got a new rifle, but i have an issue

i recently received a rifle from a friend who had a "gun plumber" rebarrel a win 70 in 264 wm. he has shot this round for many years and have always reloaded his own ammo. after getting the new barrel back, and firing a few rounds thru it, he cannot run the brass thru his reloading die. it just wont go all the way down. about halfway or so before it becomes so tight that he is worried it will get stuck. (yes he used lube) old fired brass from the factory barrel still runs thru the die just fine. the barrel was shown to me that it will close on a go gauge, and will not close on the no go gauge. all factory rounds will close just fine and open just fine either non fired or fired.

my question is, what would cause that.

TIA for any info.

Matt

Did you measure everything un-fired vs. fired? Is the chamber way oversize so it
blows them up too big?

There is more to a good chamber than just meeting headspace dimension. The chamber may not be concentric to the bore or the receiver threads. The taper may be wrong and the diameter may be too large. A very well known barrel maker (not some hack) got a chip caught in the reamer and made a gouge in my chamber that the brass would flow into, then you couldn't extract it at all.

It doesn't sound like you have a gouge, but for sure one or more of the other issues. The best way to diagnose is to have a chamber cast made. See Http://www.lasc.us/bellmchambercasts.htm

Gonna need to measure the fired case and compare the dimensions to the SAAMI drawing.

morning, use a 1" mic to check the size of the base of an unfired
new case . do the same with a fired case in this rifles chamber.
next look up the standard chamber dimensions for this particular
caliber. subtract the fired case from the unfired case. this will
give u the amount of expansion. check the expansion difference.
the will have an idea as to the chambers size. justme gbot tum

You might want to ask the "Gun Plumber" if that was a new Reamer he used to chamber the barrel. It could be he never checked the dimensions of the reamer before he used it. Maybe the Reamer Manufacturer missed his numbers. Ive measured a few Reamers that didn't match the Reamer print before using them.

Richard Hilts
Hilts Accuracy Custom Rifles

If a factory round chambers, And a go gauge chambers and a no go gauge doesn't. The problem may be in the die or the lube used to size the case.

Have him borrow or buy another die after he tries a different sizing lube. Even though the case may be larger after firing, It should size.
Be sure he lubes all of the outside of the case and the inside of the neck. Also make sure that the decaping pin is properly adjusted not to bottom out on the case web inside the case. In fact you can remove the decapper all together and just try to size the case body on one of the cases.

One other possibility is his load may be to hot so measure a fired case to compare against a loaded factory round.

J E CUSTOM

I would try imperial sizing wax. If that doesn't allow full sizing the problem is in the dies ability to size. Sounds like a pressure issue or oversized chamber. The old brass is irrelevant if it wasn't the same reamer. Measuring a fired case from the new rifle and comparing to saami print, fired brass from old barrel, and resized brass will tell a lot. The plumber should be partially responsible for diagnosing and fixing the issue. Hopefully it's a die issue and he just needs a custom die made. Goodluck. The 264wm is a classic

The most common problem is a chamber larger than .513" above the belt. Forget headspace, the belt takes care of that and CANNOT be changed.
Measure as best you can, a vernier that measures to 1/2 thou will tell you the diameter at the expansion line/web juncture.
If it is above .513", you have a chamber issue. Period.
In some instances, it is not a chamber issue but a die issue.
I have several dies in 264WM, body dies, FL Dies, neck dies and bushing dies, one set I have, a Redding Deluxe 3 die set, WILL NOT size so a fired case goes back in unless I put feeler gauges (.008"-.010") under the case head, with the expander wound up so it doesn't dent the feeler gauge.
My chamber measures .002" over SAAMI minimum, Redding's body die just sizes the shoulder to fired dimensions, so it too is a little large. Funny thing, in my match chambers, all dies I have will bump .004" with hard cam over.

Cheers.

What velocities are the reloads? How many times have the cases been reloaded? When was last time the die was taken apart and cleaned? Was the die removed from the press and not installed back to the correct headspace? So much information wasn't presented to get an idea of where the problem could be?

FINALLY A RESOLUTION TO THIS MESS!!!! so after checking specs on everything, it has been determined to have been an issue with the die set that was used to form the fired brass. the primer decapping pin was bent enough to cause the die to not go all the way down. it was missing the primer and hitting the sidewall of the primer pocket. i changed out dies, and voila. ran all the fired brass thru with no issues.

thanks to everyone for all the input it is greatly appreciated!

Matt

Thanks for stopping back to post the resolution!