original post. I was getting a shoulder reading of up to 1.627-1.628 on my fired shells. I needed them to be 1.625 or less to load easily and go into full battery. I had read that you needed to move the shoulder back .001-.002" back on bolt actions and .002-.003" back on semi's and lever. So I adjusted the resizing die to set back .003" from the 1.625 and not the fire formed size of 1.627.

Then after resizing, I found that some ended up being closer to 1.620-1.621. Which is why I needed to know if that's too much bump. Now if your saying I should have set back from the fired length and not the easily chambered length, I've got a few cases that are .006-.007" back and the majority of the 50 I resized at .005".

Correct me if I'm wrong (again), but being too short won't create an unsafe high pressure situation. At worse, the firing pin might not be able to ignite the primers. Which I don't believe will be the case, since the factory ammo that I've been shooting has had a shoulder length in similar length. The Remington measures at 1.620 and the Federal which shoots the best in my rifle is at 1.622.

[BLR81]

Lever action... is this a 30.30? If so it head-spaces on the rim of the case not the shoulder (tatum line) of rimless cases. The 'headspace tolerance' is measured from the breech face to the bolt face.

If it's a 30.30, bumping the shoulder is only to ensure it chambers w/o effort. There isn't much of a concern with case head separation from brass bumped back too much. Every chamber is cut different so the starting point is your 'fire formed' brass from that gun. Measure the shoulder to head length with a comparator. It should chamber fine as long as you bump the shoulder at least .001" shorter than fire formed brass.

I didn't realize it made a difference, good to know. My Hornady book calls out headspace from the bolt to whatever stops the forward progress of the cartridge.

But, no this is not a 30-30, it's a Browning 81 lever action in 7mm-08. So my error was setting the die .002-.003" (for semi's and lever action) less then the size that would easily load instead of the fire formed length.

Unfortunately, the press kicked them out .001 + or - from that setting. So out of the 50, about 10 came out .006-.007 less than the fired formed length. Although it's good to know that they aren't unsafe.

The final shoulder size did end up exactly where the Remington and Federal ammo I've been shooting mics out on the LockNLoad Headspace Gauge, so I think I'm ok. But, the next 50, I'll try going back from the fired lengh.