If you have brass moving that much, you must fireform or you will have a mess of splits at the base in a couple loadings.Nosler brass, 7stw, first firing moves shoulder 17-18 thou, and doesn't touch the chamber wall. It'll take two firings to get it sized. 80.5gr RL25 3470 fps.
not with that Bertram brass I was shooting in my 7stw. The belts were so short I actually had a couple casings not make it past the first firing and a few wouldn't fire but had a light tap on the primer. In that situation, the thin brass on the forward 2/3 will grab long before the tail end even sees the bolt. I went to a 30 cal. false shoulder on the stuff but I'm so irritated with it that it's been sitting primed for several years now. I only messed up a box of 20 loading regularly so I'm out much I guess. I do NOT neck size anything, but I do partial fl a couple cartridges. I just switched my 7stw lately to partial fl.This nonsense about brass stretching on the first firing RESULTING in case head separation is so far from the truth that it begs belief.
The case does NOT stretch rearward, the shoulder blows forward and brass is pulled from the neck to fill the void…the ONLY way case head separations occur is if the loader then moves the shoulder back.
What you should do for the first THREE firings is to neck size to allow the case to FULLY fill the chamber, then, and only then, should you bump .001" with spring back.
I can load my comp brass dozens of times without head separation occurring…wonder why?
Cheers.