Problems with 270 Win

[Jal5]

Got my boolits cast, sized to .280 for a .277 barrel gas checked and lubed.

Now the problem is that my RCBS expander only expands to .277 so what do I do?

Joe

[geargnasher]

Flare the mouth with a universal Lee "expander" die, or a tapered punch, load them and shoot them. .003" interference fit is a bit much, but if your boolits are of decent hardness that should be just fine.

In the future, get a Lee Collet neck sizer, you can adjust it to swage the neck of fired brass to any size you want, and you won't need to expand it (just bell it) since you can make it .002" or less smaller ID than the boolit. The only requirement for good consistency is uniform case neck thickness, you will need to measure it and adjust for each batch/headstamp of brass if you aren't turning the necks to a uniform thickness on all your brass for this gun.

Gear

[Jal5]

Thanks Gear I will give that a try. Joe

[fourarmed]

.280" may be big enough that you don't need to size the case necks at all, but if so, you may run into a problem with hard chambering, and consequent high pressures.

[turbo1889]

Flare the mouth with a universal Lee "expander" die, or a tapered punch, load them and shoot them. .003" interference fit is a bit much, but if your boolits are of decent hardness that should be just fine.

In the future, get a Lee Collet neck sizer, you can adjust it to swage the neck of fired brass to any size you want, and you won't need to expand it (just bell it) since you can make it .002" or less smaller ID than the boolit. The only requirement for good consistency is uniform case neck thickness, you will need to measure it and adjust for each batch/headstamp of brass if you aren't turning the necks to a uniform thickness on all your brass for this gun.

Gear

And if you custom order a mandrel to fit the die of exactly the inside diameter of the case mouth you want then it won't matter if your neck thickness is inconsistent or not just set the die up for a full squeeze and every case will come out of the die with and inside neck diameter equal to the custom mandrel diameter regardless of the neck thickness.

I have several different Lee Collet Neck Sizer dies set up this way with multiple different mandrel diameters to fit them. In that die set-up the mandrel diameter determines the inside neck diameter if the die is set all the way down tight. So all you need to do is swap out the mandrels for whatever inside neck diameter you want. Personally, I don't understand why Lee hasn't taken advantage of this fact and made mandrels in 0.001" increments of various lengths standard items just like the neck size bushing choices for Foster, Redding, & CH-4D neck size dies. One would think that with mass production of a variety of stocked sizes one could make a reasonable profit "nickel and diming" for the specific mandrel sizes. In fact, one wouldn't even need to make different lengths if the de-priming pin bottom was omitted and they were just short stubby mandrel rods. Just let the customer know that if they want to use the diameter specific mandrels they need to use a universal decapping die to punch the old primer out.