Speer .223 to 300

[plain ol Bill]

I have quite a few Speer .223 nickel cases I am converting over to 300 BO. I a using RCBS short case dies and checking using a Sheridan cut away case gage. It appears to me the Speer brass has case stamps higher than any I have seen on other brass and when checking head space using a razor blade straight edge I can feel the lettering of the stamping just kissing the straight edge. Visually I can see and feel the edge of the case clears the gage. Anyone else seeing things like this? Opinions please.

[plant.one]

are you passing the brass into the die just once? or are you taking a 2nd stroke?

where in the case gauge are you making contact? ie: the shoulder? somewhere in the body? the neck?


have you tried a plunk test in your chamber? lots of us here have chambers that will take brass/ammo that wont quite fit the sherinan gauge and chamber just fine. both of my barrels are like this.

I mean.. you cant be way out of spec, but because of how the Sheridan is cut to minimum tolerances, you can still be in-spec (under maximum dimension tolerance) and still fail the gauge.

[plain ol Bill]

I think my problem went away. I started de-burring after trimming this morning. At this point all my cases go thru the gage instead of an occasional check. I found a few that needed a little more burr removed and two that had to be bumped again in the sizing die. I am a happy camper this morning.