Difficulty full length sizing 220 Swift
- Thread starter Chaparral
- Start date
FrankenMauser
New member
Were the cases fired in your chamber?
Or is it used brass? ("Once-fired" or otherwise.)
Or is it used brass? ("Once-fired" or otherwise.)
sized case will not fit, new brass will not fit. Bolt will not close, but very close.
I actually took a new brass casing and lubed it up and tapped it into my case gauge until it was flush. Then put it in my rifle and it chambered perfectly.
New brass. I did get some new Hornady factory loads to chamber but it was extremely tight.
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So, you have a very tight chamber. Not to SAAMI spec. Two things can go wrong. The dangerous one first:
Some tight custom chambers have chamber necks that are below standard size and you are supposed to outside-turn the necks to fit in. They will not load and shoot factory ammo safely. If you have this you MUST outside turn necks to the custom spec or you can have a failure to properly release the bullet and can have very high overpressure. Usually, a custom smith will stamp the loaded round outside neck OD on the barrel somewhere. Cases must be turned down so the neck walls are not thick enough to exceed that dimension with a bullet inserted into them.
If that is not the case and the rest of the case is what is not fitting, you may need a small base die. Having a die custom made is possible. The standard industry tolerance is ±0.002", which isn't all that tight, so some dies may work when others in the same brand do not. Call Lee or Redding or Forster and find out what they need to get you a working die. Usually, they can tell from fired cases you send them, but do check the neck thing I mentioned above, first, before shooting anything it the rifle.
Some tight custom chambers have chamber necks that are below standard size and you are supposed to outside-turn the necks to fit in. They will not load and shoot factory ammo safely. If you have this you MUST outside turn necks to the custom spec or you can have a failure to properly release the bullet and can have very high overpressure. Usually, a custom smith will stamp the loaded round outside neck OD on the barrel somewhere. Cases must be turned down so the neck walls are not thick enough to exceed that dimension with a bullet inserted into them.
If that is not the case and the rest of the case is what is not fitting, you may need a small base die. Having a die custom made is possible. The standard industry tolerance is ±0.002", which isn't all that tight, so some dies may work when others in the same brand do not. Call Lee or Redding or Forster and find out what they need to get you a working die. Usually, they can tell from fired cases you send them, but do check the neck thing I mentioned above, first, before shooting anything it the rifle.
...and you're comfortable that you're not springing the press a bit ? (i.e., you've still got some 'cam-over' feel at the end of the upstroke).
Worst case (barring UncleNick's small-base/neck anomaly possibility), is having to shave a few thousandths off the top of the shell holder to set the shoulder back a scoch more.
603Country
New member
My 220, a rebarreled Ruger 77V, now has a Douglas barrel with a snug chamber. Reloads were a bit tight. I took a very small amount of metal off the top of the shell holder and that fixed the problem. But it wasn’t much of a problem to start with.
Much worse was my new 223 barrel, which had what the gunsmith referred to as a “match chamber” when I called him to discuss chambering issues. Well, I didn’t ask for a match chamber, but that explained my chambering difficulties. New Lapua brass had thick neck walls, relatively speaking, and with a bullet seated the reload would not chamber at all. Factory ammo, which I had to borrow from a neighbor, would chamber. I neck turned a lot of brass until I decided that i’d drive 75 miles and leave the rifle with the gunsmith to open the chamber a bit. I was very worried about possible pressure problems. Problem now solved. I shoot coyotes for goodness sake, and have no plans to shoot BR competition. In the OP’s situation, i’d sure have that tight neck opened up a hair.
Much worse was my new 223 barrel, which had what the gunsmith referred to as a “match chamber” when I called him to discuss chambering issues. Well, I didn’t ask for a match chamber, but that explained my chambering difficulties. New Lapua brass had thick neck walls, relatively speaking, and with a bullet seated the reload would not chamber at all. Factory ammo, which I had to borrow from a neighbor, would chamber. I neck turned a lot of brass until I decided that i’d drive 75 miles and leave the rifle with the gunsmith to open the chamber a bit. I was very worried about possible pressure problems. Problem now solved. I shoot coyotes for goodness sake, and have no plans to shoot BR competition. In the OP’s situation, i’d sure have that tight neck opened up a hair.
FrankenMauser
New member
I've had two companies do that to me, as well.
One was a gunsmith that built competition rifles and repaired antique firearms, primarily. The 'competition rifles' part took hold of him with my rifle.
But even that was no excuse for what he did. He wanted to give me a "match" chamber (even though I didn't ask for it), but he couldn't get a "match" reamer. So, he used a standard reamer and only reamed the chamber as deeply as necessary for a crush-fit with Remington factory ammo. The chamber was still 0.003" short of SAAMI minimum.
For that one, I actually put together a combination of dies that would size small enough to work with that chamber, because it shot exceptionally well. But the gunsmith still had to do more work for me, to pay for his ignorance and arrogance.
The other was a company that kept sending me AR barrels with short chambers, due to an issue with their production process. I identified the likely cause of the production issue, which they later verified and corrected (many other customers had issues, too). ...But they told me to pound sand on the last barrel, even though my "go" gauge and bolt, and their "go" gauges would not chamber in the barrels that I returned. Their final excuse was, "tight chambers shoot better..."
Often true... But only if you can chamber a cartridge!
I had to obtain a reamer and finish-chamber the final barrel myself.
If this thread goes into 3 pages there is a small chance someone will explain why you are trying to size cases that will fit your case gage.
All of my case gages are datum based tools, I measure before and again after. That would be before firing and again after firing. And then there is after firing and again after sizing.
The 220 Swift is one of those cases with a long tapered body and a shoulder that needed to be improved to be effective.
F. Guffey
reynolds357
New member
Are you using the correct shell holder? This problem arises regularly with WSM. There are three shell holders that work, but only the correct one works right.
Yes sir I have been measuring before and after just because of the problem I was having.
I am using Redding Dies with a Lee Shellholder