7MM STW brass,"dented" shoulders

Douglas A. Twitty

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Joined
Aug 9, 2017
Messages
105
Location
Pasadena, Texas
Hey Folks,
Question here. I've own, shoot, and hand loaded/reloaded for a Remington 700 in 7MM STW that I have owned for several years. Deadly on deer and hogs. Fun to shoot and reload. I use RCBS dies and have noticed that the shoulder of each casing will come out of the resizing die with a dented shoulder if I'm not very careful to make sure my cases are "barely" lubricated. By "barely" I mean it almost seems that I don't have enough lube on them to prevent them from sticking in the die. When the shoulder looks OK after resizing, I have only a slight amount of lube on them. Anyone else notice this happening to them? Maybe I'm doing something wrong?
I also reload for a .270 Winchester, a .30/06 Springfield, a 260 Remington and don't notice this "denting" on any of them.
Thanks for any responses forth coming.
 
Give the die a good cleaning and make sure the pin hole is not clogged, if your die has one. I prefer the Imperial wax for the STW, but still clean the shoulder area of the die, prior to each use. If that doesn't work, there could be something else causing the dent. Use a borescope if you have one, or a pen light to check.
 
The reloading manuals tell you to wipe the case shoulder off before sizing. And if the case body is over lubricated the lube will be squeezed upward and onto the shoulder.

Simple fix, use Hornady One Shot dry film case lube "AFTER" reading the instructions. Meaning all the old wet type lubes must be removed from the sizing die and cleaned out with a solvent. Then the inside of the die must be sprayed with One Shot. If you read and follow the cleaning and application instructions you will not have any stuck cases. And the One Shot does not need to be removed after sizing.
 
Give the die a good cleaning and make sure the pin hole is not clogged, if your die has one. I prefer the Imperial wax for the STW, but still clean the shoulder area of the die, prior to each use. If that doesn't work, there could be something else causing the dent. Use a borescope if you have one, or a pen light to check.
I failed to clean my due this last session. It has a pin hole. Will double check it.
 
Pictures. We need pictures.

Useless without pictures.gif


:D
 
In most cases the dents are caused by the vent hole in the die either being blocked by gunk or covered by the locking ring.
I have a 375 Weatherby that was plagued by dents just below the shoulder in the case body. Nothing would change no matter how little lube I used.
I switched to Imperial and the problem went away.

Cheers.
 
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