Hi all, have just joined your forum after my first handloads for 450 had a couple of dud firing pin strikes and im not understanding why.
Brief Intro - I have been reloading Lithgow 308 for a while now and reasonably confident with my loads and results,
I just picked up a Savage Wolverine 110 BM Bolt gun last week and have been shooting a few factory loads to get a feel for it and luv it but in West Australia a box of 20 HDY 250 Black and Fed 300 power shock are going for $65 a box so i ordered reloading dies quicksmart. HDY 4 die set with taper crimp die
Heres a run down of what i did and hopefully you guys can help me out with your experience as i have zero with this calibre.
Loaded up 15 cases from factory fired HDY Black 250 FTX with HDY 200Gr FTX , did not trim as case length was approx 1.692 - 1.696'' . Sized with HDY dies as per their instructions ( pretty sure i got this right ) , did not flare cases , seated bullets to 2.189'' with 41 Gr ADI 2205 ( same as Hodgdon H110 , IMR 4227 , AA 1680 according to ADI data sheet.) I then loaded 5 cases from factory fired Fed P/shock 300Gr exactly the same. I taper crimped all loads with seperate Hdy die as per their instructions
I went bush yesterday to try these and i shot 4 ( HDY ) case and got all holes touching which i was pretty bloody happy with ( only 50 metres as i got 4 x scope and my eyes aint good enough to see the holes at 100 ) i then fired next round and heard a click, ejected and had a look and there was barely a dent on the primer. Tried another and all good - nice pin strike , then the next was click no boom, ejected and barely a dent. I then shot the five Fed cases and all good with good pin strikes , checked the HDY cases that worked and all good strikes. At this stage im confused as hell and packed it in.
First thoughts are i have over crimped and dicked the headspace - now this is the bit where i am lost - i have measured the case right at the end on my remaining 9 Hdy case handloads and get .4770'', the factory HDY measures .4770 and the Feds im measuring .4785'' Just dug up the SAAMI specs and it says .4800'' It also says the chamber internal diameter is .453'' ( where the bulet sits ) so i cannot see how .4770'' shell OD can possibly squish into a .4530'' hole and increase headspace
As said i have zero experience with reloading 450 apart from this
Appreciate thoughts from you guys to point me in the right direction
Thankyou
Rob
PS these 450s are wicked fun and i killed my first melon yesterday with 300 fed and it pretty much just vapourized lol