New bullet won’t chamber…

[Ky-Dave]

I recently bought a Lee 309-150F to cast for my Winchester 94 Canadian centennial.
The bullets are coated and sized at .309. Cases are trimmed. They are crimped at the crimp groove. The OAL is 2.445. They won’t chamber and it appears the rifling is hitting on the ogive. The slight ring is from a sharp edge on Lee seater die. The bare spot on the side near the case is a flaw in my coating. I think those two marks in the middle are rifling. Is there anything else to do, or just try another mold?
Thank you,
David

[ryanmattes]

Seat deeper and adjust your charge accordingly, or look for a different profile mold. You want it close to the rifling, but no so close it won't seat fully.

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[Baja_Traveler]

You can use that same mold, just adjust your seat/crimp die a little further in. It's not mandatory to crimp on the groove, in fact all new molds I get I carefully adjust until the bullet is a few thousandths off the rifling.

[45workhorse]

Make a dummy round up, uncoated, and see if they will chamber. Wouldn't be the first time the power coat was to thick on the ogive, has happened to me.

[ryanmattes]

My usual process is it seat a slug long in an empty case, just neck tension no crimp, and then firmly close it into battery so it forces the bullet in from the rifling. Base on where the rifling marks are, I'll seat a few thousandths back to have it just off the rifling. I'll make another, unmarked dummy at that length to test fit, and that one I'll crimp it in place and check for smooth cycle and feeding from a magazine.

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[Mk42gunner]

Or try nose sizing.

Robert

[samari46]

I have both the carbine and long rifles with the 20" & 26" long barrels. Bought both at different times so no consecutive serial numbers. If I remember right and I suffer from CRS, the rifling begins where the chamber ends. So basically no throat, leade or whatever you want to call it. The carbine being the first one I bought does have wear to the beginning of the rifling where the throat would be. The rifle is basically unfired. So my suggestion would be seat slightly deeper and adjust your powder charge accordingly. Or and this is a big or, see about getting a throating reamer for your Canadian Centennial. My Ruger #1 in 45/70 also has this problem. Rifling starts where the chamber ends. Frank

[358429]

Do the cartridge casings fit the gun and allow the bolt to easily close? (Before the bullet is installed)

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[high standard 40]

Or try nose sizing.

Robert

This is what I would do.

[ABJ]

I suspect the powder coating on the nose is pushing it north .300. My Winchester's will not take a .300 nose. They will take a .299 nose. Like others have said seat just a tad deeper. My lee 150 throws .298/.299 nose in my alloy.
Tony

[RickinTN]

Leave the coating off and I'll bet you have a good fit.
Rick

[Soundguy]

might harden it up a bhn or 3 and see what you get...

[rintinglen]

I had to throat the chamber on my Theodore Roosevelt Commemorative to get it to shoot any cast boolit other than the 311-041. I ordered the chamber throat reamer from Brownells and did it myself with no problems and excellent results. I gave that gun to a very good friend for his help in moving. He had often expressed his admiration for it, but with a wife and 4 children, he couldn't afford one.

[charlie b]

As others have noted this is a perfect example of needing to have the nose sized. That series of Lee designed bullets are bore riders, ie, the nose of the bullet is supposed to fit in the rifling with the bullet just touching the lands.

The problem is the powder coating increases the diameter of the nose of the bullet. That small increase in dia is enough to keep it from chambering in some rifles.

I had the opposite problem with my .308. The uncoated bullet was just a tad too small in dia (bore is .302"). Powder coating made it fit perfectly.

If the above post about no throat is correct for your rifle then you will be seating cast bullets fairly deep. Not a big deal for a .30-30 with the long neck. Reduce max loads a bit as the volume inside the case will be less.

If you do not want to nose size then you will need a different design bullet. If you are going to shoot mostly cast bullets then reaming the throat would be something to consider.

PS doing a pound cast would help determine the dimensions of the throat and bore of your barrel.

