A cry in your beer tail. In 1976 I was stationed in San Diego,CA waiting for a new Destroyer to be built. I had plenty of free time due to a strike at the ship yard.
I got a part time job at a local Gun Shop.
A huge shipment of firearms from Mexico came up when firearm laws were made to prevent ownership in Mexico.
In this shipment were hundreds of 1896 Krag rifles.
I bought one for 75 bucks. Little did I know the beautiful bore was full of Mercury from primers. The first time I fired the rifle, the rifling was blown out!
It took 35 years to find an original replacement barrel from a rifle being converted to a sporter.
The rifle now shoots very well, but here's the rub. Its a one shot deal. One new round fired and the brass stretches far enough that on the 2nd reloading, the case fails at the web.
It is not my Gunsmith's work. The bolt body is the cause. It probable was a problem back in the 70's, I did not reload in the barracks and I threw the brass away.
So what to do? Order a brand new bolt body? Yep...done that waiting for it to show up. Will it solve the problem? Perhaps. I borrowed a bolt from a club member and it helped a lot.
Since new brass cannot be fired formed to my rifle without stretching ( due to the bolt body being a little too short, locking lug shows no wear ) What to do?
I loaded up 20 rounds of new brass and made them into blanks. A hefty charge of Bulls Eye powder and filled the cases with corn meal. Bang! instant .410 Brass shotgun shell. ( fired in a .410 musket ) But why do this? Total control as to where the case shoulder will be!
I annealed the cases ( see my post on the automatic case annealer I made ) and then backed off the .30-40 FL sizing die several turns. Sure enough a perfect case that not only head spaces on the rim, but now also on the case shoulder.
Does it work? you bet it does.
I loaded up five rounds and using 185 grain bullets, fired formed them in my rifle. No stretching at all. Now I'll only neck size the fired brass. I'm hoping to get several reloads out of each case.
I'm sure there are others who have the same problem. This is an easy, inexpensive fit the a head spacing issue. Not excessive and unsafe, but just enough to ruin the fired brass.
The .410 brass case- my formed casing- New Winchester case:
My case - new Winchester case
old fired case, note stretch ring-- new fired case. No stretching.