Sizing 270 Win on a Lee Classic Cast

[onegunred]

Here soon I will begin reloading for 270 Win. I use a LCT for 44 mag and 45-70. How well will it do for a bottle necked case with the slight rise in the turret when a case is inserted and the shell holder is raised to meet the die ? Thanks, Jerry

[jcren]

Mine works fine for 30-06. I full length size New to me brass and neck size my own. Moa is standard with Sierra gk, haven't really pursued cast for that one.

[mdi]

If there is any upward movement of the turret under pressure, it will move the same amount every time (if the user uses the same method every time). I have reloaded everything from 9mm P through 30-06 on my old style Lee turret and could still hold +/- .001" on OAL (with good bullets...).

[onegunred]

Thank you for the reassurance, I'll be okay.

[EDG]

For more consistent sizing you can size bottle neck cases once slowly then partially with draw from the die and spin the case about 1/3 turn. Size again slowly with about 3 to 4 seconds of dwell at the top of the stroke. Repeat the sequence for a 3rd pass and your cases should all be exactly the same.
Unless you are loading gobs of .270 the added strokes do not add much time or work to the process.

Thank you for the reassurance, I'll be okay.

[flashhole]

EDG do you have any kind of data that supports your assertions?

[EDG]

I sure do. I formed and sized cases for decades just like everyone else and sometimes had small variations in sized cases that were not readily explainable. Those variations would be the occasional case that was difficult to close the bolt on.
I won an ebay auction for a Stoney point tool about 15 years ago. Then I bought a 6.5X53R Dutch Mannlicher carbine that I needed to form brass for.

I had a lot of junk .303 Brit cases that I used for process development. Why did I do a process development? Because the price of brass went out of sight and new .303 cases became difficult to find. So I did not want to scrap new cases doing process development or case forming. My goal was to get 100% yield out of the 100 new .303 cases that I had.
So I completed the process development and in the process I completely ruined about 15 of the junk .303 cases. The process that I developed yielded 100% perfect cases when the new brass was formed.
I measured every one of the cases as I formed them using the Stoney point tool. I also checked every last case for bolt drag in the Steyr Mannlicher rifle. Any case that had inadequate sizing or inadequate lube would be about .001 to .002 long. I could actually feel the difference of the force required by the press. Any long case produced heavy drag when I closed the rifle bolt on it. Just .001 shorter would produce a case that had only a slight drag when the bolt closed.

My statistics involved measuring 15 cases that I resized several times during process development. Then I measured 100 plus new cases as I formed the brass that would be used for shooting. I say 100 plus because I had an old box of factory WW .303 ammo that I broke down and formed for additional spares. So you could say the first pass of my new process produced 120 cases that were 100% acceptable and they all measured exactly the same length from head to shoulder. All cases measured the same using my Stoney Point tool and the friction on the rifle bolt agreed with the measurements.

In the subsequent years I have used the same process to form hundreds of other cases for a wide variety of rifles with complete satisfaction. That satisfaction includes very good accuracy results due to the superior control of the case to chamber fit. The cases have been used in falling block single shots, break open single shots, bolt action rifles, pumps, levers and autoloading rifles.

Now do you have any facts to doubt that more uniform case lube and multiple slow sizings with a dwell could possibly introduce more instead of less variability to the case sizing and forming process? Why don't you try it and provide us with your statistics?
I can guarantee you that without a good measuring tool you cannot easily tell the difference in 2 cases that vary from head to shoulder by only .001.

EDG do you have any kind of data that supports your assertions?

[flashhole]

I thought your post interesting. I re-size 30-06 to 25-06 and get about 6 loads on the re-sized cases. I have some recently fired 25-06 that need to go through the process. I will try what you described.

[EDG]

What do you mean that you get about 6 loads? What is your criteria for rejecting or discarding a case?

For a bottle necked case setting the length of the resized case to the same exact length as your chamber or about .001 less yields very long case life if you do not use extremely high pressure loads and do not use a loose sloppy rifle action or chamber. You also need to anneal the necks a little.
Most of my cases will easily last about 30 rounds. That is when the primer pockets get loose from having so many primers pressed in and out.

Your 30-06 cases are mostly already formed for 25-06. All you are doing is squeezing the neck down. Your shoulders are for the most part already in the right place. I would recommend that you use a trim die to form your 25-06 or use a .270 FL die as an intermediate die.
To get the best life out of reformed 30-06 (turned into 25-06) you would need to lightly anneal the formed brass.

You will not be able to easily measure the shoulder location change very readily since the .25-06 uses the same .375 gage dia as the 30-06 and the 30-06 shoulder is already close to the right location.

If you have a collection of junk 30-06 cases anneal the neck of some of them and expand the necks to .35 cal.
Then use the expanded cases to set your die. You will notice that a slow second or 3rd sizing will set the shoulder location in the same place every time.

I thought your post interesting. I re-size 30-06 to 25-06 and get about 6 loads on the re-sized cases. I have some recently fired 25-06 that need to go through the process. I will try what you described.

[flashhole]

The primer pocket stretches out too big. Rest of the case is fine.

[ulav8r]

The primer pocket stretches out too big. Rest of the case is fine.

Then you are loading hotter than you should be.

[Ed in North Texas]

Then you are loading hotter than you should be.

Exactly. If you are using old data, check out the web pages for the brand and type of powder you are using for current load data. Back in the 60s a lot of the published loads were "by guess and by gosh" alternating with "We've always loaded that load". Many powders have changed and it sure sounds like your loads are too hot, or your brass is too soft in the head. More likely the former than the latter.

You haven't formed your .25-06 out of USGI -06 brass, have you? The GI brass is thicker with less water capacity than commercial brass and the old standard instruction was to reduce charges 10% when using GI brass.