I've never had this issue. It's extremely hard to seat a bullet....


.308

All Lake City Brass, FL sized. Not trimmed, it doesn't need it yet.

Bullet: Hornady 150gr FMJBT w/cannelure, not pulls, not 2nds. A random sampling measures .3065-.307 measuring between the cannelure and boattail.

After sizing, the case mouth measured .305. It was impossible to seat abullet without shaving it. So, I ran some through my 21st century mandrel that measures .306. Still shaving bullets and extremely hard to seat.


I could ALMOST understand this issue if it wasn't a boat tail.

The only thing I haven't done is chamfer the inside of the case mouth.
That shouldn't be necessary with a .3065-.307 boattail bullet going into a .306 case mouth.

Thoughts?

Have you chamfered the case mouth?

Inside chamfer. Other thought is hardness of the brass. Neck annealing would soften but a lot of trouble.

Another thought would be brushing necks with powdered mica or other dry lube

Chamfer is the only thing I haven’t done.

The necks have dry lube on them from me running them over the mandrel. That’s another reason I can’t make myself believe a chamfer would be needed at this point

Chamfer.

Also, the neck will be slightly smaller than .306 when using a .306 mandrel due to brass spring back.

Always chamfer. Why would you chamfer?

Are you wet tumbling your brass with pins? If you are it's peening the case mouth stop tumbling and chamfer then mandrel.

Get a 4 lb hamm..no nevermind chamfer instead.

Ok Grandpa!!! That was his solution for most everything. Get a bigger hammer!!

Chamfering is going to be a good chore for my son tonight.

The peening of the case mouth is a real possibility. These were cleaned before I stopped using pins.

I can definitely tell when I miss a case while chamfering. It lets you know real fast.

If the cases have been been sized / loaded more than 3 times, anneal the necks. Easy to do with a candle. PM me if you’d like details.
Anneal 5 cases and see if problem goes away.

A candle you say? I'd do some more research on how to anneal if I were you

A small propane torch and a socket on a drill/driver makes for fast easy annealing

Yep that's all you need really that's how I started and a bottle of Templaq

This works great and is cheap.

I once wasted 10 minutes trying the candle method...

And if I were you, I’d Google “John Barsness candle annealing” and read and learn something.

Folks, the amount of heat needed to anneal a brass case neck is not great. It doesn’t need to be red hot. Brass anneals at 750 degrees F and a candle tip gets 2500 degrees F.
For those unwilling to research…. Hold the case at the middle while rotating the neck in the blue tip of the candle flame. Once the case is too hot to hold, drop it to be air cooled. Wipe neck with a damp cloth to remove soot. Cold water dunking is not needed when candle annealing. Considering I’ve done about 300 cases by this method, I know it works. It was developed by a metallurgist, Fred Barker.

Keep doing what you do then I'll keep time to temp and time at temp that's required to properly anneal

I've read it and tried it.

Torch with a cordless drill and deep socket is MUCH easier.

No worries 1Bama and AU338. I’m not arguing the best annealing method, but one that is quick to try for the OP to see if his seating issue is resolved. Both of you gentleman are well experienced and knowledgeable. I alway enjoy your post as they are informatively spot on. Carry on gentleman.

Nobody really gives a dam about annealing that's the most argued crap on the internet about how to do it "right". When you try to make things rocket science that aren't the #1 thing you'll wind up arguing about is apparently annealing. I rarely anneal brass for high volume or just run of the mill reloading IMO it's not a necessary step at this level. You aren't going to see improved ES/SD unless you are shooting junk brass or have fired it several times. After 5-6 firings that case is on it's own annealing would give it more life but at that point you are doing it for brass life not accuracy. I think that's lost on the internet as everyone is always concerned with Annealing and arguing it. I have done it for years and kept track of the firings and by my own data and if you do it every time at the 10th firing you might save a couple pieces of brass over NOT annealing. Nobody is using brass that's been fired 20 times for it's accuracy potential. That's fact. I've got 40 years of doing this that says so and I didn't go into that trying to justify not doing annealing as a step it's just what I found when I tracked it. Feel free to track it on your own but I've already done that work for you.

What everyone needs is a RCBS Brass Boss Case Prep Center or similar and then learn how to use it. You don't skip steps in reloading and if you aren't chamfering the case mouth you need to start. That's just one of the steps you should not try to skip over. There is really nothing more to this than that answer and starting point for the OP.

Solved that that easy? Yea we did.

Simple solutions should come first as they did here. The rest of this was unnecessary. To be helpful make a point let the OP go back and try the simple fix first... and if he is still having trouble go to the next potential cause of the issue. General discussion is fine but when someone's got a specific question just answer logically and understand the lay of the land, what steps are necessary and those that aren't.

You spend 2hrs. prepping 1 case and I'll still out shoot you. Gotta know when to quit. You can do all the OCD things you want but you gotta be able to separate your OCD tendencies between what these problems are and how to solve them without going off the rails.

It's the reason I don't post over here much. Not worth it I'd rather haze y'all about your .243 elephant guns.