SmallCaliberCentral

I bought a Cooper in 204 Ruger that had a oversize chamber. I fired a number of rounds through it before I finally had enough and sent it back to Cooper for a re-barrel.

Now I have a number of cases that are too large to fit the chamber in my new custom Remington 204 (an most likely the rebarrelled Cooper when it comes back) even after running them through my Redding body die. I purchased a set of RCBS small base dies and the FL die works great to down size the cases to work well in my Remington. But the die causes the necks to be too small to get a proper neck tension requiring me to run a neck tool to "upsize" them and then through my Redding collet die to get the proper neck tension. A real pain but it works.

The problem I have, other than above, is that I have approx 400 loaded rounds that have the over sized case problem and I REALLY don't want to pull the bullets in order to run them through the sizer. I need to have the RCBS small base die neck to be opened up to make it a small base body die thus allowing me to size the loaded rounds. The die has of course been hardened by RCBS - any ideas what I need to use to open the neck diameter of the die?

I would suggest finding something (maybe a used brass 204 brush), and wrap some emory cloth around the brush. Then chuck the brush in a drill, and begin running the brush into just the neck part of the die, in a in and out motion. Emory cloth should cut even a very hard surface, but it will take some time. Keep checking the size of the neck so you don't over do things.

Just a thought.

I might just wait and see if they do or do not fit the new chamber, when you get the rifle and new barrel back, then go from there. Bill K

thanks for the suggestions.