6.8 Wester ADG Brass

[Hudge76]

So, my process was to trim it and then FL resize the brass in my 6.8 Western dies. As I mentioned, I made the overall length of the brass 2.007" after I resized. I want to say initially trimmed the brass to 2.020" or 2.015", I can't remember exactly now. Once I trimmed the brass, I then started the FL resizing process with a couple of pieces of brass until I got my shoulder to 1.643" using a Hornady comparator gauge. I settled on this shoulder measurement as it's where the brass fed in and out of my rifle with no issue. Once I made sure all of my brass fed properly I moved on to loading some up for the fire forming.

 

[Hudge76]

For loading, I took a once fired 6.8 piece of brass and made a modified case from it. With it, I took the bullet I wanted to load and found the lands for my rifle. I then proceeded to load a couple .030" off the lands from what was read on the modified case and loaded it in the 7mm SAUM brass I resized, but that still has the SAUM shoulder angle. Once I loaded a couple of them up, I made sure they would feed properly through my rifle. Do this in a safe place, as I did not take my bolt apart or anything. I wanted to make sure everything fit and fed as it was supposed to. I'm sure someone will say I did this wrong and maybe I did, but it worked so far.
Next thing, I took a dozen of them I resized and loaded and fire formed them. This was probably the scariest part to me, as I was worried something was goi g to go wrong. Once I fired a couple and felt at ease I fired the other 10. I have since repeated this and fire formed a couple more with a different powder and bullet. I quit as I got keyholes. My load was one grain over book minimum for the bullet weight and powder I used. The first combo was IMR4955 and 165 gr. ABLR. They shot great and no issues. The next ones which I stopped on was with A4350 and 170 gr. NBT.

 

[Hudge76]

After firing the brass I measured the shoulders and they are the same as my fired factory 6.8 Western brass. The overall length though is a little shorter on the resized 7mm SAUM brass though.

 

[Hudge76]

I appreciate it! So here goes, I bought ADG 7SAUM brass. Sized it and trimmed it. Wouldnt catch in the bolt face so I left the bullets out a bit so they would jamb into the lands when closing the bolt amd force the brass back into the bolt. I also removed the ejector pin from the bolt to help. Loaded some 150 gr bullets with 52 grains of IMR4350. 3 of 4 wouldn't fire, the one that did, the shoulder of the brass is crumpled in, see attached pic. Any ideas??View attachment 561567

Did you measure the shoulder of the brass after you resized it? I think your shoulder may not be bumped back enough.

 

[jjh1]

Did you measure the shoulder of the brass after you resized it? I think your shoulder may not be bumped back enough.

Thank you so much for all of the info. I will measure the shoulder and check that. The fact that it won't snap into the bolt face and eject tells me that the shoulder is too short as well, though?