[mehavey]

Engagement:
PC can (usually does) affect ogive engagement dimensions -- just the nature of the beast.
Either use thin-coat/baked Liquid ALOX (recommended), or seat deeper by the length of rifling marks

Seating Ring:
The seating "ring" can be handled by using a flat-nosed seater
- Barely start the seating (lines things up vertically on flat nose)....then
- Rotate the case/bullet 180 and fully seat home

[Soundguy]

Fyi.. Anyone else having problems with reply notifications not navigating to this message? Looks like an odd character ' in the link

[gwpercle]

The powder coating is making the nose too large .
I use this one (150 gr.) and the 170 gr. boolit in Win. model 94 , size .309" but I dont powder coat .
Try dip lube or tumble lube or convential lube/size and see how they work .
You may need a special mould made for powder coating and taking the extra thickness of the powder coating into consideration .

Adjust your seating stem fit with a small ball of epoxy putty , place into cleaned stem and gently seat a greased boolit about halway into the case , let epoxy set with handle pressure on boolit , after setting , remove and let cure .
Any boolit with a flat spot can be seated with a flat stem ... fill the cavity with epoxy putty , let harden , sand dead flat ... wah-Lah flat seating stem .
Gary

[RickinTN]

You can try a bare bullet in the muzzle of the rifle for bullet fit. It's not the throat that is too small for the coated bullet, it's the bore. It is, as mentioned above. a bore riding bullet. It should fit the bore snug, but not as snug as your picture shows.
Rick

[ryanmattes]

Also, if your PC is too thick, a single coat of HiTek might do the same job but much thinner.

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[Ky-Dave]

Thank you for all of the responses. It is too much PC on the ogive. Non PC bullets are .299, after PC they are .306. I looked up nose sizing and think I’ll give it a go. It seems Lee has a .285 that I can open up.
Again, thank you to everyone. I learn something every time I come here.
David

[megasupermagnum]

Just lube those bullets and shoot. There's a time and place for coating bullets, but a 30-30 rifle isn't it.

[PAndy]

I have shot a pile of lee 150s from my Canadian centennial rifle without trouble. I think the lands did engrave the nose slightly, but also the bullets were a bit out of round. Mine were lubed not powder coated

[OS OK]

Consider making dummy rounds of all the profiles, weights & calibers you load. They will make adjusting your seat dies a snap when your setting up dies.

https://i.imgur.com/qwQaG0T.jpg

[waksupi]

Many feed problems are from attempting to "sneak" the cartridge into a chamber. Operate the rifle at a fast pace, it may work. Totally necessary for Mausers, may apply to lever actions, too. You need to load them like you are beating a rented mule.

[charlie b]

Thank you for all of the responses. It is too much PC on the ogive. Non PC bullets are .299, after PC they are .306. I looked up nose sizing and think I’ll give it a go. It seems Lee has a .285 that I can open up.
Again, thank you to everyone. I learn something every time I come here.
David

You are also leaving too much powder on the bullets. They should increase less than .003" in dia.

Lee dies to not work well for nose sizing, they are too long a taper. Get a setup from NOE and buy their nose sizing dies. The downside is that they only work well over a narrow range since the taper is so short. If you have to size down from .306 then you'll probably need a .303 and then a .300.

Still need to know your throat measurements. You may only need to size down to .302.

[mehavey]

Still need to know your throat measurements.
You may only need to size down to .302.Unfortunately, that bullet is a 0.300 bore rider.
ALOX may still be the OP's best bet.

[charlie b]

But if the OP's bore is .302, like my Savage .308, then he only needs to size the nose to .302

And, yes, if the bullet nose is less than the bore dia as cast then using conventional lube would work too.

[Drifty4]

I tried to use a top punch on the sizing die that was "almost" the right one. It changed the shape of the bullet just enough to make it require deeper seating to get it off the lands. Getting the right top punch cured the problem. I noticed a mark on the bullet pictured in the OP, that reminded me of what mine looked like with the wrong top punch.

[rond]

You can trim your brass shorter, that way you can still crimp in the groove. I do that on my Marlins as there is almost no chamber throat.

