204Ruger

While I was visiting my son, I came across this cartridge. It's a 7mm magnum. Or, it was. This is the product of a Hornady sliding sleeve seating die. The die was set up so that it just touched the shell holder when the ram arm was all the way down. It looks like a case of not compressing the die sleeve all the way when setting up the die. I just thought I would share this with those who use the Hornady dies.

That has to rate high on the disappointment chart.

Yep... Looks like my first 204 round with the Hornady die.

Skip: Imagine what a chamber reamer would look like to make that puppy work!

Looks like someone mis-read the instructions for a seating die.

...a rather extreme shoulder angle - perhaps even an alternative to the Weatherby double radius...

Not the old double belted 7mm Mag. I haven't seen one of those in years!!

I have to hand it to him and his friend Justin. They have both gotten their rifles to shoot sub MOA since they started hand loading. They both learned real quickly and they are both hooked. Another generation of reloaders. My son even started reloading his shotgun shells. Way to go Duckslayr161.

I managed to mangle some brand new casings in a similar fashion using a Lee collet die. I guess I didn't read the instructions and ran the ram up on the die WITHOUT a casing in the shell holder. The collet fingers stuck to the mandrel and when I did put a shell in the shell holder and run it into the die, I got the turtle-neck casings for my trouble. I wasn't smart enough to stop with one, I had to run a couple more up in there before I took the die apart and figured out what was wrong.

Hmmm....I do believe that SILVERFOX has just come up with his OWN line of Wildcats. In the above photos, there are two examples....of which...the names are:

Silverfox 204 TurtleNeck

Silverfox 7mm Magnum TurtleNeck


Yep....next time you are at the gunshop, just ask if they have heard of the new "TurtleNeck" line of wildcats.

the pics posted by silverfox look just like the 204 WW brand new brass i had trouble with when seating the bullets, but i found a cure for this after a whole lot of problems. turns out the ww new brass is very rough inside the necks. started out using rcbs dies. i even went so far as buying redding dies, but the same problem. someone on this site suggested lubing the case necks when full length sizing. used graphite for the lube and no more problems. but the easiest cure i found was to get rid of all the rest of the ww brass i had left and replaced with good old remington new brass. i have since reloaded over 300 rounds with nary a problem and i do not have to lube the case necks.

futuretrades - unless you are using a carbide or ti coated sizing button, you really need to lightly lube the inside of the case necks.

The end result will be rough case necks....and back to where you were before.

It is possible that you are lucky at the moment...for a couple of reasons. The Rem brass was annealed properly, leaving the brass at the correct hardness, as it should be, and the Rem brass is probably a touch thinner.

futuretrades: acloco is right, you should always lube case necks, weather neck or F/L resizing. This is basic reloading practice unless you're using Titanium Nitride dies.

Another hazard in not lubing, is that you'll induce case stretching at almost every pass through the die, especially when using an expander ball. Over time, you'll lose cases to being stretched, and possibly have either an incipient case separation, or complete separation...not good, especially if you happen to be in the field with no broken/stuck case removing tools handy.

No matter what brand of brass you use, always lube the neck inside and out. I use Imperial Dry Neck Lube for neck sizing, and Imperial Sizing Wax for F/L sizing, and have found over many years of reloading, that this is the best stuff out there. Just my .02 FWIW.