cbanman

I have a new set of Hornady "New Dimension" dies for a 7mm-08. I went to work up my first round of reloads today and ran into a problem right off the bat. I adjusted the decapping pin as suggested to 3/16" below the end of the die, then place the die in the press as indicated in the instructions. As I went to de-prime and re-size the first casing (once shot rem), I was unable to get the casing all the way into the die. It only went in about 1/2 way before making contact with the bottom opening of the die (not the de-priming pin or case mouth expander). I got out my calipers and the ID at the bottom of the sizing die was about 0.01" narrower than the O.D. (0.473") of the casing. Any ideas here? Could the sizing die specs be wrong or am I making a rookie mistake? I'd appreciate any ideas.

the Razorhead

well, compare the dimensions of the die to SAAMI specs (found in a loading manual like Lyman or Speer)...

I'm suspecting first that you don't have enough lube on the case and it's sticking in the die rather than making contact.

I use RCBS dies myself.. generally they're adjusted to zero clearance between the shell holder and the bottom of the die, then you run the decapping pin down 'til it protrudes from the bottom of the die the 3/16"

Slamfire

Try leaving the decapping rod loose, and partially running a case into the die. Now wiggle the decapping rod around until the pin comes out to the case. Run the case into the die all the way. Adjust the decapping rod as instruced. The minimum measurement on may caliphers is 0.01 inch, so your read may not be accurate.

cbanman

Well I took the dye back to Cabelas tonight and got some assistance from guns in the reloading area. We opened all the Hornaday 7mm-08 dyes and they couldn't get any to work on my casing. They remeasured the casing with lyman calipers and it measured just a little under max specs so they determined that the casing wasn't the problem. Then we got out some 308 dyes (hornady also) and had the same problem. They thought it was a problem with the hornady dyes. Unfortanately they had no other 7mm-08 dyes or casings in stock. One of the guys had a couple different 7mm08 dyes at home so I left the casing with him to try out. I'll let you know what I find out.

mounting man

This,about Hornady dies,is very hard to believe???????How did they try them at the store?Did they have a press set up????

Briman

Did you measure the outside diameter of the casing, or did you use the specified diameter found in reloading manuals?

I just measure some .308 brass new and fired. The new stuff is mic'ing out to .464" at the casehead although the specs given in my reloading manual is that its supposed to be .473" I have a set of .308 small base dies that measure out to .463" at the base. Fired brass is running at .467-.471" right above the casehead depending on the brand of brass and if I run them through my small base die versus a FL die, it takes quite a bit of force.

Unless I'm mistaken, the 7mm-08 brass should have the same casehead diameter as a .308.

The dies are made undersize because the brass is springy- if you squeaze it down, it will spring back to a certain extent. I observed this while trying to set a consistant cartridge headspace for getting the maximum caselife of '06 cases out of my garand. I could only bump the shoulders back so far reliably- if a case happened to be .002" longer in headspace than the rest of the batch, the shoulder wouldn't bump back to the same length as the other cases, because it would spring back that much more.

I would remove the decapping/expander ball assembly from the die and run a well lubed case into it. It will take some force considering you have a tight die similar to a RCBS small base sizer.(I mostly use RCBS FL dies which are looser so they dont' work the brass unnecessarily.) If this works, put the expander ball/decapper back in. adjust it so that you can just see the pin go all the way through the shell holder with the ram all the way up, and try again. Don't be afraid to lean on that press handle.

cbanman

Yes they used a press. They had an RCBS set up and lubed the case well with one shot case lube. We removed the decapping pin from both the 308 and 7mm-08 dies. Using a lot of force, we still couldn't get the case more than about 2/3 the way into the resizing die.

cbanman

I measured the outside of the casing.

Briman

Strange.

Is this new brass you are trying to run up the dies? If not, have you tried new brass? If You cannot run new brass up in them, I would call Lyman and tell them your die is defective. Did you check the stamps on the dies to make sure that they are indeed for 7mm-08, in case they packaged them wrong? is the die clean on the inside? There mght be some packing grease or some other type of preservative inside gumming it up.

Just trying to take shots in the dark.[&:]

Slamfire

Looks like Hornady failed to replace a worn reamer in time, there seem to be a whole lot of undersized dies. I wonder how close to SAAMI specs they are?