[Ky-Dave]

I haven’t been back out to the bench yet, it’s been too hot. I did manage to seat one non coated bullet with the seater stem up side down(flat) though. No more ring on the top.
I’ve got some alox but I’ve never used it. I may just get and H&I die for the lubrisizer and save the powder coating for my pistol bullets. I guess I’ll need some gas checks too… Rifle boolits have been a whole nother rabbit hole.
David

[Dom]

I have the exact same situation with one of my 45 cal bullets for my Marlin 45-70. Not a problem at all. Just seat the bullet deeper till it clears & crimp into the nose section. It's done all the time.Not a problem & will not interfere with accuracy.Observe the crimp grove on the bullet pictured, then where the crimp is on the nose section. Works perfect in my 45-70. 288048

[405grain]

I've been working on this problem, but haven't finished the "research" yet. When you powder coat a bore riding boolit the nose can get too fat to chamber. I tried nose sizing, and that can make the nose no longer concentric with the driving bands, which all but destroys accuracy. What I've been doing is to powder coat and size just the driving bands and not the nose. I size and crimp on the gas check with a push through sizer. I've found that using a small amount of dish washing detergent on a folded paper towel as a "lube pad" helps to get the boolits through the sizer, and then washes right off with water leaving the boolits ready for powder coating.

The next step is to stick the nose of the boolit into a spent cartridge case and swirl it in the tub of plastic BB's and powder that I'd normally use for a "shake-n-bake" powder coat. I drill out the primer hole on this spent case so I can push out the boolit if it gets stuck, but they usually just slide out. This process powder coats the driving bands and leaves the nose bare. Then I bake in the world's raunchiest toaster oven at 425 F for 20 minutes, and Bob's your uncle, that parts done. I run these powder coated boolits back through the push through sizer, and no lubricant is necessary this time because of the powder coat.

Next I lube the boolits. This is where I'm still experimenting. At first I was trying swirl lubing them with liquid carnuba wax, but they weren't drying. Next I tried baking on the wax to get it to dry. These worked, but the process was labor intensive and like most boolit casters I'm 1/3 lazy. After that I decided to omit the baked on wax, and instead coated the exposed boolit nose on loaded cartridges with alox, and let that dry. This also works, but the alox can be rubbed off during handling, and attracts lint and crud. I'm now on my third "experiment", and this one seems to be working out so far. After I powder coat & size the boolits I swirl lube them in a very small amount of 45/45/10. About four or five drops is all that's needed to swirls lube 50 #311299's. I leave these to dry for a day and they're ready to load.

This last method seems to be both the easiest and fastest so far. But I haven't had a chance to test these out yet because half of California is on fire and my super secret shooting spot is closed due to fire danger. Once we get a half-way decent rain I can get some range time and see how these shoot. I feel optimistic that they'll function and perform good, but time will tell. Because these boolits are both powder coated and lubed I call them "hybrid" boolits. I did a write up about this when I first started making them: I posted about it in the "coatings and Alternatives" section.

[mehavey]

You're going through a lot of trouble for little gain at this point.

- Size/gas-check the bare bullet in your push-through sizer.
- "Greasy finger" lube it with a thin thin, thin coating of Lee Liquid ALOX,
- Set upright on plate and Bake at 235 for two hours, and air dry until the next day.

- I will be not only dry, but you will never be able to rub that ALOX off.
- Shoot it at whatever PC velocity you had in mind....

[405grain]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Every new development in bullet casting happened because someone tried something different. An idea might succeed or it might fail, but no one will know unless it's tried. One of the advantages of PC is that you can shoot at higher velocities with softer alloys. On the face of it baking on a thin coat of alox sounds good, but what if you have to water quench or use harder alloys so that you can shoot at PC velocity? I'd prefer it if I could get away with those higher velocities with alloys more akin to air cooled coww. PC offers this, but then there's the fat nose problem with bore riders.

I'm trying to come up with something where we don't have to size the nose, don't have to seat the boolit deeper, don't have to water quench, and don't end up with boolits that attract lint & dust. Will it work? Who knows? It might end up as an epic fail. But I'm going to try some things and see how they work. If the process shows some promise then I guarantee that sometime down the road some other person will think up a way to improve upon it. And if it doesn't work out at least we'll know the hows and whys of it.

[cobia]

Do the cartridge casings fit the gun and allow the bolt to easily close? (Before the bullet is installed)

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I would second that! Had it happen to me, I realized I had some brass shot from a friends rifle and didn't have the FL die set correctly. All mine chambered fine his didn't.