SmallCaliberCentral

Morning fellas. Been reloading for close to 3 years now and have an issue that I have yet to come across in my time.

I'm trying to FL size some once fired .204 brass. Some from my gun, some from a friend of mine hence the FL sizing and not just the necks. All are Hornady brass.

When FL sizing I always have the rifle handy to make sure feeding/function with the new FL brass is good (bolt close, etc.). After sizing with my 2 piece Lee .204 dies the bolt will not close on the brass at all. I reckon the shoulder has been pushed forward and upon resizing the shoulder has not been pushed back but I may be way wrong. I wanted to double check the instructions from Lee's website, which I did, and they said to make sure that when the ram is all the way down there should be zero space between the ram and the shellholder. This is happening but still does not allow me to close the bolt.

I'm guessing the die may not be up to SAAMI specs as Lee said to send them the die if the shoulder is not being pushed back. In this situation above I'm inclined to agree. Just wanted to get some opinions from some more experienced reloaders than myself.

Thanks fellas...

It sounds like your take on the problem is probably right. Do you have access to another FL sizing die for .204 Ruger? It would be interesting to resize a few of those casings that won't chamber with another die to see if that solves the problem.

Have you tried chambering some casings that have not been fired? I'd try that too, just in case you have something inside the chamber area of your rifle that is preventing the casing from chambering? I'm just trying to think of wild things that might be wrong here.

Try screwing the die even further down. There may be some slop in your presses linkage that you need to eliminate.
Make sure your lubing the insides of the necks sufficiently. If not the expander ball can create enough force exiting to pull the shoulder back out.
For safety and longer brass life you need to come up with something to measure head space. In a pinch a twelve point socket might work until you buy the correct tools. Anything thats round and stable enough and can reach a rough midpoint on the shoulders while clearing the neck.. Bump the shoulders back .001-.002 past the measurement of "your" rifles brass and you should be golden.

Bumping the shoulders back too much will eventually lead to case failure. "Case Head Separation" It cost me two hundred pieces of scrapped Lapua 308 brass to learn that lesson.

Push come to shove and nothing else works you could grind a touch off the bottom of the die. The die would then need to be set by measurements alone as the ram shouldn't contact the ram after altering. An uneven grind and ram contact would create a whole bunch of run out I'm sure.

Then again theres a company called Redding. The extra cash is well worth it.

Might not be relevant but what is the length of the brass?

Thanks fellas....

Called Lee yesterday and they said to try two things:

1) Screw the die in further until there is zero space between the die and the shellholder when lowering the ram, and
2) make sure the decapper pin is set up properly with no more than 1/8" of the pin at any time showing above the adjustment nut on the top of the die.

The gun in question has less than 50 rounds down the tube. I lube case necks with cotton Q-tips adequately.

Both of these things were done and the problem exists still. Closing the bolt after FL sizing the once fired brass is almost impossible. I will mail the die set to them today along with a piece of untouched once fired brass and a piece of brass sized with the die set. This is what they said to do. I'll keep ya'll informed if anyone is interested...

Thanks again...

Do you have more than lone shell holder. If so swap the shell holder and give it a try.

Had exactly the same problem with .243Win FL Redding dies. Turns out I misplaced the case holder so I substituted a Lyman holder which was too thick on top.

The dies have been returned and headspace was set at a minimum but the problem persists.

I will try swapping out shellholders as I have a .223 shell holder handy that might fit.